Rob Lloyd to lead Seattle’s IT Department

Rob Lloyd has been named as Seattle’s next Interim Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Director of the Information Technology Department (IT) following a national search.

Lloyd (pictured) joins Seattle from the City of San Jose where he was the Deputy City Manager with oversight of transport, aviation, and technology services, and before that, Chief Information Officer.

“The mayor’s One Seattle vision [to be a world-leading government in the use of technology] and initiatives speak to someone with my background,” he told Cities Today. “It’s a challenging, smart approach to the biggest challenges facing cities.”

Another reason for the move was to be closer to his wife’s family, “so, a lot of arrows pointed in the direction”.

One Seattle combines community partnerships, focused initiatives, and outcomes-based performance on the challenges facing cities today. Safety, clean and vibrant neighbourhoods and downtown, homelessness and care, climate, community opportunity, and civic engagement.

“There is a lot of potential and shifting ground within our workplaces, the technology and data tools we use, and how responsive we can be in the next three to five years,” he said. “Seattle Information Technology is going to get to reimagine things with our department partners and be at the centre of the change ahead. That’s what the mayor and city council have challenged us with.”

He said the experiences he had at San Jose “have been a gift.” He played a role in rebuilding the IT Department which started with the lowest IT employee Gallup engagement score in the nation–less than five percent project success over four years–and according to City Auditor, had low uptime and availability, modest customer satisfaction, and a 36 percent vacancy and attrition rate over almost four years.

“After three years, we had among the best in the nation on every measure,” he said. “We had everything in place when Covid hit, so we could immediately focus on helping the community.”

He led on innovation partnerships with what ended up being billion-dollar companies and set a culture that teamed well with peers, which allowed his team to lead procurements and coalitions including the Advanced Cybersecurity Products and Services Procurement used nationally, to National 311 Day, to the GovAI Coalition.

“We worked with so many community partners to make that happen and it convinced me to go for the Deputy City Manager role, where I got to work with a peer on the COVID-19 Community and Economic Recovery effort with 55 community leaders,” he added. “That was way outside of my normal CIO range, but immensely enriching. In all, it was all-consuming, but I’ll look back at the end of my career with overwhelming gratitude for every bit of it.”

Bruce Harrell, the Mayor of Seattle said during the announcement: “[Our city] is a world-leading technology hub, and I am excited for Rob to join the team and support our One Seattle vision to be a world-leading government in the use of technology to better serve our communities.”

Lloyd will start his new role with Seattle at the end of June.