CITY OF MEMPHIS
THE CITY , THE CIO , COVID AND COLLABORATION
The City of Memphis reeled under the impact of the pandemic , its newly appointed CIO Kimberly Bailey an unknown quantity : we asked her how her team responded .
WRITTEN BY : JOHN O ' HANLON
PRODUCED BY : MIKE SADR
You might have thought that Kimberly Bailey had a lot to prove after Memphis ' Mayor Jim Strickland appointed her as the City ' s first female African American CIO in January 2020 . A native Memphian , after university she shifted to Atlanta , Georgia in 1996 , gaining experience with General Motors and IBM before returning to her home town in 2003 to work with the Memphis Grizzlies NBA team , helping them move into their new home , the $ 250m FedExForum . In 2018 she came back into the City government as IT lead in the HR department , getting to know the directors of every department and gaining intimate knowledge of what they do .
When the search for a new CIO started late in 2019 she was asked to assume the role of Deputy CIO to help in the search , so she drew up an outline of the qualities and experience she thought would be needed . By December the search was concluded – and she was informed by the Mayor ' s department that as she was clearly the best person to execute those plan , would she please accept the job . “ It has been a fantastic journey . My first internship after graduation in 1995 was at the City of Memphis in the then CIO ' s department so it ' s an amazing feeling to now occupy this seat !”
Technology in partnership Between 1995 and now the perception of IT has changed , but she knew that much more change would be needed . “ I wanted to change how the organization looked at the IT division - not just as a glorified emergency service but as a strategic partner . Just before the pandemic closed us down we did a roadshow , invited all the department directors and their deputies , and asked them what they needed , what challenges they ' d faced in dealing with our division , and how they thought we should move forward .” This dialogue altered the relationship radically , and also made it easier for the CIO ' s department to implement its own programs . As an example , she identified a large corpus of shadow IT where departments
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