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VMware CIO Tony Scott Named U.S. CIO by President Obama

Scott, who served as Microsoft's CIO before coming to VMware, starts his new job today.

• By Keith Ward
• 02/09/2015

Talk about a promotion. Tony Scott, VMware's CIO, is now CIO of a slightly larger enterprise: the United States of America.

President Barack Obama named Scott, who came to VMware from Microsoft just 18 months ago, as its newest CIO, a position originally created in 2009. Along with being named CIO, Scott will also become the Administrator of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB's) Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology.

Scott takes over control of the Obama administration's $80 billion-plus IT budget, starting today. In a farewell blog on the VMware Web site, Scott says that his new job will have similarities to the one he's held since 2013: "This means in some ways I would play the same role I was playing at VMware, but at the national level."

Before coming to VMware, Scott spent five years as CIO for Microsoft. Prior to that, he served as CIO for The Walt Disney Company, and has held top IT positions at General Motors and Bristol-Meyers Squibb.

At VMware, Scott has overseen the development of one of VMware's most important initiatives: its transformation into more of a cloud platform company. vCloud Air already has a strong position in the private cloud arena, and is trying to broaden into the public cloud sector currently dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and (to a lesser degree) Microsoft Azure.

In his blog, Scott outlined what he saw as his chief priorities, passed down from President Obama. It includes focusing on the areas of "cybersecurity, net neutrality, e-health, and expanding both the access and speed of the Internet."

A story from Nextgov noted that one of Scott's top focuses upon taking over as VMware CIO was quicker delivery of IT services within the company. That will undoubtedly be among his new priorities as well.

Scott expressed regret at the length of his tenure at VMware, but looked forward to his chance to reach a much wider audience:

"While it has been shorter than I initially envisioned, I am honored at the opportunity to bring key aspects of the VMware vision to the national level. I will carry VMware's passion and excitement about how technology can transform enterprises to our national economy, and this will hopefully have an impact on the broad American public."