Ex-government CIO John Suffolk to become Huawei's cyber security boss
Move to Chinese telecom giant planned for the autumn...
Former government CIO John Suffolk has been appointed global cyber security officer at HuaweiPhoto: Cabinet Office
Former UK government CIO John Suffolk has been appointed global cyber security officer (GCSO) for Chinese telecoms company Huawei.
Suffolk, who stepped down as government CIO in November 2010, will be responsible for developing and implementing the company's global cyber security assurance strategy and systems.
The GCSO's office will be based at Huawei's headquarters in Shenzen, China and Suffolk will report to Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei when his role starts on 1 October.
Suffolk topped the silicon.com CIO50 list of the most influential heads of IT in 2010 and also featured on the silicon.com Government IT Agenda Setters list in the same year.
Suffolk was appointed government CIO in 2006 and was the driving force behind a number of technology transformation projects aimed at making government more efficient.
Among these projects was the G-Cloud, a plan to cut £3.2bn from the government's spending by sharing public sector software and IT services in the cloud.
Since his departure from Whitehall, Suffolk has been working as an adviser to the World Bank High-Level Experts group, helping governments understand how technology can help the public sector and generate economic growth.
"Having spent seven years in government with the last five as the UK government CIO and CISO, security was a core part of my thinking, planning and execution. We all accept that as technology becomes more pervasive and we become more reliant on technology we need to come together globally to address the challenges and threats posed by those who would wish to exploit any vulnerability in the technology," Suffolk wrote on his blog.
Prior to taking the government CIO post, Suffolk was director general of the UK Criminal Justice Transformation Programme and before that, managing director of Britannia Building Society.