Mark Dearnley, who is currently the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Vodafone UK, is joining HMRC in October. He will take control of a £500 million-a-year IT operation that serves 45 million individuals, 4.8 million businesses and 65,000 HMRC employees. He will be responsible for implementing HMRC’s £200 million digitisation programme and accelerating the planned delivery of online services for all taxpayers. He will also lead HMRC’s physical, personnel and information security.
Mr Dearnley has been CIO at Vodafone UK since 2010 with responsibility for IT supporting 19 million customers. He led a programme to overhaul Vodafone’s business-critical information systems and was named Oracle Global Business Unit CIO of the Year in 2012 for this achievement. Mr Dearnley also restructured Vodafone’s IT operating model and introduced Cloud-based technologies into the mobile operator.
David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said:
“It is an indication of the scale and seriousness of the Government’s digital ambition that one of the UK’s most experienced CIOs is leaving the private sector to take on this major role. Mark Dearnley’s appointment to HMRC is evidence that Government has the cutting-edge challenges that can attract the very best leaders in IT to public service.”
HMRC Chief Executive, Lin Homer, added:
“Mark is an exceptionally experienced CIO, with strong leadership and change management skills as well as an accomplished technical background across a spectrum of IT disciplines. HMRC has already embarked on an ambitious programme of digitisation to provide taxpayers with modern online services and Mark is the right person to deliver that for the UK.”
