Written by Ryan Johnston
Boston Chief Information Officer David Elges announced on Friday that he was stepping down from city government, following Mayor Michelle Wu’s swearing-in earlier this week.
Elges, who joined Boston in 2018 after a two-year stint as CIO of the Washington, DC, Child and Family Services Agency, said in an email to StateScoop that he was “making way for a new team of direction”.
The Department of Innovation and Technology made several major improvements to the city’s cybersecurity and data environment during Elges’ tenure, including creating the city’s first cybersecurity team, appointing Greg McCarthy as Boston’s senior chief information security officer and establishing a constitutive digital communications program.
Elges was appointed to his post in November 2018 by then-mayor Marty Walsh, who is now the US Secretary of Labor.
“Like all good things must come to an end, my time in the city of Boston must also come to an end as we make way for a new management team,†Elges wrote in an emailed statement. “Thank you for the opportunity to serve this great iconic city over the past 3 years. The Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) is an exceptional team with some of the best people I have ever had the privilege to lead, work with and support. It has truly been an honor to serve as DoIT’s Chief Information Officer and lead an incredible team tasked with providing services essential to the basic operations of the City of Boston.
Under former interim mayor Kim Janey, Elges and his team recently committed to a comprehensive study of the city’s efforts to bridge the digital divide, called the State of Broadband Equity in Boston report. The study will include speed tests, feasibility studies for future municipal broadband efforts, and working with providers to clarify where broadband coverage already exists in Boston, as well as recommendations on next steps to expand the ‘access. As CIO, Elges also led the city’s data science team and adopted a centralized data platform in 2019 to improve the city’s predictive analytics capabilities.
