Gov. Doug Burgum names Kuldip Mohanty as North Dakota's chief information officer

BISMARCK — A Chicago tech executive will lead the North Dakota Information Technology Department.

Gov. Doug Burgum appointed Kuldip Mohanty as the state’s next chief information officer, a position in the governor’s cabinet. Mohanty will start Feb. 23.

North Dakota's previous CIO, Shawn Riley, left to take a job as the new CEO of American operations for Bitzero International, a cryptocurrency financial services company.

Since 2020, Mohanty has been CIO of HUB International Limited in Chicago, "spearheading technology modernization and transformation for the world’s fifth-largest global insurance brokerage," the governor's office said Wednesday, Feb. 1, in a news release.

Mohanty was previously the senior vice president IT and North America CIO for ManpowerGroup, a global workforce solutions company, from 2018 to 2019. Before that, he was vice president of enterprise IT strategy and services for CNO Financial Group from 2014 to 2018.

“Kuldip brings a wealth of experience in modernizing services and transforming IT that will help the State of North Dakota become more efficient and responsive, serving citizens 24/7 with smart, easy-to-use systems,” Burgum said in a statement. “With his leadership of the outstanding team at NDIT, we look forward to building upon North Dakota’s reputation as a national leader in cybersecurity as we reduce redundancies, improve services and enhance the security of citizens’ data.”

Mohanty earned a master’s degree in computer applications at Jorhat Engineering College in India and a master of business administration degree from the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University in Chicago. He serves on the board of the Executive Service Corps in Chicago and helped organize corporate responsibility campaigns to improve education and health care in rural India with the Abhaya Foundation.

“I look forward to building on the momentum and successes of NDIT and collaborating with all stakeholders to build a citizen-centric, frictionless customer experience,” Mohanty said in a statement.

NDIT deals with the state's computer equipment and software, communications, cybersecurity, networks, applications, GIS, servers, storage and data. The agency has a $275 million operating budget, over $500 million in projects and 479 full-time workers.