The German federal government is appointing a new chief ICT commissioner. Klaus Vitt, head of IT at Germany’s Federal Employment Agency, is to become the new IT Commissioner of the federal government and Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior.
Press reports on the appointment were confirmed in a press release by the Federal Employment Agency. Vitt (62) has been responsible for IT at the agency since 2006. “Vitt has a profound understanding of information and communication technology”, the press release quotes Frank-J. Weise, chairman of the executive board of the agency, as saying.
Vitt will replace the current federal CIO Cornelia Rogall-Grothe, who will retire at the end of July.
According to a 2012 news report by the German C’T Magazine, the employment agency’s IT department oversees one the largest IT infrastructures in the country. The Ministry of the Interior has not yet decided on concrete tasks for Vitt, according to reports on the IT news site Heise. The website speculates that the CIO could oversee the federal government’s computing centre, now part of the Ministry of Finance.
Vitt has university degrees in mathematics and computer science. According to CIO magazine, he started his career as an operating systems specialist working for computer manufacturer Univac and as system engineer at one of the first software manufacturers Applied Data Research.