Two finalists to interview for deputy CIO position Oct. 24 and 26

Two finalists will interview for the position of deputy chief information officer on Tuesday and Thursday, Oct. 24 and 26.

The deputy CIO will provide support for the daily operations of UND Information Technology (UIT) and contribute to the strategic direction, planning, and management of UIT initiatives. The deputy CIO will work closely with the UND CIO to develop and implement technology strategies that align with the institution’s goals and objectives while fostering innovation and promoting a culture of technological excellence.

The schedule for the open forums is listed below. More information, such as the candidate’s bios and resumes, can be found on the Deputy Chief Information Officer Search website.

• Tariq Suleman, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m., Memorial Union, Room 340
• Phil Goldblum, Thursday, Oct. 26, 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m., Memorial Union, Room 318AB

Tariq Suleman

Tariq Suleman is an accomplished technology leader with a passion for innovation and a track record of driving digital transformation in Blume Global.  As the Deputy Chief Information Officer (CIO), Tariq Suleman was responsible for shaping the company’s technology vision and strategy, ensuring it remained at the forefront of industry advancements.

With over 22 years of experience in the technology sector, Suleman has consistently demonstrated a keen understanding of emerging trends and their practical applications. He is renowned for his ability to translate complex technical concepts into actionable plans that deliver tangible business results.

Suleman’s career is marked by a history of successful leadership roles at esteemed tech companies, including Blume Global and UKG.  In these roles, he led cross-functional teams to develop cutting-edge products and solutions, contributing significantly to the company’s growth and market leadership.

In addition to his professional accomplishments, Suleman is deeply committed to fostering innovation and technology education. He actively mentors emerging tech talents and advocates for diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.

Suleman holds a Master’s in Computer Systems from Old Dominion University and a Certificate in Disruptive Strategy from Harvard Business School.  He continues to stay on the cutting edge of technology through continuous learning and exploration.

Phil Goldblum

From his early days as a database programmer at Cornell University to his current role where Phil serves as the Director of Unified Communications (UC) at a large internet and entertainment company, Phil has accumulated 35 years of experience across many functional areas of Information Technology.

Phil’s journey has taken him on a path through a broad range of organizations from higher education and research, both large and small technology and pharmaceuticals, Big 4 tech consulting, manufacturing, healthcare, and publishing.  This voyage through the seas of tech has stopped at many ports over the years: from desktop, service desk, and end-user support, through the network and on to the data center, and of late, out into the cloud.  While traveling along this path, Phil has built and run teams providing each of these services at many different scales, supporting user populations from 500 to 50,000 users.

Phil’s passion is delivering high-quality services to his user community while passing along his technical and management knowledge to his team.  In doing this, he strives to create an environment where, by intentional design, his teams’ work/life balance is optimized, and great service is assured.  Phil approaches this complex problem by carefully designing services to ensure service objectives are met through purposeful engineering, maximizing reliability while minimizing the support burden imposed on the IT team.  His objective is to continually improve services and staff skills to allow all parties to benefit from the journey up the CMMI ladder.  Phil is a strong believer in measuring progress along this path with annual CMMI assessments (Let’s get Optimizing!)

Phil earned his Bachelor of Science (BS) at Cornell University, where he studied agricultural engineering, majoring in power machinery and minoring in biology.  During his time at Cornell, Phil picked up the personal computer technology bug and resolved to move his career in that exciting (new for the time) direction.  In addition to his BS, Phil also holds a Six Sigma Greenbelt granted through GlaxoSmithKline’s internal program, as well as an ITIL Intermediate certification granted via Axelos, along with other tech and teaching certifications.

Phil comes from an agricultural background, having grown up on a farm in upstate New York. Phil enjoys agricultural activities and their increasing integration with high technology and is hopeful that he can leverage his Commercial driver’s license to assist a local farm with next fall’s harvest (on vacation days and weekends) should he be selected for this role.

Phil is very excited to continue his lifelong learning journey at UND, where he hopes to both CMMI and ITIL programs for students and staff, as well as explore the opportunities UND offers in pursuit of obtaining his private pilot license.