President Joseph I. Castro named Orlando Leon as Chief Information Officer, a new Cabinet-level position charged with creating and supporting a more integrated and responsive university-wide information technology vision and leading the IT staff and services.

Leon has 15 years of experience in the information technology field, and currently is director of operations in the Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University. He previously held leadership positions at the University of California, San Francisco and worked at Hewlett-Packard and Oracle.

He will start August 3, report directly to Castro and lead a department of 78 employees.

“Orlando Leon is a thoughtful, dynamic and collaborative leader and I am very pleased he has accepted the exciting challenge to become Fresno State’s first CIO,” said Castro. “He will help to guide the University into a new bolder era, utilizing technology in innovative ways to support teaching and learning opportunities that promote student success.”

Leon holds three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: bachelor of science in management science with a focus on operations research, bachelor of science in computer science and engineering, and master of engineering in electrical engineering and computer science.

He served on several committees at UCSF and holds leadership and technical certifications from UCSF, Stanford and MIT.