Amazon Web Services Hires Three More State Tech Leaders

Amazon Web Services has continued its streak of hiring former state gov tech leaders, adding three more to its ranks since the beginning of the year.

The three new state IT leaders at AWS are:

• Randy Iwasaki, who helmed the California Department of Transportation and joined AWS in January as its state and local transportation leader
• Maria Thompson, the former chief risk officer of North Carolina, who joined AWS in June as cybersecurity leader for state and local government
• David McCurdy, Colorado’s former chief technology officer, who joined AWS in June as an executive government adviser

They join three former state CIOs at AWS: Craig Orgeron of Mississippi, Chuck Grindle of Kentucky and Morgan Reed of Arizona. Hardik Bhatt, former CIO of Illinois, was working at AWS until June when he left to lead another tech company.

AWS did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

The move speaks both of AWS’ growing interest in serving government as well as a broader interest among other tech giants. Microsoft has also been busy hiring former state IT leaders, while Salesforce has invested in gov tech startup Zencity and Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs has been working in the smart cities and transportation space for years.

Editor's note: The original version of this article misidentified Sidewalk Labs' corporate affiliation with Google. The relationship has been clarified.