The CIO role

In January 2026 Enrica Porcari became CERN’s first-ever CIO — a non-departmental role in the senior leadership team, “responsible for steering the Organization’s information technology strategy”. The separation is the point: the CIO sets the norms (cybersecurity, data privacy, AI), while it-department operates the systems under them. Strategy stops competing with uptime for the same person’s attention.

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Topology

• Part of: sector-structure-2026
• Governs: it-department — sets the policy frame the department executes.
• Cites: senior-leadership-whos-who — the appointment and its wording.
• Cites: management-structure-2026-part1 — the role’s creation.