Executive technology leader with 25+ years building and transforming IT organizations — from Fortune 500 software companies to municipal government.
I founded The Practical CIO because too many organizations are making million-dollar technology decisions without an experienced leader in the room. I've been that leader — as CIO, Deputy Director, VP, and Senior Director — across environments ranging from rapid-growth SaaS companies to county government to community college systems.
My career spans ground-up IT builds, large-scale cloud migrations, cybersecurity programs, DevOps transformations, and ERP implementations. At McAfee, I grew a DevOps team from 7 to 80 people and improved platform uptime from 95% to 99.9%. At Monroe County Clerk of the Court, I built an entire IT function from scratch — infrastructure, security, governance, and service delivery — on a lean budget. At the City of Albuquerque, I led a VMware migration that saves $500K per year.
I bring the same structured, pragmatic approach to every engagement: listen first, diagnose the real problem, then build solutions that last. No fluff, no vendor bias — just practical leadership that moves the needle.
Deputy Director of Technology & Innovation, City of Albuquerque — leading infrastructure, systems, telecom, networking, and radio operations for a 6,000-seat municipal organization.
Built the DevOps function from scratch, scaling the team from 7 to 80 people and delivering a worldwide build environment for 1,500 engineers. Improved SaaS platform uptime from 95% to 99.9%. Managed the partner program across 27 data centers spanning Asia, Europe, and South Africa.
CIO at Monroe County Clerk of the Court — built IT from the ground up with a 15-min RPO and 10-min RTO for all critical systems. Led IT for Hollywood, Florida managing a $15M combined budget with a 25-person team.
SaaS & Cybersecurity, Municipal Government, Higher Education, Legal & Courts, Construction, Professional Services.
I actively listen to teams and stakeholders to get to the crux of an issue — not the symptom. Every engagement begins with understanding your organization's context, culture, and constraints before recommending anything.
Complex problems become manageable when broken into actionable components. I bring structured thinking to everything — from infrastructure baselines to board-level strategy — and build solutions that scale with your organization.
KPIs, dashboards, and reporting aren't overhead — they're the foundation of a high-performing IT organization. I establish clear metrics from day one so progress is visible, accountability is real, and results are undeniable.
Duran was instrumental in making sure we had a successful Workday ERP implementation. He brought the Clerk's IT operations and infrastructure to the next level which, in turn, helped me do my job more efficiently and effectively. In addition to improving our IT security, updating our IT hardware and software, and setting up a reliable and supportable IT infrastructure, his customer-focused attitude encouraged me to never hesitate to reach out to him for professional guidance.
Under his leadership the team had a footprint in 3 continents and provided 24×7 operations that not only delivered against roadmap commits, but tailored the operations model to agile and innovation methodologies. Duran's focus on business results and customer satisfaction always made it easy for business and engineering teams to partner with him on new initiatives. His empowering style of leadership brings out the best in his team members.
Duran has a keen ability to articulate very complex visions — the big picture — and at the same time has a great depth of technical knowledge down in the weeds. He promotes accountability, integrity, and ownership through the power of example. We have all encountered a few leaders that leave a lasting impression and mold the leaders that we become ourselves. Duran definitely takes one of those seats for me.
He is extremely dedicated to quality of service to his internal and external customers. During his work with my team I experienced several instances where he would help us with optimization measures while not risking customer value. I would recommend Duran as a highly effective planner and leader of SaaS-based solutions.
Duran was a pleasure to work with. He actually got things done well, timely, and efficiently. I am going to miss his wit and intelligence and 'get it done' attitude.
Duran is one of the few managers in my career who is also a coach and mentor. He has a style of "get job done" and delivers results by demonstrating excellent interpersonal skills, providing clear directions and plenty of opportunities to his team. Duran is the go-to person for conflict resolution and problem solving, always able to optimally use limited resources and lead the team to successful project completion.
I'd love to learn about your organization and explore how practical technology leadership can move your business forward.
