San Francisco CIO Linda Gerull to retire

Linda Gerull, who has served as the chief information officer of the City and County of San Francisco since 2017 will retire at the end of December, Mayor London Breed announced Friday.

Gerull, who also serves as the executive director of the city’s Department of Technology, said in an email to colleagues that she will move to St. Louis to “take on a new adventure” as a grandmother to her new granddaughter. 

“It has been a pleasure to work with you!” Gerull wrote in the email. “Our partnership has played a pivotal role in the transformation of the City’s technology, enhancing its security, resiliency, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Our work makes a difference in helping government improve and deliver new services – it’s not always easy, but it is always rewarding.”

As CIO, Gerull led the Fiber to Housing program, an initiative to bring free high-speed internet to residents of San Francisco’s affordable housing buildings. Since its inception in 2014, the program has connected more than 15,000 units at more than 100 affordable housing sites. The San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association this year gave the program its “Good Governance” award.

Gerull also helped to modernize the city’s criminal case management system, the Justice Tracking Information System, or JUSTIS. She led an upgrade of its data system, which was 45 years old. According to the city’s new release, the new system is saving taxpayers approximately $3 million dollars annually.

“Linda has been a steadfast and outstanding leader for the Department of Technology, and we will greatly miss her,” Breed said in the news release.  “She has led the Department through challenging times, including the COVID pandemic, and helped us through equally exciting opportunities, most recently APEC, in which her department’s work was instrumental in ensuring that a complex, international event occurred safely and securely. People like Linda don’t get the attention they deserve because too often the only time their departments are in the headlines is when something goes wrong – and Linda worked hard to ensure that didn’t happen. I wish her luck and thank her for her years of service.” 

According to the city, Gerull’s final day as CIO will be Dec. 29, and Michael Makstman, the city’s chief information security officer, will serve as the interim CIO and director of the technology department starting on Jan. 1.

“It has been both an honor and privilege to serve as the CIO for the City of San Francisco,” Gerull said in the release. “My forty years in government technology is not just a career; it has been a commitment to service and improving and shaping the future of government. With a culture of excellent customer service, the Department of Technology accomplishes remarkable projects every day and I have been so proud to be a part of advancing quality services and systems for the benefit of our residents.”