Dru Rai, the private-sector technologist who has been CIO and director of the New York State Office of IT Services for three years, announced Monday he is stepping down effective immediately.
“It’s pleasure [sic] serving State of NYS and its citizens. Like every good thing has to end, and to focus on my health today is my last day at CIO of NYS. Thanks to our citizens to letting me serve!” Rai wrote Monday in a brief post on LinkedIn announcing his move.
Jenson Jacob, the state’s executive deputy CIO, said in an email to New York State Office of IT Services (ITS) staff provided to Government Technology that he has been appointed acting CIO.
“The priorities we have focused on in the last three years and the work we have done together remains unchanged,” Jacob said in the email. A 15-year state staffer and veteran executive, Jacob has been executive deputy CIO since September 2025 and was previously state chief digital transformation officer.
Rai was appointed state CIO by Gov. Kathy Hochul in September 2023. He was formerly the chief digital and information officer of industrial process fluids company Quaker Houghton for nearly three years and, before that, had been senior vice president and chief digital officer at Ball Corp. for five years.
Rai led the charge of overseeing the state’s digital transformation efforts, and the always expanding task of defending state systems from cyber threats and improving residents’ user experience.
He viewed system modernization as part of a larger component of improving the ways residents interact with state agencies.
“Getting the best possible citizen experience by spending the right amount of money — those are two competing, and yet the most important, goals,” Rai said earlier this summer.
A two-year pact with Google Public Sector in 2025 yielded the Enterprise Cloud Services Agreement, a first-of-its-kind state cloud consolidation — “one enterprise-level contract, instead of a number of different agencies executing a new contract with Google if and when they have a need,” Rai said this spring when he was named one of Government Technology’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers of 2026.
Under his leadership, ITS shifted to a dedicated-agency service model embedding senior staff in agencies or small clusters of agencies for better alignment, faster response and custom support.
“It’s night and day,” Rai said this spring. “We are so much closer to the agencies, we understand their needs and their mission better than ever before.”