Saturday, June 4, 2016

The Next Chapter

Dear Friends and Colleagues, 

I am pleased to announce that I have decided to take early retirement from IFRC. It's something I've planned carefully, with the welcome support of my USG over the past few months. 

I celebrated my 64th birthday last month, and mandatory retirement would be a year-away.  However, we completed our 5-year IT Strategy in 2015 and are in the midst of a strategy refresh process for 2016-2020. Under any scenario, I will not be here for its implementation.  If I were a new CIO coming into the IFRC, I would want a say in finalizing the IT strategy, and not be faced with reassessing it one-year into the plan; for IFRC, this would not be the best use of time and resources.  So the turn of this year was the right time to propose a new CIO come in earlier, finish the strategy work and own the new plan.

The CIO position has been posted on the IFRC job site. Please refer candidates here. (Note that the job closed on 21-June; announcements to follow by end-August).

My last day at office will be on Aug. 10th.  My wife and I will be moving to Lisbon until mid-December.  I will be working on finishing a few book projects and volunteering to help a colleague on a new NGO venture.  So the good work continues!

We look forward to being home for the holidays to celebrate with family and friends. Then the next chapter begins teaching at a university (still to be determined).   Thank you for your interest in and support of our IT and innovation work.  It has been an honor serve the RC Movement these past six years, and I have always believed that the best is yet to come.  So stay focused on the morning star. Best regards,

Ed

Edward G. Happ
Global CIO and Director of IT

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”  --Will Rogers, American Humorist

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