The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has appointed Eric Sidle as its new Chief Information Officer (CIO). Sidle is a tech industry veteran with extensive experience as an engineer and executive in the electric vehicle and technology sectors.
According to a leadership page of the agency’s website, Sidle, who has been at the technology consulting firm Fabrum Advisors for the past two years, is set to replace Juan Sargeant, who was HUD’s acting CIO before returning to his prior position as deputy CIO. Following the resignation of Sairah Ijaz, a HUD employee since 2016 who was promoted to CIO last year, Sargeant was appointed as a stand-in.
As CIO, Sidle will “use his invaluable experience as a tech leader to help things run smoothly so we can continue our important mission of promoting the American Dream of homeownership and serving rural, tribal, and urban communities,” according to a message sent to HUD staff on Wednesday and shared with FedScoop by the Secretary’s Office of the Chief of Staff.
According to an internal email from HUD, Sidle, who graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, has worked as an engineer for Raytheon, Hewlett Packard, and Apple, where he oversaw the MacBook Pro System team.
Leading autonomous driving teams at NIO before joining ChargePoint as SVP and Chief Technology Officer for the EV charging network, he made a significant shift to the EV market in 2016.
In the first few months of the Trump administration, there has been a lot of agency-wide change in the CIO role. For instance, the Treasury Department, the Small Business Administration, and the Social Security Administration have all seen disruptions in their IT departments, while the Department of Energy has already had two permanent CIOs.
Numerous incoming CIOs had prior connections to DOGE, Palantir, or Elon Musk’s businesses. Although it’s unclear if Sidle has any comparable ties, ChargePoint has long been vying for dominance of the charging network with Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle startup.
About Eric Sidle
Eric Sidle has a passion for next-generation technology, building and leading global organizations, and empowering teams to disrupt and scale. He has designed, developed, manufactured, and launched first-to-market solutions spanning consumer electronics, industrial systems, enterprise platforms, and national defense technologies. He holds multiple patents in electrification, autonomous driving, and networked vehicle systems and has spearheaded product and technology roadmaps that shaped industry standards. He thrives at the intersection of complex engineering and business challenges, helping deconstruct problems. Sidle is driven by the belief that empowered, mission-focused teams are the catalyst for great innovation.
