HMRC appoints Daljit Rehal as CDIO

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has appointed former Centrica IT chief Daljit Rehal as chief digital and information officer (CDIO).

The announcement follows the advertisement of the CDIO job in May 2020 for a permanent job vacancy, after the departure of former CDIO Jacky Wright in October 2019. CDIO director general Mark Denney had been acting as an interim and was involved in the recruitment process of a permanent chief.

In his new role, Rehal will be responsible for a budget of just over £1bn, split between an operational budget of £725m and £300m for IT strategic changes. He will start on the job on 14 September 2020.

“[Rehal] proved an exceptional candidate and his appointment will be a tremendous asset to the department as we continue to pursue our ambitions of becoming a digitally enabled, world-class organisation,” said HMRC chief executive Jim Harra.

“His passion for leading change focused on customer outcomes and breadth of experience in both technology and business is particularly relevant for us at this time, as we continue to expand our online services to business and personal customers and implement the digital strategy we’ve developed over the past two years,” Harra added.

In the past few years at companies such as Centrica, TalkTalk and Virgin Media, Rehal developed expertise in leading change programmes and modernising digital capabilities adopting big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies and agile methods.

“I’m really excited to be joining HMRC at a time of such unique challenges and opportunities and continuing the journey to becoming a truly modern and progressive tax authority fit for the 21^st century,” Rehal said on his appointment. “I look forward to building on the excellent work of my predecessors Mark Denney and Jacky Wright.”