Sunil Thomas

As Senior Vice President of State, Local, and Education (SLED) East, Sunil’s purview includes non-municipal SDI’s SLED customers East of the Rockies, as well as our nonprofit clients. He assumed this role only about a year after coming to SDI as an Account Executive in summer 2022, in conjunction with creation of the SLED East Strategic Business Unit.

Prior to joining SDI, Thomas served as Group CIO for Business and Workforce for the State of Illinois, where he was responsible for leading the technology transformation of business and workforce agencies, guiding Agency CIOs through enterprise technology implementations, and advising Agency business leadership on technology investments. During that time, he was a founding member of the Illinois Blockchain Initiative and led five key pilots that have been recognized nationally for their innovative approach. Thomas was also selected as the finalist at NASCIO’s annual meeting in 2018 for Innovation and Emerging Technology.

Prior to his work with the State of Illinois, Thomas was the Deputy CIO and IT Director for the City of Chicago. During his tenure with the City, Thomas was tasked with the execution of the paperless initiative for all customer applications in the City of Chicago; the implementation of this multi-year, transformational program focused on working with business executives across multiple departments, policy leaders, infrastructure teams and several vendor partners for successful technology adoption.

Thomas earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering and computer science from Madurai Kamaraj University in India and holds several Project Management certifications including Project Management (PMP) from PMI. He is also a member of the National Association of State CIO (NASCIO), the National Innovation Forum, as well as NASCIO’s Data and Privacy Working Group.

Connect with Sunil on LinkedIn.