Kevin Gilbertson

Chief Information Officer at the State of Montana

Kevin Gilbertson is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the State of Montana and is a member of the cabinet. With over 30 years of experience in high-tech and business consulting, and more than 20 years focused on customer experience transformation, he has a wealth of knowledge and expertise. He has held positions such as Vice President of Product Strategy and Enablement at Helix Business Solution, owner and principle consultant of Forstara, LLC, and was an early employee at RightNow Technologies which was later acquired by Oracle. He has also worked as a consultant for SaaS vendors and consulting organizations, providing CX software and expertise to both public and private sector clients. Kevin also holds a Master of Science in Psychology with a specialty in Organizational Leader Development.

As Montana’s CIO, some of his key accomplishments include leading the State of Montana to become free of mainframes, coordinating all State CIOs to develop a unified State IT Strategy through an annual strategy conference, reorganizing Montana central IT to include customer success, enterprise architecture, and building enterprise platform teams as the State transitioned to COTS and Cloud first over custom development. He also implemented a training coordination role to help state agencies implement customer service best practices.

His leadership philosophy is collaborative and team-oriented, with a focus on customer service and continuous improvement. He is passionate about using technology to make government more efficient and effective.

On a personal note, Kevin is a native Montanan, a husband, father of four, and grandfather of two. He is also an executive coach certified through the Neuroleadership Group.

Mr. Gilbertson is dedicated to using technology to improve the lives of Montanans. He often speaks at events and podcasts on topics such as customer experience transformation, digital government, workforce development, and generative AI.