Tom Terjesen
Senior Vice President & CIO, Peraton
Tom Terjesen and his team recently completed a migration of all the company’s IT services to the cloud. Peraton now has 98% of its workload running in GovCloud. This project significantly reduced the company’s on-premise datacenter footprint and improved infrastructure capacity as the business grows.
The team increased effectiveness through technology innovations and advanced analytics to improve leadership insights and business intelligence. Lastly, they ensured a secure, resilient and compliant IT operational model that can withstand a dynamic threat environment.
“We were thrilled when Tom rejoined the Peraton team early this year,” said Rebecca McHale, chief human resource officer at Peraton. “ When it comes to the IT organization, Tom emphasizes a need for granular understanding of where the business is today, and where the business is going. In doing so, every strategic IT imperative is developed with the intent to empower the future of the business.
“This has always been true to Tom’s nature – but, in particular over this year as CIO, he has doubled down on ensuring modernization efforts, cybersecurity and compliance initiatives, and data analytics projects. These changes were implemented with great care and attention to improve the experience of our diverse employee base, and drive the innovations required to support Peraton’s way forward.”
Why Watch
In 2025, Terjesen and his team will continue to mature the IT department in conjunction with the business growth. The team will finalize its cybersecurity maturity model certification, continue to enhance its data analytics program, and introduce artificial intelligence into areas of the business to improve the total user experience. These changes are crucial for the IT team to ensure robust security, harness data-driven insights, and leverage AI technology, ultimately enhancing operational efficiency and delivering a superior experience for users.
When going through times of uncertainty, Terjesen constantly reminds his team that “your team is the most important aspect of your success,” and “if you do your job to the best of your ability, good things will follow.” This has been a guiding principle throughout his career, and he tries to enforce this with his high-performing team.
Fun fact: Terjesen spends the majority of his nights and weekends on the baseball fields with his son’s Little League team. He volunteers his time with some of the coaching activities during practice but, during games, he has been designated “DJ Tom” for playing the walk-up songs when the kids are approaching home plate.