Laura Peele Named JWB’s First Chief Information Officer

Juvenile Welfare Board (JWB) CEO Beth Houghton recently announced the promotion of Laura Peele from Director of Information Technology to the brand-new role of Chief Information Officer (CIO), also making her the newest member of the JWB Executive Team.

“Laura Peele has long been an important and effective member of the JWB Team,” she said at the time of the announcement. “This promotion to Chief Information Officer is well deserved and puts Laura in a position to have an even greater strategic impact.”

As CIO, Peele provides leadership, supervision, and oversight of organizational Information Technology (IT) strategies, policies, and personnel to ensure that IT investments and operations align with and successfully support JWB’s mission as well as strategic and tactical plans.

Peele prides herself in ensuring that JWB is an early adopter of the most cutting-edge technology that supports innovation and efficiency in organizational operations, leading to improved community impact.

She earned a B.S. in Technology Management from St. Pete College while working full-time at JWB, and she has been a Certified Government Chief Information Officer (CGCIO) since 2016.

Deeply committed to the mission, Peele has more than 30 years of experience with JWB, serving in a variety of roles: After initially joining the JWB Human Resources department, she moved into IT and progressed steadily through the ranks as she led a series of firsts: From creating and administering a five-county software system for the Florida Children’s Services Councils (CSCs) and leading the effort to create the organization’s first data warehouse to secure all JWB data to leading the infrastructure side of JWB’s transition to a remote workforce in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Born in New York, Peele has been a Pinellas resident since the third grade and considers it an honor to serve Pinellas County children and families. (She and her three children are, as she says, proud products of the Pinellas County School district.)

Peele also pours her support into the community through volunteer work: As Captain of the Ye Krewe of Sir Henry Morgan, a Gasparilla krewe, she leads more than 150 members in community service and philanthropic support of local schools and cancer organizations, including National Cancer Society, Children’s Cancer Center, and Moffitt Cancer Center.