The Interior Department announced Sylvia Burns as its official chief information officer Wednesday.
Credit: DOIBurns, who has been the acting CIO for the agency since March, was serving as the associate deputy CIO for policy, planning and compliance in the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) when then-CIO Bernie Mazer decided to step down March 28 in preparation for retirement.
With the advantage of having been thrust into the job right away, Burns hit the ground running, taking over where Mazer left off with the agency’s IT improvements, like managing its $10 billion, 10-year Foundation Cloud Hosting Services contract and its cloud-based Email Enterprise Records & Document Management System, the largest of its kind in federal government.
“As Acting CIO I have had the privilege of leading a dedicated team and working collaboratively with our bureaus and offices as we modernize our systems and move our IT Transformation program forward,” Burns said in a statement. “I am honored to be selected as CIO for Interior to continue this important work.”
Burns joined the Interior Department in 2006 as director of information planning in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, through which she handled Indian Affairs’ enterprise architecture, capital planning and investment control activities, IT budget and acquisitions and IT policy, according to a release. She moved from there to the OCIO as chief for portfolio management, responsible for overseeing the department’s billion dollar IT investment portfolio. She also led the department’s Innovations and Efficiency Team, which played a critical role in the Interior’s move to consolidate much of its IT.
“Sylvia is a tremendous asset to the Department and she will excel in this new role,” said Rhea Suh, assistant secretary for policy, management and budget, in a statement. “Her extensive knowledge and experience make her a perfect fit to lead the day-to-day work of the Office of the Chief Information Officer and advance the Department’s ongoing IT Transformation efforts. As the Department continues to move forward on critical initiatives like data center consolidation, Sylvia’s leadership and collaborative style will help ensure our success in improving our IT services, while reducing our IT costs.”
