Pentagon CIO John Sherman is leaving government

Department of Defense (DOD) CIO John Sherman will be leaving his position at the end of the month. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced last week that Sherman will become the next Dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, his alma mater. Sherman, the only Senate-confirmed CIO for the Pentagon during the Biden administration, has had a distinguished career in IT across several national security organizations, most recently serving as the CIO of the intelligence community.

In a statement, Austin praised Sherman as a steadfast advisor and innovative leader who significantly advanced the department’s information technology capabilities. Under Sherman’s leadership over the past 2.5 years, the DOD has restructured its cybersecurity approach and is now better positioned to leverage technological advancements to address digital threats.

Sherman’s tenure saw the DOD transition from the troubled Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud effort, which sought a single vendor for the Pentagon’s first enterprise cloud capability, to a multi-vendor acquisition process under the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC). He also spearheaded the DOD’s efforts to implement a Zero Trust framework to enhance network and data security against unauthorized access and adversarial activities. Zero Trust is a cybersecurity concept that assumes networks are already compromised and necessitates continuous monitoring and authentication to safeguard critical information.

The Pentagon has not yet announced who will take over Sherman’s duties following his departure. Currently, Leslie Beavers serves as the Principal Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Department of Defense.

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