Defense

Raj Iyer joins Army as first civilian CIO

Iyer comes from Deloitte and has a history of working both in the private and public sector, serving at HHS and the Army before.

By Jackson Barnett

November 19, 2020

An Army flag at the Clay National Guard Center, Marietta, Georgia, on Oct. 9, 2020. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tori Miller)

The Army has a new CIO: Raj Iyer, an executive with federal government, military and private sector technology experience.

Iyer replaces Greg Garcia, who was acting CIO after the retirement of Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford. He is the first full-time civilian to hold the CIO position, fulfilling a change Crawford made at the end of his term to split the role into military and civilian jobs.

Iyer announced his new job on his LinkedIn page last week. He comes to the Army from Deloitte, where he was managing director for government services. Previously, he served as a senior technology adviser at the Department Health and Human Services and as a technology official in other civilian Army posts.

“This move was not one that I had planned, but the call for public service is my duty,” Iyer wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing the news. “It’s also an exciting opportunity to put technology front and center to Army modernization leveraging cloud, AI and data analytics to achieve digital overmatch against our adversaries.”

An Army spokesperson said Iyer started in November, but did not provide an exact date.

Lt. Gen. John Morrison is the deputy chief of staff of the G-6, Iyer’s military counterpart. Morrison was nominated for his role in July and focuses on defending the Army’s communications networks and military-related issues.

Iyer’s job will focus more on management and be the top IT adviser to the secretary of the Army.

Iyer joins the service at a critical time. While still largely teleworking, the Army is also in the midst of laying its foundation of cloud-based data storage that it hopes to use to help launch its emerging technology initiatives. So far, the Army has migrated million of records to the cloud and plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to continue its efforts. With its data storage practices in place, the Army hopes to be able to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning on it is data.

The Army also recently got a new chief data officer who will work on implementing the DOD’s new data strategy and likely work closely with Iyer.