Leslie Beavers

Golden Gov: Federal Executive of the Year

Leslie Beavers, who served as the principal deputy CIO for the Department of Defense since May 2023, stepped in as acting CIO of the department this July after John Sherman retired from the role over the summer. In both roles, Beavers has been instrumental in driving modernization efforts for the Pentagon and military services, largely by breathing life into the DOD’s new Fulcrum IT modernization strategy. But that is just one of the many key initiatives Beavers is responsible for now as the Pentagon’s top IT official, including the rapid adoption of zero-trust security architecture across the department, the successful adoption of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, improving the IT customer experience of DOD personnel and supporting other major department priorities like Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), among others.