John Sherman confirmed, sworn in as DOD CIO
The Department of Defense has a permanent IT leader for the first time in nearly a year with the Senate’s approval of John Sherman as CIO.
The Senate confirmed Sherman’s nomination last week and he was sworn in Friday, a DOD spokesperson told FedScoop.
Sherman had served as acting CIO since January until President Biden officially nominated him for the job in September and Kelly Fletcher stepped in to perform the duties of CIO while he awaited his confirmation. Dana Deasy was the last to officially hold the role in a Senate-confirmed capacity before vacating it at the start of the Biden administration.
Sherman has a long career in government and the military. He is an Army veteran who later served in many top IT jobs throughout government, including as the principal deputy CIO in the Pentagon before taking over as acting CIO when the role became vacant. Before joining DOD, he was also the CIO of the intelligence community.
Sherman takes over as CIO at a pivotal time, with senior leaders placing new emphasis on the type of tech his office will oversee, including the DOD’s migration to a version of Office 365 email and collaboration tools dubbed “DOD365,” a wholesale push to zero trust cybersecurity and integrating communications tech related to Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2).
Managing the department’s electromagnetic spectrum is likely to be a major priority for Sherman, something Fletcher recently said had taken up a large part of her time while performing the CIO’s duties.
His office will also play a key role in helping to manage the development of the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC) as the DOD looks to adopt an enterprise cloud architecture.
