Kelly Fletcher details Navy CIO restructuring, her new CMO role

Kelly Flectcher, who served for the last eight months as acting CIO of the Department of the Navy, has taken a role in the service’s new Chief Management Office leading its business systems rationalization and modernization team.

In a March 16 memo, Thomas Modly, undersecretary of the Navy, issued orders doing away with the department’s Office of the Under Secretary of the Navy for Management and replacing it with the Office of the Chief Management Officer. As part of that, the Navy will minimize the civilian, department-level CIO role that traditionally shapes IT policy for the Navy and the Marine Corps

Modly has assumed both the role of CMO and of CIO, directing a more streamlined DON CIO office.

In a message on the DON CIO website, Fletcher describes the changes.

“The CMO office will be led by four senior executives focusing on business system rationalization and modernization, development of a data strategy, improvement of audit outcomes, and reform initiatives,” the message says. “The direct reporting of both the CIO and CMO offices to the Under Secretary reflects the Department of the Navy’s focus on leveraging information technology to drive rapid business process improvements.”

Fletcher says in the post the work of her former office will continue. “[C]ertain activities will continue to be performed by the office of the DON CIO, others will be transferred to the CMO office, and some will be delegated to the Navy and Marine Corps,” she says. “Many of the talented and dedicated people currently in the office of the DON CIO will follow their transferred functions to new positions in these organizations.”

Fletcher was one of FedScoop’s 2018 Top Women in Tech. As the Navy’s deputy CIO, she assumed the acting CIO role in August 2017 when Rob Foster left the department.