FedScoop announces the Best Bosses in Federal IT 2021

Dorothy Aronson continues to be amazed by human beings, especially those in the federal workforce. “This year, when our world turned sideways, the entire federal enterprise proved that we were able to quickly transition to new means of communications and collaboration that might, in the end, have led to us to discover a new, more humane, way of working,” she told FedScoop. She hopes that moving forward, “we continue building a future workplace that puts human needs — like a sense of purpose, belonging, and continuous learning — first. I love to imagine that we stay focused on our migration away from strong centralized headquarters operations to equitable support of the distributed workforce. Imagine the improvements we might see to quality of life when we are no longer commuting hours to and from work, unless we choose to do so. Imagine our ability to bring diversity of thought to the federal enterprise when we can serve the federal government from anywhere across the nation.”

President, Global Governments & Critical Infrastructure, Forcepoint

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a testing function for leaders, said Sean Berg. It tests not only what kind of leader you are during a crisis, but also the work you’ve done in preparing for such a moment, he said. “The true leadership has already taken place to get you to where you are. So your people are going to function based on what you built before that.” Berg said Forcepoint was fortunate during the pandemic because of “the culture of our organization that we built up over years.” One of the biggest things he has learned from leading in a pandemic has been to communicate as thoroughly as possible. “It’s not just sending out more emails, it’s not just having town halls or all-hands meetings over video. It’s recognizing that people are starved for information, they want to know what’s going on both from a business perspective, from a pandemic and what we’re thinking about around the workforce, and you have to convey that in many different ways, from large groups all the way to small groups.”

Senior Vice President & General Manager, Public Sector, Riverbed Technology

Shaun Bierweiler joined Riverbed Technology last October amid the ongoing pandemic and had to begin leading without meeting most of his team in person. Despite the inability to gather physically, Bierweiler said he feels like he’s gotten to know the workforce quite well, because there was a level of personal touch in meeting his colleagues on video calls from their homes that he wouldn’t have gotten in an office. “You can’t be professional all the time — if you are, you’re a boss, not a leader. And so having that dynamic and that development, this really helps to accelerate that, that bonding,” he said of the one-on-one virtual meetings he had with members across the company. “And so it’s like a quick crash course of getting to know each other — seeing their background, seeing what’s going on behind them, hearing the noise in the back, it kind of helps you get a better sense of who they are, where they’re from.”

Sylvia Burns stepped into her role when Howard Whyte left for the private sector; prior to that, she had served as deputy CIO for enterprise strategy and helped lay the foundation of FDIC’s zero-trust security architecture. An advocate of classifying data and establishing “micro-perimeters” around the most valuable assets, her assent couldn’t be more timely with President Biden’s new cybersecurity executive order pushing zero-trust and secure cloud services. Triple-hatted, Burns also serves as FDIC’s chief privacy officer and IT director.

The Department of Veteran Affairs is an agency that never stops running, its acting CIO Dominic Cussatt said. “Our networks are always running,” powering the country’s largest health care system and massive benefits programs for veterans. The pandemic brought challenges both for its health care workers on the front lines and those trying to reach veterans for mental health assistance, adjudicating claims and other services that once needed to happen in person. Cussatt and his team were behind that massive shift to telehealth, tele-mental health and general teleservices. And those are things he predicts will stick around after the pandemic subsides. “We had to launch into the future like 3-5 years,” he said, and now the future is here to stay.

Federal Leadership

As the federal chief information security officer, Chris DeRusha has been instrumental in leading the unified push to enhance and modernize the cybersecurity defense of federal civilian branch networks as mandated in the 2021 cybersecurity executive order issued by the Biden administration. Speaking in October at CyberTalks, DeRusha said the executive branch agency is focused on introducing measures that will codify long-term cultural change, such as listing costs associated with the cybersecurity approach as a specific budget line item. On the topic of zero trust, while OMB issued memorandum M-22-09 in January this year to provide a roadmap for the implementation of zero trust by 2024, it’s not meant to be the end-all-be-all. “We didn’t seek to write the pure end-state document for zero trust,” DeRusha said.

To Juliane Gallina, there is a universal truth about work that people often forget: “Work is a product, not a place.” That thinking, she said, will guide her view of leadership as the future of work evolves into a hybrid between in-person and remote work. “In our work at the agency, our team will continue to focus on the quality of our work, and the outcomes we achieve together,” Gallina said. “Our technical strategy should support that way of thinking, and the enterprise tools we give to the agency workforce should enhance the quality of their work and allow our officers to accomplish mission at any time and any place in the world.” This is all part of the “journey of continuous learning and self-reflection” that is leadership, she said — a journey that she continues on each and every day. “I’m a work in progress, but I hope I can emulate great leaders who know how to lead and unite people who have a completely different origin story than my own.” On top of this, Gallina said she placed an even greater emphasis on cybersecurity with the CIA, creating a Deputy CIO for Cybersecurity and Operations role. “Cyber adversaries are jerks. My devotion to this agency has awakened a ‘mama bear-like’ feeling that I want to defend it from the cyber threats we face,” she said.

Director, Joint AI Center, Department of Defense

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael Groen is the second director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, a job at the center of the Department of Defense’s modernization effort to imbue AI across its operations. Groen leads a major change in strategy for the JAIC, turning the center from a fielding organization with specific mission areas, like health care and warfighting, into an “enabling organization.” Groen calls it “JAIC 2.0,” a new-and-improved organization that has more authority to buy things, more money and people involved in helping the DOD become an AI-enabled organization, and direct-report authority to the deputy secretary of defense.

Commissioner, Federal Acquisition Service, General Services Administration

Sonny Hashmi’s biggest focus is ensuring American Recovery Plan and American Jobs Plan funds for IT modernization are managed effectively and lead to better outcomes for citizens. Hashmi’s FAS is helping finalize the revamped process for distributing the $1 billion added to the Technology Modernization Fund. “Over the next year we want to make sure that operation is streamlined,” Hashmi said. A second area of focus for his team is cybersecurity and developing the right mechanisms to collect data from the supply chain in coordination with CISA, DHS, NSC and others. FAS can become the “premier supply chain manager” for the government, and data is key, Hashmi said. “We are using data to do supply chain risk management, using data to create new opportunities for small businesses,” he said. “We are using data to figure out where people get stuck in the process.”

CIO, Department of the Army

Raj Iyer is the first civilian CIO of the Army after the department split what used to be the CIO/G-6, previously a job held by a three-star general. Iyer was hired in November 2020 and had to continue managing the Army’s telework posture amid its ongoing IT modernization journey. For 2020, the Army set a course for a “foundational year” of data, which remained the case even though for many in other IT organization, it was all about maintaining normal operations. Iyer continues to work on improving the cybersecurity and digital modernization of the military’s largest service and implementing its own cloud environment, cArmy.

As CDO of USDA and the chair of the Federal CDO Council, Ted Kaouk has had a busy year within his own agency and delivering on the Federal Data Strategy governmentwide. The council plans to release 10 data science training program use cases soon, after partnering with the U.S. Digital Service on a joint hiring announcement for data scientists at 10 agencies, including Kaouk’s own, in January. Meanwhile, the council has also worked to address COVID-19 data-sharing challenges between agencies, and Kaouk anticipates agencies will create their first AI inventories later this year. Also on his agenda is developing a framework for coordinating with the other Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act councils for evaluation officers and statistical and privacy officials.

Director, IT & Cybersecurity Team, Government Accountability Office

Nicholas Marinos’s job comes down to beating the drum for the importance of cybersecurity. The rhythm and intensity of that did not slow one bit this year, and finding ways to keep Congress informed of the latest breaches and cyber-attacks was even more important. Marinos owes much of his work and accomplishments to his colleagues, he told FedScoop. The people he works with have had to rely on creative ways to stay connected to their work. Team meetings sometimes drifted to discussions of everyone’s latest “wins,” he said — not always ones related to work. For Marinos, one of his big wins was a treehouse that he built for his children. In the coming year, priorities largely remain the same for his work, keeping an eye on cyber incidents, keeping Congress informed and keeping his team healthy and happy.

Under the leadership of CIO Pritha Mehra, USPS has identified the top digital systems and platforms it wants to build to innovate quickly. A second priority of Mehra’s is future-proofing the agency’s workforce by promoting digital dexterity, bolstered by a comprehensive, internal learning program issuing “digital badges” in areas like AI, machine learning and data analytics. Mehra also started a “Tech Chat” to promote innovation, encouraging groups of architects and developers to meet whenever and however they want. “Now there’s a place to hang out, there’s a place to develop, there’s a place to ask questions,” Mehra said. “For me, the future of work means getting out of the way and letting the right people connect at the right levels — enabling those connections in many different spaces.”

Senior Director of System Engineering, Architecture & CTO of U.S. Public Sector, Cisco

Prior to the pandemic, Marcus Moffett learned an important lesson from a business partner that proved valuable while leading through the adversity of the past year. “Get the people part right and the rest works itself out,” he told FedScoop. “This may sound like a duh moment, but unfortunately, many leaders put strategy and execution at the top of their list because they believe successful outcomes make them look good. Success, to me, is creating an environment where every single person on the team knows they are valued and in turn, brings their best to the workplace every day.” On top of this, leadership and growth take “friction,” he said. “Resistance to change is first and foremost a leadership issue. As leaders, we must get comfortable injecting a little chaos into the culture to test resiliency and adaptability.”

For the Defense Digital Service, the COVID-19 pandemic “really allowed us to push the limit” of the remote workplace model across the Department of Defense, said DDS acting Director Katie Olson. And now with vaccines and workplaces beginning to safely reopen, it’s a good opportunity for leaders to take stock of how they can keep parts of that model going. “I think what it’s putting an emphasis on is to determine what we really need in a workforce,” Olson told FedScoop. “We saw a huge benefit during the pandemic to having people live and work all over the country. It allows you to tap into a bigger workforce, but also, frankly, having people in other geographies is really helpful.” Olson added that she’s passionate about making sure an expanded remote workforce model opens more opportunities for women, people of color and other minorities to join the DOD workforce.

In a year overburdened with suffering, Scott Price decided to lead with “empathy and understanding.” He said his team at Microsoft “added wellness days and extreme flexibility for work-life balance.” But ultimately, Price discovered that as a leader, he had to be a model for his team. “We needed to share our pain. We had to show that we needed wellness days as much as our people, that we hurt and experienced the same levels of sadness as everyone else. It was only then that our teams felt like they genuinely had the grace to share their own pain, and take the time they needed,” he said. “This authenticity in the workplace went a long way in creating durability in our employee base, that allowed us to continue to support our customers each and every day.”

This past year has emphasized for Melinda Rogers that “leadership is never a once-and-done concept. It’s imperative to be able to pivot from previously established plans to address issues that arise unexpectedly without interrupting operations,” she told FedScoop. In addition to the leadership challenges the last 12 months brought, cybersecurity also re-emerged into the national spotlight, forcing agencies like DOJ to focus on “a sound cybersecurity posture and keeping abreast of the latest field trends,” Rogers said, calling cybersecurity and protecting DOJ’s assets one of her highest priorities. “At DOJ, our cybersecurity team is constantly adapting to the ever-changing threat landscape, especially on the heels of the SolarWinds incident, and the recent Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity.”

For Kavita Sanghvi, the past year has taught her that “change is inevitable; embrace it with a smile.” Specifically, during the pandemic, this has meant to be more open in communication and engaging with your partners, she told FedScoop. “Collaborate and partner at all levels — it works wonders. It starts with listening to each other with an open mind and engaging upwards, downwards, sideways and all around.” Despite the challenges of the pandemic and the new operating models that have come with it, Sanghvi continues to lead the same as she always has: “As leaders and individuals, I believe we should always continue to invest in your people, engage and collaborate continuously, treat everyone with respect, be flexible and empathetic, and above all, do all this with honesty and transparency. I plan to continue to lead in this fashion and encourage all to do the same. Be your true self every day at work and at home.”

John Sherman has been leading the Department of Defense IT shop in an acting capacity since January. Since then, he has steered the department clear of major cyber breaches targeted at the U.S. government, like the sweeping SolarWinds hacking campaign. He has also managed the DOD transition away from the temporary Commercial Virtual Remote environment to support telework into the long-term telework and in-person cloud-based office productivity environment DOD365. “The rollout of the DOD365 collaboration and productivity suite that is currently underway was easily our biggest accomplishment this year. It has been a huge effort, led and facilitated by our team here” and many other partners across the DOD, he said. Sherman leads the CIO shop at a time when it is working to transition to a zero-trust cybersecurity paradigm, a change he has been promoting for years. 

A surge of American Rescue Plan funding is allowing the IRS to train IT team members who wish to transition into new roles within the agency. The IRS also plans to hire more IT staff to fill critical roles in the coming months. “When discussing the future of work we must address telework,” Sieger said. “I hope to attract a workforce where they are not necessarily in a federal building. I will engage the staff the way they need to be engaged and pull them up.”

The NSA had to try something very new to the agency amid the COVID-19 pandemic. With CIO Greg Smithberger’s leadership, the agency made the move to telework for unclassified work when the crisis struck. One of the big things he had to do was figure out what could even be done remotely and what needed to be done at NSA’s secure facilities. “It’s kind of become more of a standard for us to see how much we can actually do in a less protected environment to leverage our ability to work with some corporate partners who, in some cases, simply don’t have access to a SCIF but are fully cleared people,” he said last year. “In other cases, we’re building a sort of a variation on this environment, where we’re going to be doing a lot more collaboration with people who don’t have clearances for the capabilities mission, for NSA’s cybersecurity mission, for our research.”

Gary Washington has been CIO of USDA since February 2018 and focused his efforts on IT modernization and workforce development. By leveraging emerging technologies like collaboration tools and the data they produce, he’s been able to manage that workforce effectively during pandemic telework. But with the agency’s cyberattack surface increased, endpoint security has also become a priority of Washington’s lately.

Director, Technology Transformation Services, GSA

The pandemic taught Dave Zvenyach to “be less of a leader and more of human” when working with employees, their mental health and their ability to meet family obligations. “It’s important to bring their best to work, but sometimes it’s not possible to do that,” he said. TTS is hard at work on elements of the American Rescue Plan, helping agencies reimagine digital services. Since rejoining TTS under the Biden administration months, now as its leader, Zvenyach has overseen the development of the process by which TTS will help other agencies and budgeting against the Federal Citizen Services Fund.