Labor Department elevates Mangala Kuppa to full-time CIO

The Department of Labor has a new permanent chief information officer — and it’s a very familiar face.

The appointment of Mangala Kuppa, who has served as acting CIO since October in addition to her role as the agency’s chief AI officer, became effective this week, according to a DOL spokesperson. In a post to her personal LinkedIn page, Kuppa said she was “grateful for the opportunity to keep serving and making a difference.”

Kuppa, who remains the department’s CAIO, per the spokesperson, joined DOL nearly six years ago after more than a decade at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At DOL, Kuppa started as a director for case management and then business application services before moving up to chief technology officer and CAIO roles. 

A bio for Kuppa on DOL’s website credits her with not only leading the agency’s AI strategies, but also establishing its enterprise data platform and advancing “technological leadership through the adoption of low code/no code solutions.” With the unveiling last month of the agency’s open data portal, Kuppa was part of a collaborative effort led by the Office of the CIO and the Office of the Chief Data and Analytics Officer. 

In taking on the full-time CIO position, Kuppa should provide the agency with stability in its IT shop after the departure of Thomas Shedd seven months ago. A former Tesla engineer, Shedd had been serving as director of the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services when he was tapped as DOL CIO in March 2025.

DOL’s artificial intelligence program has been very active under Kuppa’s watch, including with the launch of an AI roadmap geared toward “worker empowerment” during the final months of the Biden administration, the release of an AI literacy framework last month, and the compilation of a robust use case inventory that covers everything from chatbots and coding assistants to tools to improve grant document review and labor productivity calculations.  

“I always said that AI is less about technology; it’s more about change management,” Kuppa said during a September 2024 interview at FedTalks. “Because normally, if you compare with previous technologies, there was time to understand, adapt and react to it. In AI, the pace of technology is so fast that we don’t have that time. So it’s very critical to think of it as a change management, and also invest in the workforce.”