The Department of Defense (DoD) has appointed Leslie Beavers to take the reins as acting chief information officer (CIO), following John Sherman’s departure, according to her announcement last week on LinkedIn.
Beavers takes over the role from Sherman, who departed from DoD last month.
Sherman had served as DoD CIO since 2021 and is, thus far, the only CIO confirmed by the Senate during the Biden administration. Sherman is set to become the next dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. He will take on the new role in August.
Before assuming the new role of acting CIO, Beavers served as principal deputy CIO at the Pentagon during Sherman’s tenure, overseeing engagement with Defense Agencies and Field Activities CIOs, and driving strategic resource planning in IT and cybersecurity domains.
Prior to her time in the CIO’s office, Beavers served as the director of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance enterprise capabilities within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security (OUSD(I&S)). During her tenure there, Beavers led OUSD(I&S)’s Defense Intelligence Digital Transformation Campaign Plan – Project Herald – which aimed to evolve how the DoD delivers intelligence to warfighters while providing a unifying focus to realize next-generation capabilities.
Beavers started her DoD career as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force, holding various roles before retiring as a Reserve Brigadier General serving with the Joint Staff J2.
Beavers steps into the DoD acting CIO role as the department begins work on its recently released plan to modernize the agency’s IT networks and compute infrastructure, dubbed Fulcrum: DoD Information Technology (IT) Advancement Strategy.
As Acting DoD CIO, Beavers is tasked with leading the implementation of the new Fulcrum strategy.
