National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Chief Information Officer (CIO) Sheena Burrell is departing for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to serve as its chief innovation officer.
Burrell has served as the CIO of NARA since August 2022 and before that was the agency’s deputy CIO since February 2022. She will lead the FDIC’s Office of Innovation (FDIC Tech Lab or FDiTech) after leaving NARA on Nov. 30, a NARA spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk in an email.
The FDIC is an independent agency created by Congress to oversee financial institutions and ensure financial stability.
Following Burrell’s departure, Gulam Shakir, the current chief technology officer (CTO) at NARA, will be stepping in as the acting CIO while the agency continues “to plan for NARA’s digital transformation and future,” the NARA spokesperson said. Shakir has served as CTO since May 2020, having previously served as the agency’s chief data officer.
Burrell has held leadership roles at the Social Security Administration and NASA. She has also served as a board member of the Technology Modernization Fund since May 2021.
Under Burrell’s leadership, NARA has undergone a mass modernization effort, including transitioning to accepting only digital records from Federal agencies, which it accomplished this summer. Other efforts have included transitioning to its zero click management process and using AI for 11 different use cases.
The FDIC has faced challenges in recent years, with agency Chairman Martin Gruenberg announcing that he would step down from his role on Jan. 19, the day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Calls for the chairman’s resignation have also built after an external investigation earlier this year that found the FDIC’s workplace culture had subjected employees to pervasive sexual harassment, discrimination, and other misconduct.
A letter penned by House Financial Services Committee members to Gruenberg in February expressed concern over internal modernization efforts the agency had taken, writing that “the FDIC has moved innovation backwards” and “dismantled the external facing portion of the agency’s FDITech Office” focused on public engagement and “shifted FDITech’s mission to focus solely on adoption of technologies within the FDIC.”
