Karen Freeman

Karen Freeman serves as the Associate Chief Information Officer (ACIO) for Enterprise Operations. In her role, Karen is a principal advisor to the CTO/CIO in overseeing a 1,800 person organization responsible for providing efficient, cost effective, secure, and highly reliable computing, server and mainframe, services for all IRS business entities and taxpayers. Additionally, she will be responsible for managing the day-to-day operations in the three computing centers that make up the Enterprise Computing Center.

Prior to her current role, Karen served as the Deputy Associate CIO for Enterprise Operations, where she oversaw the day-to-day operations and service delivery for the IRS infrastructure, which includes providing 24x7x365 operations support to both internal and external IRS customers.

Karen began her IRS career as an economist in the Statistics of Income Division. She has over 20 years of information technology experience in progressively demanding positions with a successful track record in managing innovative, cost-effective programs that translate broad public missions into concrete results. Her achievements include leading the implementation of an enterprise suite of processes and tools that supports standard management disciplines for the agency’s IT portfolio. As a Cybersecurity executive, she ensured compliance with statutory, legislative and regulatory requirements regarding the confidentiality, integrity and availability of IRS electronic systems, applications and data. She was also responsible for delivering information technology services to over 8,000 customers in Maryland, DC and Virginia, including all facets of seat management, voice communication, local area networks and customer support. In addition to her IRS experience, Karen was a deputy director in Vice President Gore’s National Partnership for Reinventing Government Office where she led electronic government initiatives in support of the Administration’s efforts to create a government that works better, and costs less. Karen received accolades for her leadership of the Vice President’s Access America initiative – an initiative that improved electronic accessibility to government services for Americans.

Karen is a graduate of the IRS’s 2005 Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program and holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Maryland and a M.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University. She also attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of the IRS’s Artificial Intelligence Program.