Sylvia Burns promoted to Interior CIO
The department’s new chief information officer had served as acting CIO since March.
Sylvia Burns, an IT executive with the Department of the Interior since 2006, has been named CIO.
Burns had served as acting CIO since March 2014. Before that, she was associate deputy CIO for policy, planning and compliance.
“As acting CIO I have had the privilege of leading a dedicated team and working collaboratively with our bureaus and offices as we modernize our systems and move our IT transformation program forward,” Burns said in a statement.
Though a large, federated department, Interior has been something of a leader in the federal IT space when it comes to consolidating enterprise IT. The department announced a move to the cloud in 2013, and in 2012 the agency chose Google Gmail as its agency-wide email client.
Department of the Interior
CIO Sylvia Burns.
Under previous CIO Bernie Mazer, Interior embarked on an ambitious plan to trim its annual $1 billion IT budget, streamline CIO authorities and improve acquisition. As part of the plan, Interior is implementing an order that gives the CIO the delegated authority of the secretary of the Interior over enterprise-wide IT budgets, and limits the use of the CIO title to the agency-wide CIO and a deputy CIO. That order is due to be fully implemented on Burns' watch in December.
"As the department continues to move forward on critical initiatives like data center consolidation, Sylvia's leadership and collaborative style will help ensure our success in improving our IT services, while reducing our IT costs." Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget Rhea Suh said in a statement.
Before joining Interior's CIO office, Burns worked in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an Interior Department component. She also worked in the Department of Commerce in the International Trade Administration.