John Sherman Named Acting DOD CIO

John Sherman has been designated as the acting chief information officer of the Department of Defense, filling in for Dana Deasy, a 2020 Wash100 winner who recently concluded his tenure as CIO. 

Sherman moved up as DOD CIO after serving as Deasy’s top deputy since June 2020. He will be tasked with leading the department’s information technology operations until the Senate confirms a nominee put forward by President Joe Biden, C4ISRNET reported Thursday.

While serving as principal deputy CIO, Sherman championed modernization efforts across the Fourth Estate, which consists of the DOD’s non-warfighting support agencies. The fourth estate network optimization was aimed at consolidating networks and other IT systems across fourth estate agencies, including the Missile Defense Agency and the Defense Information Systems Agency, to achieve increased efficiency and cost savings.

He also steps into his new role backed by previous experience as the IT chief of the Intelligence Community, where he led the implementation of cloud computing, among other things.

During a 2020 interview with C4ISRNET, Sherman emphasized the importance of migrating to the cloud. He argued that moving to a cloud enterprise should not be considered as a mere technicality but a cultural change. For Sherman, embracing the cloud means focusing on cloud-native approaches when handling matters like software development and DevSecOps.

He also told C4ISRNET that the DOD must break down data silos to enable services to share information that are critical to multi-domain operations. 

In the meantime, Sherman will have to deal with issues like the recent SolarWinds hack on the U.S. government while DOD employees continue to work remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.