Page 48 - FCW, March/April 2020

2020 GOVERNMENT EAGLE WINNER
Suzette Kent
The CIOs’ CIO
BY TROY K. SCHNEIDER
When Suzette Kent was named federal CIO in early 2018, most in the community had never heard of her. Today, many say it’s hard to imagine the last two years without her.
In 2019, she led or lent essential support to a long list of initiatives. The Federal Data Strategy was developed and launched with an aggressive action plan, and Kent took the lead on creating the new Chief Data Officer Council. A long-awaited update to the Trusted Internet Connections policy was finalized, while the Federal Identity, Credential and Access Management policy was similarly updated.
Kent also continued to champion the President’s Management Agenda, ensuring that the government’s many IT initiatives fit into that broader framework. She put a special emphasis on IT and acquisition workforce development. While initiatives like the Cyber Reskilling Academy — which graduated its first two cohorts in 2019 — have not yet filled a significant number of jobs, they reflect important steps to address a critical govern- mentwide need.
Technology business management — a set of meth- odologies and data standards to measure IT costs and create a cross-agency framework for understanding IT
spending — was another important 2019 effort, albeit one that existed mostly behind the scenes.
“Transparency of spend in federal government is
a constant priority,” Kent said at an event in January. “There wasn’t a one-size-fits-all, everybody-do-this” TBM blueprint in 2019 but rather “a specific set of work... defining the standards and creating a standards board.”
“We are absolutely implementing the framework,” she added, “but giving agencies and teams the flex- ibility to choose the tools that match with what they are attempting to achieve.”
In many ways, Kent’s tenure as federal CIO is defined by that dogged devotion to standards and deliverables combined with a commitment to giving agencies the freedom to tailor efforts in mission- appropriate ways. And that approach has earned the admiration of IT leaders at those agencies.
Although Kent demurred when informed she was this year’s Government Eagle — “I can think of 500 people who deserve it more,” she told FCW — her colleagues clearly disagree. Her nominators included the CIOs from seven of the largest and most forward-leaning agencies across government. ■
48 March/April 2020 FCW.COM
Stan Barouh