Aaron Weis named new Navy CIO
The Department of the Navy has named Aaron Weis its new chief information officer to lead the service’s newly structured IT office.
Weis takes over a newly elevated CIO’s office, leading a team dedicated to proactively improving cybersecurity and managing other digital priorities. In this role, he will “serve as the principal staff assistant to the Secretary of the Navy on information technology management, digital, data and cyber strategy,” according to a release. The position, however, is not Senate-confirmed.
Under Weis will be two deputies — a flag officer from each the Navy and Marine Corps — and four directorate leaders: a chief technology officer, chief digital strategy officer, chief data officer and chief information security officer.
“This new DoN CIO team will not only integrate key Navy and Marine Corps Information Technology initiatives to support our warfighters, but will also provide an opportunity to strengthen information technology (IT) talent across the naval services,” Undersecretary Thomas Modly said in a statement. “They will be responsible to the SECNAV to ensure that naval IT spending is directed to the highest value opportunity areas as established in the National Defense Strategy.”
Weis comes to the Navy after serving in the Department of Defense Office of the CIO as a senior adviser for the past year.
The new CIO role comes at the recommendation of the Navy’s recent critical Cybersecurity Readiness Review, ordered by the secretary.
“Digital information has become the center of all we do to defend the nation, ” Secretary Richard Spencer said. “The strategic use of data and information resources represents a critical enabler of lethality and readiness. Managing and protecting our data is crucial as we confront the renewal of great power competition.”
