Navy announces new CIO

After months of speculation and a year of reorganizing, the Navy announces Aaron Weis as its new information chief.

Aaron Weis has been named as the Navy’s new CIO. The Navy formally announced the new role for Weis, a former senior advisor at the Navy Department’s Chief Information Office, on Sept. 27.

The news comes more than a month after Navy Undersecretary Thomas Modly, who had been acting as CIO, signaled the department’s decision to elevate the position.

Weis will also serve as the principal staff assistant to the Navy Secretary on information technology management, digital, data and cyber strategy, overseeing technology, data, digital strategy and cybersecurity.

The Navy also whittled down its office of the CIO in 2018 amid a realignment effort to turn that shop from more of a compliance-based organization to that could “help rapidly prioritize and accelerate business transformation initiatives," Modly wrote in a March 2018 memo.

The new CIO structure follows the Navy’s cybersecurity review, released in March, that recommended the service bolster its cyber leadership to better handle IT acquisition and cybersecurity standards.

As CIO, Weis will have two dual-hatted deputies, flag officers from the Navy and Marine Corps that will keep their current responsibilities, the Navy wrote in its release.

The CIO shop will remain lean but also house a chief technology officer to create and enforce technical architecture standards and policies, and a chief digital information officer to incorporate information management technologies across the enterprise. Chief data and information security officers will also sit under the new CIO.

This article first appeared on FCW, a partner site of Defense Systems.