As of this week, the Department of the Navy has a new senior official in charge of fixing a broad array of IT and cyber governance shortcomings across the Navy and Marine Corps. And while he’s been given broad discretion to implement reforms across a vast portfolio of responsibilities, the two sea services should not expect to see wholesale changes overnight.
On Tuesday, Aaron Weis became the Navy Department’s chief information officer and special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy for Information Management — a new position officials created, in part, to respond to critiques in an outside review that found the DON’s cyber authorities and responsibilities were confused and fragmented.
The elevated position goes beyond the portfolio previous DON CIOs have had. Weis will also oversee four new directorates the Navy is creating within his new office: A chief data officer, a chief information security officer, a chief technology officer, and a chief digital and innovation officer.
In each of those areas, the department wants the new office to set coherent policies across the Navy and Marine Corps to create more unity of effort. But perhaps more importantly, the…
