Mitre’s David Powner on Why Agencies Should Elevate CIO Role

David Powner, director of strategic engagement and partnerships at Mitre, has said both the industry and government should continue expanding the leadership of chief information officers to better manage information technology and modernization efforts. 

There is a need for CIOs to secure a seat beside top officials to help address mission-critical problems, Powner wrote in an opinion piece posted Tuesday on FCW. 

He said that while the private sector already started recognizing the value of CIOs, the officials with the same designation in the public sector are not engaged enough in the decisionmaking process. 

“The CIOs and their staff and colleagues, including chief technology officers and chief information security officers — are the in-house technology experts,” Powner noted. “They are best equipped to understand not only how new technology will work within their organizations, but how to extract the most value to support organizational mission changes around the new technology.”

Powner said the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act helps promote the CIO role across the government while helping address system efficiency challenges.

He also pointed to the President's Management Agenda, which calls for transparency in key acquisition programs.