The U.S. Department of the Air Force has appointed Venice Goodwine as the service branch’s new chief information officer (CIO), replacing Lauren Knausenberger, who departed the Air Force in June.
In her new role which she began on Aug. 13, Goodwine is leading three IT-centric directorates for the service: enterprise information technology, data and AI, and cybersecurity. She has oversight of the Air Force’s IT investment strategy from networks to cloud computing, enterprise policies, data management, digital transformation, information resources management, IT innovation initiatives, and information assurance.
Goodwine also supports 20,000 cyber operations and support personnel around the globe, with a portfolio valued at $17 billion. She also delivers cybersecurity and enforces the Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act laws, and the ethical use of AI across the service.
Goodwine is no stranger to the work and programs she has is taking on. She most recently served as the director of enterprise IT within the Air Force’s Office of the CIO, where one of her focus areas was rolling out the enterprise IT-as-a-service effort.
She has spent a large part of her career working for the Department of Defense, beginning in 1986 when she enlisted in the Air Force, working on signals intelligence. She left the Air Force in 2018 and landed at the Agriculture Department as the chief information security officer for two-and-a-half years.
She returned to the military sector in 2021 to serve as the Air Force’s director of enterprise IT.
