The Central Intelligence Agency named La’Naia Jones as its next chief information officer (CIO), the agency’s deputy press secretary confirmed to MeriTalk. Jones will also be the next director of the agency’s Information and Technology Enterprise.
Jones takes over for Juliane Gallina, who left the CIO post to take on a new role as the CIA’s associate deputy director for Digital Innovation. In that role, Gallina will be responsible for leading the CIA’s work that deals with data science, artificial intelligence, enterprise IT, cybersecurity, cyber collection and analysis, and open-source intelligence, among others.
“We are delighted by the appointment of La’Naia J. Jones as the Agency’s new Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Director of the Information Technology Enterprise (ITE) within the Directorate of Digital Innovation,” CIA Deputy Press Secretary Luis Rossello said in a statement to MeriTalk.
“Ms. Jones brings to the position a wealth of experience in Information Technology and innovation in the national security sphere,” Rossello continued. “We look forward to her leadership in leveraging emerging digital technology to advance our mission.”
Jones has served more than 20 years in the intelligence community and served as acting CIO for the IC in 2020, having been the IC deputy CIO prior to that. Jones has also held positions at the National Security Agency (NSA), previously serving as NSA deputy CIO and its information sharing and safeguarding executive.
