The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has named Melvin Brown permanent chief information officer (CIO) after serving as deputy CIO for the past four years.
Brown succeeds Guy Cavallo, who announced his retirement last week. Cavallo departed as OPM’s longest-serving CIO since 2010.
With Brown stepping into the top technology role, the new deputy CIO is James Saunders, who previously served as OPM’s chief information security officer (CISO). Danielle Rowell, previously the chief of cyber engineering at OPM, is the new acting CISO.
“Melvin Brown has been an integral leader in delivering many of OPM’s accomplishments in modernizing IT and achieving an ‘A’ on the FITARA scorecard for the first time in agency history,” an OPM spokesperson told MeriTalk today. “He has also led numerous modernization initiatives, experience OPM and its customers will benefit from in his new role as CIO of OPM. His leadership will continue to be critical in providing efficient, high-quality service.”
Before joining OPM, Brown served as the director of the Enterprise Business Management Office within the Office of the CIO at the Small Business Administration.
Additionally, he served at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in multiple leadership positions, including as a senior advisor to the DHS presidential transition officer and director of the Consulting Services Division. Brown also served as an IT program manager at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Before departing, Cavallo told MeriTalk that Brown served as his “co-partner” in OPM’s IT modernization efforts. The former CIO said that Brown helped him manage projects such as the agency’s recent two-year cloud sprint – which saw more than 50 applications from legacy on-premises data centers move to the cloud.
