The U.S. Agency for International Development has tapped Steven Hernandez to serve as its new chief information security officer (CISO) and deputy chief information officer, according to a post on his LinkedIn.
Hernandez joins USAID after over seven years of serving as the CISO at the Department of Education, where he oversaw a billion-dollar IT portfolio. He has also served as co-chair of the Federal Chief Information Security Officer Council since October 2018.
Hernandez replaces Mark Johnson, who served as USAID CISO since 2016. At USAID, Hernandez will reunite with CIO Jason Gray – who was previously the CIO at the Department of Education between 2016 and 2022.
Previously, Hernandez served as the Office of Inspector General (OIG) CISO at the Department of Health and Human Services for over seven years.
At the Department of Education, Hernandez was a key player in pushing up the agency’s FITARA score and “achieving cyber excellence in the Federal government.”
The CISO said that his team started at “truly ground zero” with an ‘F’ grade when FITARA first launched in November 2015, and it was able to build up to an ‘A’ on the FITARA Scorecard through people, leadership, team building, and technology.
