Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Chief Data Officer (CDO) Kshemendra Paul is leaving the agency at the end of the month, a VA spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk.
Paul, who also served as the agency’s executive director of Data Governance and Analytics in the Office of Enterprise Integration (OEI), is leaving the VA to join the Department of Energy as its assistant inspector general for cybersecurity assessments and data analytics.
“We will surely miss Kshemendra as he has been an instrumental leader at VA these past three years,” the agency spokesperson said in a statement to MeriTalk.
The VA said Lisa Rosenmerkel will step in as acting CDO and executive director of Data Governance and Analytics for OEI on November 5, “as she will continue to organize, lead change, and build momentum implementing the VA Data Strategy and Roadmap.”
Paul joined the VA as its first CDO in September 2019, after previously serving as the cloud action officer for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and as DHS’s deputy director for mission and strategy within the Office of the CIO’s Information Sharing and Services Office.
Paul also led information-sharing efforts within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from 2010 to 2016. In that role, he “worked closely with Federal, state, local, tribal and territorial partners, as well as private sector and international allies, to balance the needs for information sharing and safeguarding to enhance national security and protect the American people,” Paul’s biographical page on the VA website says.
Paul began his Federal service career in 2005 as the chief enterprise architect at the Department of Justice.
