Intelligence community gets new CIO in Adele Merritt
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines announced Adele Merritt as the new CIO of the intelligence community on Monday.
Merritt officially took the role, housed under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in late January.
Michael Waschull had been serving as acting CIO of the IC since January 2021 and will continue on in his official role as deputy CIO.
“Dr. Merritt will lead our ongoing modernization efforts to transform the IC Information Technology Enterprise, ensure the security of the IC’s Information Technology systems, and enhance IT cooperation within the IC,” Haines said in her announcement. “Dr. Merritt brings over 20 years of technical, analytic, and policy expertise in cyber and national security operations to the role. Her accomplishments span the U.S. government.”
Within that portfolio, she’ll also be responsible for the continued rollout of the IC multi-cloud offering, the Commercial Cloud Enterprise (C2E) program.
Merritt comes to the IC after serving most recently as a program manager for Dreamport, a nonprofit associated with the Maryland Innovation and Security Institute and created by U.S. Cyber Command. Prior to that, she spent time in government as principal deputy CIO for cyber at the Department of Energy and as acting senior director for intelligence programs on the National Security Council during the Obama administration.
She’ll be the first permanent CIO for the IC since Matthew Kozma stepped away from the role. Before that, John Sherman — now serving as the CIO at the Department of Defense — held the role for several years.
