Eric Hysen, New DHS CIO, to Bring Focus on Innovation and Digital Engagement

Eric Hysen, the former executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Digital Service, has been slated to be the agency’s new CIO. It is expected that he will be fully confirmed by the Biden Administration in the coming weeks.

Serving under the Biden-Harris transition team, Hysen will take over the CIO role from Karen Evans, who stepped down on January 20th. From 2015 to 2017, he created the DHS Digital Service as part of the larger  U.S. Digital Service team.

During this time, he led a team of 35 IT experts who leveraged data analytics and predictive modeling to improve the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, launched an online application for citizenship, and developed tools to streamline airport security.

No stranger to innovation and digital engagement, he also worked at Google as the product and program lead for civic engagement and was the special consultant in the California state office of digital innovation. In 2016, Hysen was highlighted in a NextGov article as being part of a group of Silicon Valley visionaries who moved into government roles.

In addition, he has been a proponent of Agile development in government and has been very transparent about the challenges and opportunities in this arena. For example, he authored this very illuminating 2017 Medium post, which offered an insider’s view of the Agile contract vehicle Flexible Agile Support for the Homeland (FLASH), and the lessons learned from that effort.

In his new role as CIO, Hysen is expected to oversee data center consolidation, cloud and other information technology modernization efforts at DHS, which has an IT budget of $7.3 billion in fiscal year 2021.

Congratulations to Eric Hysen for being named the new DHS CIO!

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