{"id":210,"date":"2026-06-09T20:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=210"},"modified":"2026-06-09T20:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:44:12","slug":"va-cio-nominee-vows-to-create-program-management-office-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=210","title":{"rendered":"VA CIO nominee vows to create program management office"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to serve as the next IT lead for the Department of Veterans Affairs told lawmakers this week that the agency\u2019s technology operations are \u201ca target-rich environment\u201d for change, and he committed that organizational transformation would be among his top priorities if confirmed to the role.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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During a Senate Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Gary Shatswell \u2014 the administration\u2019s nominee to serve as VA\u2019s next chief information officer and assistant secretary for information and technology \u2014 said VA needs \u201ca culture of transparency and accountability, achievable through agile program management, which will also accelerate mission delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n

VA\u2019s IT operations are sprawling, with the agency reporting more than 16,000 personnel working on these technology services. Many high-profile modernization efforts overseen by the Office of Information and Technology, however, have received particular scrutiny for delays and cost overruns across administrations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Shatswell during Wednesday\u2019s hearing that \u201cmy beef is the bipartisan failure to really modernize the VA,\u201d and said he\u2019s previously had discussions about establishing \u201ca program office that includes members on this committee \u2026 seeing the progress every day, so that you’ve got champions here behind an IT modernization effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shatswell told him that a program management office is \u201ca necessary piece that does not exist at the leadership level of OIT,\u201d noting that previous attempts to create the unit failed because \u201cthere had not been the requisite tooling to ensure that the visibility and the process [were] actually managed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said creating the office is \u201cone of the first tasks that I will be going after\u201d if confirmed to the role, adding that the unit would enhance VA employee accountability and operational transparency by ensuring \u201cthat everyone knows what\u2019s going on and what\u2019s the status and the priority of their piece within the work that OIT is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI call it a program or portfolio-value office because, at the end of the day, we need to be driving the right value to the veterans, and that’s the focus of everything that we should be doing,\u201d Shatswell said.<\/p>\n

Shatswell is Trump\u2019s third nominee for the VA CIO role since the start of his administration, and the first to receive a hearing before lawmakers. VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence has been performing the duties of the role in the interim.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shatswell is a current VA employee, having served as senior advisor to VA Secretary Doug Collins since December.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked by Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas \u2014 the panel\u2019s chairman \u2014 whether the senior advisor role is \u201cthe administration’s training ground for individuals that they may want to place within the department,\u201d Shatswell told him, \u201cI can tell you my experience: that was the way that it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shatswell has previously held a variety of tech leadership roles across private industry, including as Group CIO at Unilever Prestige, as CIO at Paula’s Choice Skincare, as vice president of IT at Sur La Table and as CIO at Sizzling Platter.<\/p>\n

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Gary Shatswell, President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to helm VA\u2019s IT operations, told lawmakers creating the office is \u201cone of the first tasks that I will be going after\u201d if confirmed to the role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management"],"yoast_head":"\nVA CIO nominee vows to create program management office - Market Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=210\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"VA CIO nominee vows to create program management office - 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