Chief Information Digital Officer, Senior Vice President, Information Digital Technology & Security, Boeing
DoD CIO Perspective: Dana Deasy
New Department of Defense Chief Information Officer, Dana Deasy, joins Brig Gen Kevin B. Kennedy, USAF, for a fireside chat at AFCEA Defensive Cyber Operations Symposium to discuss his first days on the job and the mission moving forward.
About Dana Deasy
Dana Deasy, as the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer, has emphasized a digital modernization strategy built on four pillars: cloud, artificial intelligence, command and control communications, and next-generation cybersecurity. Speaking at several events in 2018 and 2019, he argued that AI would become "more than just a tool" and "a partner" to the warfighter, and described the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center as a vehicle for cross-service "national mission initiatives." He cited specific pilot projects, such as an algorithm to predict sand buildup in Black Hawk helicopter engines and the use of AI to map wildfire fire lines in real time, as examples of the technology’s potential. Deasy also stressed the need to reframe acquisition priorities from "cost, schedule and performance" to "security, cost, schedule and performance," calling security a "condition of doing business." He advocated for decentralizing compute power to the "tactical edge" and leveraging cloud to improve data and algorithm delivery to deployed forces. In addition, he described his approach to organizational leadership as leaving "your organization in a better place" with "enduring, sustainable" change, and noted that his early focus as DoD CIO was aligning his office with the National Defense Strategy.
Transcript (20 segments)
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Host0:13
Well, good afternoon and thank you for staying with us. We've got a special treat for everyone. For those of you not finished, please continue your meal and please note that during the presentation we'll not be accepting questions from the audience. And please make sure that you've got your earphones silenced. So today we're really privileged and honored to have the new DOD Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy and Brigadier General Kevin Kelly join us to provide some closing remarks and comments and have a little bit of a discussion amongst themselves. I think it's a great way to get the new Chief Information Officer out here and exposed to some of you through this opportunity for us. And again, we're certainly appreciative that they've chosen this event to do so. Mr. Deasy was most recently the CIO at JPMorgan Chase where he led a major technology overhaul which included adopting agile development and methods. As the DoD CIO, he will be the primary adviser to the Secretary of Defense on information management, information technology, information assurance, cyber, as well as several non-intelligence space and critical satellite items, communications, position navigation and timing, and spectrum, the RF spectrum, Intel community, telecommunications, all those things that are coming to the fore now as we work in and we evolve into this contested space that we're operating in. But I think when you look at his record and his background, you can see he's the right man for the job at the time. He's very familiar with safeguarding information coming from the banking and finance industry. He understands risk and risk management, how to deal with that. He understands the market forces and the importance of speed to market for capabilities. And he understands the role of information in a supporting role to decision-making and command and control. And as I said, coming from JPMorgan Chase, he certainly understands the competitiveness and the need to be first in the world that we're living in today. General Kennedy is a command pilot with more than 3,400 hours in a B-1 and a T-38, including combat over Afghanistan. As Principal Director for the Deputy CIO for Command, Control, Communications and Computers and Information Infrastructure Capabilities, he provides technical expertise and broad guidance on policy, programmatic, and technical issues related to C4ISR to integrate and synchronize defense-wide communications and infrastructure. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Mr. Deasy and General Kennedy to the stage.
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Kevin Kelly3:35
So this is an interesting one. Mr. Deasy has been in the job eight days, and as you can all see, I'm not Miss Miller. So what we had to do is, I wasn't part of this, but I think there was a rock-paper-scissors. Sure, so she's on the Hill in a closed-door session testifying, and Mr. Deasy is here talking about the Department of Defense after eight days in the job. I don't, so I think you came out ahead. But what we'd like to do, first of all, General Shea, thank you for that kind introduction. I think you writ large all the members in industry, thanks for having us. We were discussing this on the way up and we mentioned that we do a lot of AFCEA events and I think they're all valuable. So that's one thing you're gonna find in this community. I joined this community about three years ago and I find it very valuable to get the industry partnership and as we work with industry and the good ideas that are out there and help us in our mission. So with that, eight to nine days, yeah, as our CIO of one of the largest, if not the largest, organization on the planet, what do you think so far, sir? So let's have a little further conversation about this rock-paper-scissors. I don't know about you, but I was told you can either go have lunch, talk to several hundred people about where you think things are going, or you can go to a closed-door session. Probably I have the overwhelmingly fun experience. And I said to Miss Miller, I said, you done rock-paper-scissors before? I think I clearly won. What about you?
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Dana Deasy5:19
Well, I am, though, disappointed that Mrs. Miller couldn't join because I think it's important that when anybody joins a new role, one of the things you always ask yourself is how smooth is the handoff going to go. And I have to tell you, it's been remarkably smooth when you just consider the absolute enormity of this. And I couldn't have done it without Miss Miller. And I think she's done just an absolutely outstanding job of leading this organization over the last number of months. And I just want to give her a call out today.
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Kevin Kelly6:03
All right, boss, that's the softballs. Here we go. So how would you compare, so if you do a good job, we'll give you a call out today, okay? All right, all right, you set the bar. Here we go. So General Shea mentioned you most recently were at Chase. You've also been with BP, Siemens, Tyco. How would you compare and contrast your role as you see it as a government CIO versus an industry CIO?
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Dana Deasy6:30
So what's similar is people who work in technology obviously just love technology. And I find that it doesn't matter where I've gone, if you find great technologists, they want to do great things. Bureaucracy exists everywhere. It exists obviously on the private sector side, it exists in government. I will tell you that may be one of the biggest differences I've noticed is when you are in the private sector, you do have matrix management, you have different people that you're managing to and having to interface with. It's become very clear to me that the board of directors is a little bit bigger here, 500 plus, and I'm still just trying to wrap my head around that concept. The other thing I would say is when you work in the private sector and you go ask 10 different people why are we here, what is the purpose of what we're here to do, you might actually get 10 different answers. And I have to tell you, when I ask that question here, it is very, very clear. Everybody talks about the mission and how it aligns to the national defense. And I think that's terrific because one of the things you always want to do as a leader is you want to be able to come in and you want to be able to get people focused. And I realized that that's not the issue here. Yes, there may need some reorganization, there may need some different restructuring, but why people are here, I have to say that's been the thing that's delighted me most. Everybody is crystal clear on the focus of the mission.
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Kevin Kelly8:13
So one of the aspects that we've been talking about with the mission and its impact is, and it's in the news a lot, is cloud. A lot of folks in the room are probably interested in your thoughts. And I know based on where we are, there's only so far you can go. But as someone that's had to do this before and the turn that we're experiencing in the department, in your experience, how do you see this going? What are some of the things, the lessons learned that we need to think about?
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Dana Deasy8:38
Yeah, so let's start with what is the biggest single thing that, at least for me personally, that I've seen in cloud. Cloud is one of the most iterative things I've ever been involved with. 36 plus years, obviously been involved with a lot of technologies. First thing, there's not a singular thing that cloud is. There's a lot of different things to what makes up a cloud. And so one of the things I find you have to do early on is you got to get clear what conversation you're in and what are you talking about. I mean, we all know as professionals, cloud can do different things for you. It can be an infrastructure, it can be a platform, it can be software as a service, and each of those has its own permutation, its own challenges. And so what I've done in my career as I've gotten introduced to cloud, most recently in my last job, was it's really important that everybody gets very clear as to what the conversation you're having, what it is you're trying to do, and to understand this is not a case of you're trying to lift out of your old world and you're suddenly trying to drop into a new world. But this is the most phenomenal opportunity I think we've ever experienced. This gives technical folks the ability to be able to look at your legacy estate and say this is a brilliant opportunity to re-engineer. And I think early on getting people focused around the fact that cloud allows you to do amazing things you simply haven't been able to do historically. The idea of just self-healing awareness, the attributes of being able to get more services on the fly, gives us as IT professionals a whole new way to operate our estate and to build the future of how we want IT to run.
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Kevin Kelly10:29
All right, sir. And before, I gave the boss two chips to play eight-day cards, so I'll see if he plays one here. So sir, eight days, what's your priorities? How do you see your vision for CIO?
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Dana Deasy10:42
And Doug's taking those. I probably could count the hours, that's actually been, let alone days. You know, this none of this is gonna surprise you. The very first thing I did when I got here is I said, is there a singular thing that we were all focused on? Everybody kept saying, really get to know the National Defense Strategy. And so I sat down, I read it. I had a chance as I was onboarding to meet with the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary, and it became very, very crystal clear to me that truly understanding what's inside that strategy was gonna help to crystallize what it is we need to focus on. I mean, everybody in this room knows the three tenets of that is lethality, alliances, and reform. And you can quickly, just looking at those three tenets, start to shape a strategy that says it's going to be multi-dimensional. There will be some technologies that we'll be doing that will actually support both the reform side as well as the lethality side. And in most everything we're talking about doing, you're gonna find yourself in a conversation of how does this work in terms of alliances. And alliances can mean different things, whether it be our mission partners, whether it be academia, or whether it be private industry. So every conversation I've had up until now, every conversation with the new team has been, tell me your part, the role you're playing in support of those three tenets. And it's really allowed me, at least early on, to get very grounded very quickly. And just this week, it allowed me to have my first conversation with the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary around my early thoughts around what are those things we need to do to support that strategy.
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Kevin Kelly12:39
Boss, I've heard you talk a little bit about some of the things that you think underpin our contribution. And CIO, and the conference here is focused on innovation. I was wondering if you want to share your thoughts on that.
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Dana Deasy12:51
Yeah, there are things that have to be done in innovation that I would call, you know, people always think when you use the term innovation, we're always talking about something that is brand new, leading-edge, maybe never been done, or we want to be early adopters. And yes, we have that. I mean, we're gonna be looking at big data and machine learning and artificial intelligence and cloud and all the things that you would expect to hear me say today. But I also always remind people, innovation is sometimes taking what you have and how do you make it better. And I think that sometimes we don't spend enough time on looking at the fact that we have an estate, I would argue a very large estate, and we always shouldn't be thinking that the only way you get improvement is you have to move to something brand new. But you also sometimes just need to step back and say, how do we improve based on what we have? So I think I'd summarize by simply saying the tenets of innovation are obviously gonna be those things you would expect to hear me say. Obviously world-class at cyber, we have to think about how do we better integrate data, and you're gonna do that through a variety of methods and tools and techniques from how you think about big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence. There's gonna be a cloud that kind of sits at the foundation, allowing you to build up many of these things, and it's gonna have to run on a world-class environment.
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Kevin Kelly14:29
All right, sir. And so everyone in this room deeply involved in that innovation, they would have been here, and a large portion is industry. You know, when I come to these events, a lot of folks ask, how can we help? Industry wants to put their resources behind things that not only provide value to their company but provide value to our national defense. So if they were to come up to you and say, how can I help, and I'm a member of industry, how can industry help?
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Dana Deasy14:56
Yeah, first of all, just a big shout out to AFCEA and DISA today for just inviting me. I actually got this invite before I started, and I have to admit, I got this acronym email sent to me and I said, what the heck is that event? And then when they described what it was, I said I really would like to participate if the calendar allowed. And the reason why is if there's one thing I've learned in my going on 37 years of being involved in technology is you cannot go after this stuff alone. There is an entire partnership and people that have to contribute to the success. And I've always said, you know, I need to be the face of that. I need to make sure people understand what that is. And I would tell you today that kind of how I think about this is, it doesn't do any of us any good for you all to just flood my inbox. First of all, it's screened by the Colonel here, so that's probably not going to be a winning hand. Two is, you know, you all have access to the National Defense Strategy. You're all going to continue to get access as we continue to move down what it is. It's important and it's going to be based on these big tenets. And when people want to come and talk about something that's disconnected from the National Defense Strategy or is going to be disconnected around the big tenets of what we're trying to get done, you know, the ability to have a lot of interest in that conversation is going to be limited. The ability for all of you to think in terms of if you were sitting in my shoes, everything's got to connect together. These aren't singular standalone conversations. You know, when I look at new innovations or I look at things that you can bolt on to existing, the first thing you're sitting in there and saying is, you know, what's the time, what's the cost, what's the effort, what's the security risk of adopting. And to the extent that you can always have conversations knowing those are the fundamental questions that are sitting in the minds of us, the better, more robust conversation we're going to have right out of the gate. The other thing I'd say is there is an amazing team around me, and I just always encourage people, at the end of the day, these are the individuals that get the work done. These are the people that have the real thought leadership. And I just always encourage people, continue to always work across the leadership team because those are the people that can help accelerate what you have and help translate it and bring it to us, allows us to adopt it and embrace it. So those would be my big takeaways.
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Kevin Kelly17:45
Excellent. Thanks. All right, sir, it's something a little, we'll change course here just a little bit. So we're looking, we're coming close on the time. So you mentioned on the drive, never been stationed, never lived in DC, never served in government, just recently retired, had a plan for a little less high-paced lifestyle. So why return? And what does Mrs. Deasy think of this?
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Dana Deasy18:15
So I'm gonna break this apart a little bit. So let's start right to what Mrs. Deasy thinks, because that is the single most important thing here. When I got the call from the White House, you know, seven months retired, enjoying life, I'm out hiking every day in our North Carolina home, life is good. And we're getting ready to go for a hike and the call comes and she's looking at me like, why are you on the phone? We're supposed to be hiking. And I kind of mouthed, the White House is calling. And you know, she gives me the look like, okay, really? So the bottom line was, get off the phone. After I've had the conversation with the Deputy, and I said, do you think I should go to Washington and have these conversations? And she says, we should turn it around. You're not having the right way you're thinking about this, Dana. She says, how can you not? And there's two stories I'll tell. I started my career at Rockwell International, and for the first 30 and a half years, I helped build and launch space shuttles, which I thought was the coolest job on the planet. And the thing I remember most about that, because I had a chance to work with NASA, was that it was the idea of the mission, the purpose. And you could go around to anybody and you could talk about why do we exist. You know, it was to launch, it was to manage the mission, deploy the space load, and return the astronauts safely back. And I always remember how much I enjoyed being a part of something where there was a mission. The last few years, I had a chance to get introduced and spend some time with folks in the Pentagon, people that visited us at JPMorgan, or we were asked to come to Washington. And I remember every time I left one of those meetings, I always felt so inspired about what people were doing. And I always remember saying to myself, I even said it to my wife one time, I said, wouldn't that be the ultimate give back if somehow, someday, that could happen? And she reminded me the day the call came in, she says, here's your chance. So she was all in.
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Kevin Kelly20:29
Well, Mrs. Miller may seem very open and collaborative to you, but she gave me strict orders to get you back at a certain time. So we're gonna have to close this out with the last question because she didn't lose the rock-paper-scissors on all our engagements today. So I'm at my retirement ceremony about three or four years from now, based on your vision for the CIO, Secretary Mattis's guidance to us, the NDS, what's it gonna look like? Where will we be? What's right?
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Dana Deasy20:59
Well, first of all, the fact that you said that I will be at a retirement ceremony, who says that, I'd obviously at least survive the period to get to a retirement ceremony, so I'll take that as a positive. As leaders, I firmly believe the number one responsibility is to leave your organization in a better place. And I truly, truly believe that that's the case. The thing I do every day, since the moment I actually, I started thinking about this before I even arrived, is to say there's a lot to be done. A lot of this is going to carry on to future CIOs. And I would say what I would like people to talk about is that we've created change that's enduring, it's sustainable, and it can carry through in future missions. I'd love to think that the first conversation I have Sunday when that day of retirement finally does come again, that I'll get a call. And the call will be from the next individual that's leading this amazing organization that says, thank you, you've set us up to continue doing great things with the right structure, the right processes, the right technologies and foundation. That to me is what success would look like.
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Kevin Kelly22:16
Thanks a lot. Well, sir, thank you for your time. And I speak on behalf of everyone here, thanks for joining us this afternoon for lunch and a quick discussion. Thank you, everybody.
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Bob Shea22:27
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Lieutenant General Bob Shea. Let me just say, for someone who's only had eight days on the job here, I think the words that came out of Mr. Deasy's mouth are going to resonate with everyone in this room and certainly everyone in our association as well as the government. You heard the word integrated, you heard talking about artificial intelligence, machine learning, the cloud, and et cetera, and the ability and the necessity to work across the leadership, and that is terribly important. And finally, I think the one that really resonated with me certainly was it's about the mission. And I'll tell you, there is no more noble mission than what our men and women in the Department of Defense and the people who support them, you all here in this audience, do today. So I want to thank you both for being here and sharing your comments with us. In lieu of a speaker gift, we were going to make a donation to the Fisher House on your behalf. So again, thank you very much for your support and your attendance. Again, thank you.
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Host23:58
Okay, and so you come to the closing of the Defense Cyber Operations Symposium. We'd like to thank all of our mission partners in advance for the council as we developed a program for this event. Particularly like to thank the Department of Defense Cyber Command, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Joint Force Headquarters-DoDIN. We also want to thank our sponsors and industry partners for the support of this symposium and for working with AFCEA to provide the best support possible for the Department of Defense and the government. In addition, we think CompTIA, GIAC, and the certifying organizations reviewed our sessions for support of cybersecurity continuing education requirements. We'd also like to thank our preferred providers for the superb instruction. AFCEA is proud to put this event on, and I hope it's clear how dedicated we are to accomplishing our mission to support the national security as well as your role in doing that. So please consider becoming a member if you aren't one already. It doesn't cost a lot of money, and it allows us to keep putting on great events like this. It allows you to have that ethical exchange, it allows you to do that networking, and it provides a way forward for all of you. We really are in a critical time in this nation's history and in the history of the free world. So we will embrace you, come aboard, and we look forward to having you join us. So please go to www.afcea.org to sign up. We've got many upcoming events including several to continue the discussion on important topics in cyber that may be of interest to you. So if you visit afcea.org/events for the full list. We've got several events including a classified event coming up early in June right out here in the Chantilly area. To help us make those upcoming events and next year's Defense Cyber Operations Symposium better, and we want to continue to improve, please take a moment to go to the app and use the rate this session feature for all the sessions you attend this week. We really pay attention to this, and your feedback only helps us to make this stronger and it helps us promote what you all are trying to do regardless of where you come from, industry, government, or academia. The symposium will now conclude with Meet the Senior Leaders session in the registration lobby. This is a great opportunity, this is where DISA really does open up the doors and provides an opportunity for industry and government to come together and exchange ideas. This will be your last chance to engage with DISA leadership in this informal setting. So again, thank you for attending, travel safely, there's weather out there I guess, and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Please mark your calendar for next year, Defense Cyber Operations Symposium, right back here in Baltimore, May 14th and May 16th next year. And again, to our partners from DISA, DoDIN, thank you for what you do on a daily basis. Thank you all and have a safe travel.