The leader of a five-year information technology modernization plan has been named the new chief information officer (CIO) for the federal insurer of bank deposits, the agency said Thursday.
Sylvia Burns, who joined the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) in 2018, will also serve as the agency’s chief privacy officer, the FDIC said. She replaces Howard Whyte, who resigned in December. His final day was Jan. 3. Burns had served as the acting CIO since Whyte’s resignation.
She joined the agency as deputy chief information officer and focused on IT strategic planning, enterprise architecture, and data management. The agency said that, in that position, she led a shift to cloud-based platforms and software that reduce the on-premises IT footprint for the agency. She also leads an interagency initiative under the Federal CIO Council to help federal agencies adopt zero trust architectures, FDIC said.
Before she joined the agency, she was CIO of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI). The FDIC said she holds a Bachelor of Arts in the special honors curriculum and geology from City University of New York at Hunter College and a Master of Science in business management and policy from State University of New York at Stony Brook. She also holds a graduate certificate in project management from George Washington University.
Meanwhile, the agency continues to look for a chief innovation officer to lead its new FDIC Technology office (FDiTech) and, in particular, the agency’s new tech lab.