Davies sworn in as Pentagon CIO

Kirsten Davies has been formally sworn in as chief information officer at the Defense Department where she’ll oversee a “broad portfolio” of important programs, the Pentagon announced.

Davies took the reins shortly before the Christmas holiday, according to officials, less than a week after she was confirmed by the Senate.

“She brings to the Department two decades of transforming organizations for the digital age, building cyber defenses, tackling tech debt, and innovating at scale,” officials wrote in a post on the Office of the CIO’s LinkedIn page, noting her private sector experience working in top leadership roles for major companies such as Unilever, Estee Lauder Companies, Barclays (Africa Group), Hewlett Packard Enterprises, and Siemens AG.

Her extensive IT and cybersecurity background was previously touted by experts who wrote a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee in support of her nomination for Pentagon CIO.

In social media posts, DOD officials noted that Davies will be serving under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth while leading digital modernization efforts and “overseeing for him the information enterprise, cybersecurity, technology innovation, and a broad portfolio of national security programs.”

Kirsten Davies, nominee to be chief information officer of the Defense Department, arrives for her Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing in Dirksen building on Thursday, September 18, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

Davies took the helm from Katie Arrington, who has launched and shepherded major initiatives while performing the duties of DOD CIO in a non-Senate-confirmed capacity. Arrington was appointed to that position by Hegseth in March shortly after she returned to the department for another stint as chief information security officer.

To what extent Davies will continue, modify, expand, or cut existing programs remains to be seen.

She previously suggested that she intends to forge a new generation of tech partnerships with industry and “embed the building blocks of AI” at the department to support U.S. military efforts to achieve “data supremacy” and “decision dominance” over adversaries.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear what Arrington plans to do now that she’s no longer DOD CIO. She has not publicly announced her next moves.