Margaret Palmieri, founder and former director of the Navy’s digital warfare office, has been appointed deputy chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at the Department of Defense.
John Sherman, chief information officer at DOD and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, announced Palmieri’s appointment in a LinkedIn post published Friday.
Palmieri previously served as director of the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Action Group and special assistant to the vice chief of naval operations, according to a news release obtained by Breaking Defense.
Palmieri’s career in the Navy included time as director of integrated fires for the deputy chief of naval operations for information dominance and deputy director of decision superiority. She first entered the service branch as a Presidential Management Fellow.
Sherman, who was named acting CDAO in February, also announced other appointments to the CDAO leadership team.
Lt. Gen. Michael Groen, director of the Joint AI Center and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, will serve as senior military adviser to the CDAO and Dan Folliard will become the office’s chief operating officer.
Greg Little, director of DOD’s CFO data transformation office, will serve as deputy CDAO for enterprise capabilities and Katie Olson, acting director of the Defense Digital Service, will assume the role of deputy CDAO for digital services. Clark Cully, deputy chief data officer at the Pentagon, will serve as deputy CDAO for policy.
Sherman said the office of the CDAO’s first executive team led by Palmieri has the knowledge, relationships and skills that could enable DOD to advance the adoption of AI, data and analytics.
Sherman, who was named acting CDAO in February, will keynote the Potomac Officers Club’s 3rd Annual CIO Summit on April 26. Visit the POC Events page to learn more about this upcoming in-person summit.
