Melinda Rogers
Deputy Assistant Attorney General & Chief Information Officer, Justice Department
Melinda Rogers highlights the Justice Department’s first-ever overall “A” on the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act of 2014 scorecard as her team’s biggest recent achievement. The scorecard measures a chief information officer’s performance across various areas.
This “A” reflects the commitment and persistence of her team over the past decade, including IT modernization, cloud adoption, CIO oversight of all Department IT investments, and cybersecurity. The scorecard also reflects DOJ’s cybersecurity performance under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014. DOJ’s current score of 99.1% and this year’s Level 4 rating across all five cybersecurity framework functions in the DOJ Cybersecurity Program FISMA audit are significant achievements, especially given the size and complexity of the DOJ.
The FITARA scorecard is something Rogers even shows to her children – they bring home report cards from school, and as DOJ CIO, she brings home FITARA scorecards. Rogers considers it an important lesson that “No matter how old you are or where you are in your career, you can always do better.”
Why Watch
In 2024, Rogers and her team are focused on at least six areas, including advancing DOJ’s zero trust architecture, unifying identity management, and cyber money management. However, their primary focus is operations. As DOJ CIO, Rogers’ office delivers technology and information systems that are critical to DOJ’s national security and law enforcement missions. The Office of the CIO operates 24/7, year-round, so focusing on just a few areas would mean neglecting the broader mission.
On her approach to IT modernization and optimization, Rogers said, “They are not always about shiny new things… They are about understanding the business problem for which we are seeking a solution and taking a holistic approach – one that includes people, process and technology – note the order in which these appear – to identify the optimal solution for the organization.”
Fun fact: Dance and music are Rogers’ passions. Whenever she has free time, she drops in on a dance class. “That is how I reenergize, or should I say reboot!” she said.