Indian-American becomes US Army's first CIO

Indian-American Dr Raj Iyer has taken over as first Chief Information Officer of US Army, after Pentagon created position in July 2020. One of highest ranking Indian-American civilians in US Department of Defense, Iyer, who holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, serves as principal visor to Secretary of Army and directs representation of secretary in matters relating to information manment/information techlogy (IT), Pentagon said in a statement.

Equivalent in rank to a three-star General, Iyer will supervise an annual budget of USD 16 billion for US Army's IT operations. Over 15,000 civilians and military personnel posted across 100 countries work under him. Iyer will direct execution of policies and programmes to modernise US Army to achieve digital overmatch against near peer versaries such as China and Russia.

Army has committed to leveraging vanced techlogies such as cloud computing, robotics and artificial intelligence as critical enablers for future war fighting through a concept called multi-domain operations. Previously, Iyer was partner and managing director at Deloitte Consulting LLP, where he led multiple techlogy programs supporting government clients.

Over course of his 26-year career, Iyer has supported a range of defence and commercial clients on a number of complex enterprise transformation challenges, including strategy, invation and modernisation. He has established new organisations, including first office of Chief Techlogy Officer in Army, co-founded a successful techlogy start-up, and led recovery programmes such as Obamacare. He also holds a patent and has published dozens of peer reviewed papers.

Iyer holds a Ph.D. from University of Texas at Arlington along with multiple masters degrees, including a Master of Business ministration from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from University of Texas at Arlington.

Iyer, originally a native of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nu, grew up in Bengaluru and completed his undergruate studies at National Institute of Techlogy Tirchi before moving to US to pursue higher studies. In US, he h barely eugh money to pay for tuition and rent for one semester through his far's life savings, but was soon able to secure a full fellowship to complete all of his gruate education.

His far Manakkal K Ganesan, an engineer working as General Manr at Metallurgical and Engineering Consultants (MECON), was instrumental in showing him a passion for public service and value of education and hard work, according to a testimonial online.

Iyer is married to Brindha, a healthcare IT programme manr in US government. y have two sons, Ashwin Iyer, a freshman majoring in Data Science at University of California at Berkeley, and Abishek Iyer, a 9th grer at Centennial High School in Maryland.