Why Federal Tech Leaders Are Wearing Many Hats

During a Cabinet meeting in late August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio joked that Labor Day was particularly meaningful to him “as someone with four jobs.”

The joke was a nod to the many hats Rubio has worn within the Trump administration. In addition to secretary, at one time Rubio was also then the acting national security advisor, USAID acting administrator, interim leader of the National Archives and unofficial spokesperson for the U.S. involvement in Venezuela.

The trend of assigning multiple roles within a department has permeated other government agencies as well. A recent GovCIO Media & Research analysis of the 15 cabinet-level government agencies found that at least 10 of them had overlap in one or more of their chief technology roles, including CIO, CTO, CDO, CAIO and CISO. 

Taka Ariga, a former federal employee who held multiple titles concurrently, told GovCIO Media & Research that the choice to double or triple up on roles can be pragmatic, especially when responsibilities overlap.  

“For smaller and mid-sized organizations, constraints in statutory authority or budgeted headcount can make it impractical to add another senior executive role. In such cases, combining positions becomes a pragmatic way to cover responsibilities that overlap,” he said. “For my own experience in federal service, these arrangements were deliberate.” 

At the Government Accountability Office, Ariga served concurrently as chief data scientist and director of its Innovation Lab. At the Office of Personnel Management, he held three roles at the same time: CAIO, CDO and director of enterprise data and AI. Ariga said the overlap can lead to streamlined decision-making, clearer accountability and faster alignment across interdependent domains such as data and AI.

In fast-moving environments where both technology and risk are evolving rapidly, that speed and cohesion was a decisive asset, he said, but added that doubling up of roles is not without its challenges and requires careful execution.  

“Without clear authority and support, they can devolve into bureaucratic Jenga — unstable, overly complex structures where titles exist more for optics than impactful outcomes,” he said. “Ensuring that each role is properly empowered and backed by capable teams is essential to avoid creating (more) operational bottlenecks.”

Here’s a look at some of the agencies with senior leadership performing two or more c-suite roles:

• Department of Agriculture: Christopher Alvares serves as both the CDO and CAIO, according to the agency’s AI strategy.  

• War Department: Emil Michael serves as both CTO and Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, according to his biography on the DOW website. 

• Department of Health and Human Services: Clark Minor serves at both the CIO and acting CAIO according to the agency’s IT leadership directory. Within HHS, Jay Bhattacharya serves as both director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to the HHS leadership directory.  

• Department of Homeland Security: Antoine McCord serves as both the CIO and acting director in the Office of Biometric Identity Management. The department’s official AI strategy also lists McCord as the CAIO. Within DHS, Nick Andersen serves as both the director and deputy director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, according to the DHS leadership directory. 

• Department of Housing and Urban Development: Eric Sidle serves as both CIO and CAIO, according to HUD’s leadership directory. 

• Department of Justice: Vu Nguyen serves as both the CISO and the director of Cybersecurity Services Staff, according to his biography on the department’s website.  

• Department of Labor: Mangala Kuppa serves as both the CIO and CAIO, according to her biography on the department website. 

• Department of State: Amy Ritualo serves as the acting chief data and AI officer and statistical official, according to her biography on the department website. 

• Department of the Treasury: Paras Malik serves as both the CAIO and counselor to the secretary, according to LinkedIn. Edward Borrego serves at both acting senior accountable information security officer and associate CIO, according to a leadership directory.

• Department of Veterans Affairs: Charles Worthington, prior to announcing his departure, served as both CTO and CAIO. Kimberly McManus succeeded Worthington as acting CAIO and deputy CTO, a VA spokesperson told GovCIO Media & Research in March.

A recent joint survey by the Data Foundation and Deloitte found that 30% of the federal CDOs who responded to the survey, also served as CAIO in 2025. The survey, which was conducted from September 2025 to January 2026, was sent to 189 CDOs, statistical officials and individuals performing duties similar to CDOs and had a 12% final response rate. 

Nick Hart, president and CEO of the Data Foundation, said it’s likely CDO and CAIO roles have been combined because they are both relatively new. The Open Government Data Act, which was signed into law in 2019, established CDOs to oversee data management in federal agencies. Often the role was combined with another role in order to meet the requirement. 

“The chief data officer role is much newer, established by law during the first Trump administration and focused specifically on data governance, data quality and open data,” Hart said. “The chief AI officer role is newer still. Many agencies only created the position in the last two or three years, largely in response to executive orders directing federal AI adoption.”

Former President Joe Biden’s 2023 AI executive order marked the first time federal agencies were mandated to appoint a designated CAIO. A follow-on 2025 memo from President Donald Trump reinforced those efforts and directed the creation of a governmentwide CAIO Council to accelerate AI adoption.

“You have three distinct roles at very different stages of institutional maturity, and they’re now being asked to work together — or in many cases, being consolidated into one person — faster than the policy framework has caught up,” Hart added. 

For smaller federal agencies, Hart said there are advantages to doubling up roles. Having one person responsible for both data and AI strategy eliminates a coordination problem that can slow down decision-making. It also ensures that AI adoption decisions are made by someone who understands the data quality and governance requirements that determine whether AI actually works, he said. 

Both Hart and Ariga said time can be a limiting factor when employees have multiple titles. 

“One key challenge I had to grapple with multiple appointments was that while responsibilities multiplied, time did not,” Ariga said. “Without careful compartmentalization, it is easy to drown in constant firefighting, leaving little room for important strategic thinking.” 

Hart said that to offset the increased workload, something had to give at federal agencies.

“Our survey shows that what’s giving right now is external engagement. Collaboration with the private sector and the public has declined significantly. That’s a warning sign that the consolidation of roles is outpacing the resources needed to support them,” Hart said.