Cavallo served as OPM's acting CIO in March 2021 before taking on the role permanently in July 2021. Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
OPM CIO announces retirement
Guy Cavallo is the agency’s longest serving CIO in the past decade.
Guy Cavallo, the Office of Personnel Management’s chief information officer, announced on Monday that he is stepping down from his role at the end of the week.
Cavallo is the agency’s longest serving CIO over the past decade, after having been formally appointed to the position in July 2021. He had previously served as OPM’s acting CIO since March of that year.
In a LinkedIn post announcing his departure from the agency, Cavallo said that he is “so proud of the tremendous run by my team to transform the CIO organization and lead OPM’s IT modernization.”
Cavallo earned a reputation in the federal government as a proponent of exploring emerging technologies. Before joining OPM, he served as the Small Business Administration’s deputy CIO, where he worked to pilot initiatives around the use of artificial intelligence to enhance the agency’s work.
Among the major IT accomplishments that he highlighted during his tenure at OPM, Cavallo wrote that the agency was able to achieve its first “A” grade on the most recent Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act scorecard. The scorecard — which serves as an oversight mechanism for OPM and 23 other agencies — assigns grades based on their adherence to federal guidance for managing IT systems.
Under his leadership, Cavallo also noted that OPM was able to launch the Postal Health Benefit System. He wrote that the system “serves 1.7M+ postal workers and retirees and had no unscheduled down time during this fall’s open season.”
Last month, Cavallo was also named the recipient of one of the 2024 Presidential Rank Awards.
Prior to joining the federal government in 2015 — as executive director of IT operations for the Transportation Security Administration — Cavallo worked for several public and private entities in IT-related roles, including for Microsoft and for the City of Charlotte, North Carolina.
Cavallo wrote on LinkedIn that “this is the end of my federal career” but said he will continue his IT work in the private sector, adding that he will disclose more details about his future employment in the coming weeks.