VA names Lisa Rosenmerkel as acting chief data officer 

The Department of Veterans Affairs has named Lisa Rosenmerkel as acting chief data officer.

She takes up the role on Nov. 5, following the departure of incumbent chief data officer Kshemendra Paul, who leaves the agency at the end of October.

According to LinkedIn, Rosenmerkel moves into the position after last month joining the agency as deputy chief data officer. Previously she was a special assistant to the assistant secretary within the Office of Economic Policy at Treasury. Prior to that she worked for over 18 years at the Internal Revenue Service, where latterly she led data strategy and modernization.

Following his departure from the VA, Paul will join the Department of Energy in the role of assistant inspector general for cybersecurity assessments and data analytics.

Over the course of his more than 15 years in government, Paul has held a variety of federal government IT leadership roles, including as cloud action officer and deputy director of mission and strategy at the Department of Homeland Security and program manager for the information sharing environment within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Between 2007 and 2010, he was federal chief architect within the Office of Management and Budget, and before that was chief enterprise architect at the Department of Justice.

Commenting on the personnel change, a VA spokesperson said: “We will surely miss Kshemendra as he has been an instrumental leader at VA these past three years.”

The spokesperson added: “We are happy to name Lisa Rosenmerkel as acting VA Chief Data Officer and Executive Director for OEI/Data Governance and Analytics November 5 as she will continue to organize, lead change, and build momentum implementing the VA Data Strategy and Roadmap.”

News of Paul’s departure was first reported by Federal News Network.