Gundeep Ahluwalia

CIO, Department of Labor

With more than 20 years of enterprisewide IT operations and management experience under his belt, Ahluwalia joined Labor as its CIO in October of 2016. Since then, he’s worked with senior leadership to formulate IT strategies, governance policy, budget, and IT investment processes. A large part of his role in driving change at the agency is change management, particularly through culture and the workforce. “Eighty percent of change management occurs from people implementing change, not just the technology,” he said. “So people are the necessary ingredient for modernizing federal IT. We can only transform the government IT space if we have the right talent or acquire the right talent.” And as a leader, he realizes his vision would be impossible without the team working with him. “Leaders are only as good as their team,” Ahluwalia said. “It’s the team that ultimately determines the success of a project or effort.”