LaVerne H. Council

LaVerne H. Council, MBA, DBA is the Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology and Chief Information Officer for the Office of Information and Technology within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Council assumed this role in July 2015, taking over for Deputy CIO Stephen Warren. President Obama nominated Council to the role in March 2015. Council was confirmed by the 114th Congress on June 23, 2015.

Council received a Bachelor of Science in Business from Western Illinois University in 1983. She earned a Master of Business Administration, Operations Management from Illinois State University in 1986. In 2010, she received a Doctorate of Business Administration from Drexel University.

In her current role, Council manages VA’s IT budget of $4 billion and directs more than 8,000 employees. Under her leadership, VA is working to implement new technologies to better serve the veterans under its care. Since her appointment, Council has introduced a new IT strategy for the Office of Information and Technology. Under that strategy, the office is implementing an enterprise cybersecurity plan and has put an enterprise program management office and an IT account management team into place.

Before she joined VA, Council was CEO of Council Advisory Services, LLC. From 2006 to 2011, she served as Corporate Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Johnson & Johnson’s global Information Technology group, where she managed IT systems for the $61.6 billion worldwide enterprise. She also served as a member of Johnson & Johnson’s Corporate Global Operating Committee and her organization included more than 250 operating companies with more than 4,000 IT employees and 7,000 contractors. Prior to her time at Johnson & Johnson, Council was the Global Vice President for Information Technology, Global Business Solutions and Development Services at Dell. She was also a partner at Ernst & Young.

Council has served as Chair of the National Board of Trustees for the March of Dimes since 2011. She has been a volunteer for the organization since the age of five. She reports that working to ensure that more women have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies is a cause that is personal for her because her son Troy was a premature baby. Council has worked to drive support and funding for the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at Stanford University School of Medicine, a facility dedicated to the research and prevention of premature birth.

Council received the 2013 Image Award from Phi Beta Sigma for being an outstanding corporate and community leader. Council received the Alumni Business Achievement Award from Ernst & Young in 2011. In 2010, she was named one of the top four CIOs in America by Business Trends Quarterly. In 2009, Council was inducted into the New Jersey Technology Council CIO Hall of Fame. The Global CIO Executive Summit named her a Top 10 Leader and Change Agent in 2009 and a Top 10 Leader and Innovator in 2008.