Power Players | 7 - Scott Charbo and Robert Howard

Charbo is chief information officer at the Homeland Security Department, and Howard is CIO at the Veterans Affairs Department. Charbo and Howard have been in their positions since 2005 and 2006, respectively. Not listed. Many CIOs are responsible for information technology, but they don’t have control over spending. Charbo and Howard are rare among government CIOs because they have full spending authority — Charbo by policy and Howard by law. They can control how their organizations spend their IT dollars. Charbo and Howard oversee troubled agencies, and nobody believes their issues will be easy to tackle. The responsibility to fix problems accompanies empowerment. To be determined.