Bhagowalia to leave GSA for an island paradise
Senior federal IT leader Sanjeev "Sonny" Bhagowalia is leaving federal service to take a position in state government.
General Services Administration senior executive Sanjeev “Sonny” Bhagowalia has accepted a new post as the state of Hawaii’s first full-time chief information officer starting in July, Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie announced.
Bhagowalia currently serves as deputy associate administrator of the GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, a post he has held since May 2010. At the GSA he has helped to implement White House open government and e-government initiatives including Data.gov, cloud computing, data center consolidation and mobile applications.
Bhagowalia was credited for extraordinary achievement for getting Data.gov up and running in just two months. He was honored as a Federal 100 awardee in March 2010.
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Bhagowalia was CIO of the Interior Department from December 2008 through May 2010, overseeing an IT budget of about $1 billion a year. He previously was CIO for the Indian Affairs Bureau for a year. Before joining Interior, he was IT program management executive for the Federal Bureau of Investigation from July 1999 through August 2007.
Prior to his service in federal IT, he spent 14 years at Boeing Co. as a senior principal engineer for the Boeing Technical Excellence Fellowship Program in support of systems integration and business development. He has a master’s degree in information resource management and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.
Abercrombie, who made the announcement on June 7, also signed into law a bill that provides funding for the CIO’s office and the recently created Hawaii Office of Information Management and Technology.
Bhagowalia will report to the governor and will work on greater accountability for data and spending, enhance security and backup measures and reduce energy usage, according to a news release. His first day in the new position is scheduled to be July 6.
“Outdated and ineffective technology is perhaps the largest impediment to making our government work,” Abercrombie said in the release. “Sonny brings a background in technology and management coupled with more than 25 years of experience in senior government and private-sector positions. I’m confident he will lead us into a new era of efficiency and service-oriented government.”
"My experience has trained me to see information and possibility in everything, and I’m eager to discover what opportunities lie ahead for Hawaii," Bhagowalia said in the release.