OPM COO resigns

Angela Bailey is stepping down as the Office of Personnel Management's chief operating officer to take a management job at the Department of Homeland Security, FCW has learned.

Bailey has been at the center of an organization under intense pressure to improve its IT programming following the large-scale hack affecting millions of federal employees that OPM revealed last June.

"This past year was especially tough both personally and professionally, and what I've come to realize is that unexpected things are always going to happen in life," Bailey wrote in a farewell note to colleagues. She added: "We survived all that was thrown at us by using courage, humor and grace, and for that I will be forever grateful."

Bailey has been OPM COO for over two years, prior to which she was the agency's chief human capital officer. She starts her new job as chief human capital officer in the DHS Management Directorate on Jan. 11.

As COO, Bailey has been responsible for wielding human and financial resources to achieve programmatic objectives. Under her watch, OPM has struggled to come up with the money it needs for crucial IT modernization projects worth at least $117 million, FCW has reported.

While acknowledging challenges in her farewell note, Bailey also touted successes.

"I'm quite proud of the things we accomplished together -- from overall design and implementation of hiring policy reform throughout the federal government, to the dogged determination we had to refine and improve our internal processes," she wrote.

Bailey "has brought an enormous amount of creativity and a spirit of innovation to every role she has had at OPM," Acting Director Beth Cobert wrote in her own note to OPM staff.

Bailey began her career as a clerk in the Social Security Administration, according to her agency and LinkedIn biographies. She also spent several years on human resources issues at the Defense Logistics Agency

Bailey will likely remain in close contact with OPM leadership. "Many of us expect to continue to work closely with Angie through her leadership on the CHCO Council," Cobert wrote.

Chief Financial Officer Dennis Coleman, who has been at OPM over 20 years, will fill in for Bailey as interim COO. Coleman "has an excellent relationship with OMB and with DOD, one of our biggest customers," Cobert wrote.