Government
,
Industry Specific
,
Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development
CIO Greg Barbaccia’s Memo Targets Churn, Burnout, Fragmented Culture

When Gregory Barbaccia took the job as the U.S. federal CIO in January 2025, he became the sixth person to hold the position in eight years. Five months into his tenure, he laid out 16 operating principles in the latest attempt to stabilize leadership churn.
See Also: New Trend in Federal Cybersecurity: Streamlining Efficiency with a Holistic IT Approach
Barbaccia’s document contains no mandates, no budget figures and no program launches – just a list of values organized under three headers: delivery, management and culture. Its release came as Congress debated a budget bill that would eliminate more than 100,000 federal jobs, with the administration asking workers across all agencies to do more with less – by using modern digital technology.
“This document outlines the expectations we hold for ourselves – and each other – as we modernize the digital infrastructure of the United States. This is not a typical government shop. We are here to fix what’s broken and build what’s missing,” the former Air Force veteran wrote in an email to agency CIOs.
“Trust is extended to you on day one and it is yours to lose,” begins the first of Barbaccia’s 16 operating principles for IT leaders, obtained by the Federal News Network, and another one commands “Forward deploy to earn trust and surface truth.”
The principles, of course, are nonbinding – more behavioral than procedural and revolving primarily around trust.
“Every success we’ll have is downstream of trust,” he writes, warning that a breach of trust is the only failure from which there is “no guaranteed recovery.” The principles emphasize mission clarity, system-level understanding and cross-functional thinking, with an insistence that leaders show their work, challenge assumptions and “label the problem” – especially when that problem is technical debt, ambiguous goals or outdated contracts. By positioning burnout as a national security risk and feedback as a civic duty, the memo extends beyond IT doctrine into workforce culture reform.
These frameworks seek to address why government technology fails – and it starts by admitting most failures aren’t technical, but human. Barbaccia calls for psychological safety, feedback loops and humility – terms more common in Silicon Valley retrospectives than in federal memos.
Barbaccia represents a growing breed of federal leaders – former tech executives parachuted into government to “fix what’s broken.” Like Trump-era appointees – former Unilever CISO Kirsten Davies as DoD CIO and former PayPal COO David O. Sacks as U.S. first AI and Crypto Czar – he brings private-sector urgency to the role.
Phrases such as “this office only works if everyone behaves like a founder” reflect management principles more common in startup retrospectives or agile software shops than in traditional government documentation.
Barbaccia’s approach is notably non-regulatory. He calls for forward deployment of federal technologists into sub-agencies, data centers and program offices – arguing that real transformation happens only through proximity and empathy.
But it may be easier said than done. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s 2022 IT and Cybersecurity Report, the federal government spends more than $100 billion annually on IT and cyber-related investments but a significant portion of that is spent on maintaining outdated systems.
The Social Security Administration, for instance, maintains roughly 60 million lines of COBOL code – a programming language older than the moon landing – which is widely estimated to cost hundreds of millions annually in maintenance.
But Barbaccia appears to have an action plan. He said he would no longer meet with firms, such as research and consulting companies, that “define problems” but instead interact with those that “offer solutions.”
He advised government CIOs to cancel meetings with strategy firms, adding “If there’s an edge case you believe deserves discussion, seek an exception from me or your director.”
The timing of Barbaccia’s memo is also critical. As of mid-2025, federal IT leadership is undergoing a wave of turnover. According to the Federal News Network, at least four major U.S. agencies – the Departments of the Interior, Treasury and Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency – have recently named new CIOs. The Department of Energy CIO Ross Graber resigned last month after less than two months on the job. Seven federal agencies do not have a permanent CIO, and few have worked in the role for longer than three years.
In a system where digital transformation often takes years of patient execution, this churn only adds to the delay.
Public responses to the 16 principles have been measured. Some agency CIOs have welcomed the clarity and tone. Others see it as a symbolic gesture.
Without funding, staffing or enforcement levers attached, adoption depends on voluntary alignment and senior-level reinforcement and will likely hinge on how well Barbaccia integrates the principles into cross-agency programs such as the President’s Management Council or CIO Council.