Bruce R. Begnell is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Counselor. He joined the Foreign Service in 1994 and was named Principal Deputy Chief Information Officer in December 2022. In this capacity, he is responsible for managing all IT operations under the purview of the Bureau of Information Resource Management, including direct oversight of the Bureau‘s $1.2B annual budget, 632 Federal Employees, and more than 2,000 contractors. These responsibilities also include oversight of Cyber Operations, Business Management and Planning, Operations, and Foreign Operations. Mr. Begnell directly supervises the office of the Enterprise Chief Information Security Officer (E-CISO), Office of External Affairs (EA), the Office of the Chief Architect (OCA), the office of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and the IRM Strategic Communications Management (SCM) unit. He also is responsible for the forward-deployed Regional Information Management Centers, providing global regional technical and operations support to more than 300 overseas sites, and nearly 100,000 technology users.
Previously, Mr. Begnell has served as Deputy Chief Information Officer for Foreign Operations where he managed an investment of $154 million and led a workforce of more than 600. During his service in IRM, he has directed the IT network infrastructure, core IT modernization, enterprise telephone systems, radio networks, emergency and special event mobile satellite systems, and many other programs and services.
Mr. Begnell has more than 28 years with the Department, and he has served at Missions in Iraq, Armenia, Japan, China, Sri Lanka, The Netherlands, Afghanistan, and South Korea, in addition to numerous assignments in Washington.