Vance Hitch has served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Chief Information Officer of the Department of Justice since April 2002. He has over 34 years of experience in leading government organizations successfully through major change initiatives. At DOJ, he is responsible for leading and implementing the effective and efficient acquisition and management of information technology across the Department. He manages the Department’s $2.4 billion information technology programs, providing oversight and strategic guidance to the components within the Department, as well as major internal investments that serve the over 115,000 employees within DOJ. Mr. Hitch provides advice to the Deputy Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General for Administration in the management of IT infrastructure across the approximately 2,000 locations in 500 cities across the US where the Department has assets.

In his over six years of service with the Department, Mr. Hitch has pushed for the use of innovative procurement approaches, initiated major Department-wide IT solutions, and helped guide problem programs back towards stability. Mr. Hitch has instituted new funding models as well as organizational and process improvements to increase IT effectiveness and efficiency. He established the Department IT Investment Review Board (DIRB), chaired by the Deputy Attorney General, and developed and implemented a process for DIRB Certification of IT programs of greater than $100 M in IT development costs. He is an advocate for performance-based contracting and the use of Earned Value Management as a control tool for the CIO. One of his primary outward-facing roles is being an advocate for Information Sharing. Under his leadership, in October 2005, the CIO team created the Law Enforcement Information Sharing Program (LEISP) and coined the term “One DOJ” to signify a new paradigm for Information Sharing by DOJ. Mr. Hitch often speaks to Law Enforcement organizations about technology and cultural changes needed to foster an environment of trust, whereby sharing data can occur without compromising security or civil liberties requirements. He is the Department’s representative on the Information Sharing Council, created by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Federal Chief Information Officer Council. He is the Co-chair of the Information Security and Identity Management Committee; which leads cross government Cyber initiatives. Mr. Hitch is a frequent speaker on topics including executive management, IT governance, Law Enforcement, Cybersecurity and Information Sharing.

Prior to coming to the Department of Justice, Mr. Hitch was a Senior Partner with Accenture. His projects at Accenture, where he managed major practice areas as well as specific programs for over 28 years, included the design, development and integration of major technology initiatives in Federal as well as State and Local governments. His many government clients included: Department of State, the National Security Agency, Department of Defense, Central Intelligence Agency and numerous state and local governments.

Mr. Hitch earned a Masters of Systems Management from George Washington University in 1973 and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Muhlenberg College in 1967. He served in the United States Navy from 1969 1973, attaining the rank of lieutenant.