Seymour, Donna

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach Chief Information Officer (CIO), Dec 2013 – Feb 2016. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), position unknown, 2016? – present.

Little IT education. Only a BS in computer science (she claims) from a low-ranked college. Even from a good university that is not enough for a large organization's CIO.

$183,300 was Seymour's most recent annual salary as OPM CIO as of Sep 2015 according to my FOIA request (Feb 2019) to the OPM. She supposedly retired in Feb 2016 after nearly 40 years as a federal employee and after allowing OPM's massive data breach in 2014, but my FOIA request also revealed that at least as of Sep 2017, probably earlier, she worked for DHS, and as of Jun 2018 her most recent annual salary there was $189,600. Both her recent increased salary at DHS and her salary as OPM CIO are outrageous. Many doctors and lawyers don't make that much and, unlike Seymour, they are at least qualified; by law they have to be.

In one of the most massive data breaches of its time, up to 2014, Seymour let hackers steal the very sensitive personnel records of millions of government employees, including those in defense and intelligence, which is a continuing security risk. When the data breach was finally made public she was not fired. There was external pressure for her to resign but she ignored this right up until she was called to testify before Congress, when she finally resigned. She refused to accept responsibility for the devastating consequences of her IT incompetence; in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary she insisted she did a great job.

Unbelievably, Seymour was replaced as OPM CIO with another IT incompetent, David Garcia.