Bo Berlas

As of May 2024, Bo Berlas was the Chief Information Security Officer of the U.S. General Services Administration.

Career path

Berlas joined GSA in 2002 as a senior IT specialist. He rose through the agency's ranks to become its Chief Information Security Officer, a title he already held by November 2020, when an independent FISMA evaluation commissioned by the GSA Office of Inspector General directed questions on the agency's information security program to him as CISO.
He also posted and maintained updates to GSA's annual IT Security Program Management Implementation Plan across multiple fiscal-year revisions, including the FY23 edition. In 2022 he appeared alongside GSA's Director of Policy and Compliance at a NIST Federal Cybersecurity and Privacy Professionals Forum session titled GSA's Approach to Identifying Requirements: FISMA, FedRAMP or Controlled Unclassified Information. He served on GSA's Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee, attending and voting at its July 2023 public meeting, where he seconded a motion to prioritize automation initiatives for the FedRAMP program. In May 2024, GSA named Berlas to the newly launched FedRAMP Board, tasked with overseeing the transition of cloud-authorization work and defining program metrics.

Remit and leadership views

On the FedRAMP Board, Berlas said he looked forward to "collaborating with fellow board members and our stakeholders in realizing opportunities to modernize the program and help expand the secure and efficient adoption of cloud technologies in government." Discussing leadership in cybersecurity, Berlas has described the work as a team effort, emphasizing the need to build the right team and culture and to draw on diverse perspectives from across an organization. He has described good leadership as centering on purpose, prioritizing resources, and treating people as an organization's greatest asset.