Leslie Beavers

Ms. Leslie Beavers is a distinguished senior executive, strategic leader, and U.S. Air Force Brigadier General (Ret.) with over three decades of experience at the nexus of technology governance, national security, and digital transformation. She is a renowned expert in cybersecurity, large-scale systems integration, and process accountability. As the former Acting Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Ms. Beavers directed policy and oversight for a $60 billion annual IT portfolio, commanding one of the world’s largest and most complex information enterprises.

While at the Department of Defense, she provided executive leadership for the DoD’s digital modernization, cybersecurity, and cloud adoption strategies, including the Fulcrum IT Advancement Strategy and the Defense Intelligence Digital Transformation Campaign Plan (Project Herald).

A certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, her expertise lies in converting abstract, high-level policy into durable, measurable capability—a crucial skill for regulators. She draws on extensive experience in international operations (Joint Staff J2) and complex, high-stakes transformation, including the media sector, where she led the massive digital preservation of 80 years of film and television library content for NBC/Universal Pictures. Ms. Beavers also holds an MBA in Finance and serves on the Academy Securities Investment Bank Advisory Board.