‘Best in class’: Pennsylvania’s new CIO leans into her digital services experience

Bryanna Pardoe was promoted to Pennsylvania’s chief information officer last fall. Now, having spent a few months in the role, she said, her experience as the state’s digital services leader has emerged as a key influence in how she plans to modernize technology, deliver services and redefine what the CIO role can do.

Gov. Josh Shapiro picked Pardoe to lead the technology office last October, following the sudden departures that month of former state CIO Amaya Capellan and Chief Technology Officer Brian Andrews. Until that point, Pardoe had spent more than two years as the first executive director of the Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience, or CODE PA, since its formation in April 2023. In the months since her promotion, Pardoe said in an interview, her goal has been to ensure continuity between leaders for state employees, but she said she’s balanced that goal with setting her own strategic focus for the state’s information technology office.

“I think the team that we have here is so committed and so excited about the opportunities that we have ahead of us,” Pardoe said. “The first 30, 60 days was hitting the street, meeting the team, understanding challenges and opportunities — there are a lot of wins that the team has on the board, and exciting projects that are in flight.”

After engaging with staff and listening to feedback, Pardoe said, those early conversations have reinforced that the state’s technologists, whether they’re in digital services or cybersecurity, are aligned around a shared mission to improve how residents experience government services.

“What’s really exciting to me is, as I stepped into this role, is learning that though we might be using different language, different vernacular, but I think there’s something really special about public sector,” she said. “It’s because so many of the people in these jobs are here because of the mission, and that’s really the lens that digital service takes, is putting constituent experience and user experience first, so that we can make sure that the dots get connected in a way, that things work and are easy.”

Her team is currently finalizing the state’s IT strategic plan. Pardoe said this planning has led her to think about how the state can continue to improve processes across agencies, automate certain types of work and think through how to protect, secure and understand the state’s data troves.

“We have an internal focus on operation, streamlining process, making things more efficient, and a huge part of that is investing in our workforce,” she said. “We have an insane sprawl of applications that we are supporting today that is heroic in nature at this point, but we want to make sure that our workforce that’s showing up day in and day out is adequately trained, given how fast technology is moving. So we’re pulling together training tracks that our staff can jump in on and be a part of, so that they can continue to evolve with the way technology evolves.”

She added that Pennsylvania plans to hire a combined chief data and AI officer, who will be tasked with leading some of this effort as well. The hire would make Pennsylvania one of a growing cohort to have recently carved out leadership roles for data and AI functions.

The new role will help Pardoe expand the state’s use of AI, as the state evaluates how to build on a ChatGPT pilot kicked off in 2024 that last year was found to have saved staff eight hours of work per week. She said that project is a key part of the state’s approach to investing in its workforce, and that programs such as these provide up-skilling opportunities to help employees keep up with technological advancements.

The state last week cemented several key IT leadership positions, promoting several interim leaders to permanent roles. This included Jim Sipe, who was promoted from state chief information security officer to executive deputy CIO. Pardoe said she’s been working with closely Sipe and his successor, Andy Ritter, who’d been serving as interim CISO since October, to ensure the state is ready for upcoming events with elevated risk profiles.

“When we have the [United States’] 250th anniversary, the NFL draft, the World Cup, that also comes with significant cyber risk, so we have to look at that entire stack of infrastructure and think about how we can make sure we are absolutely secured going into a very exciting time in Pennsylvania,” Pardoe said. “All my friends are excited. And I’m thinking about all of the risk, and so we are balancing those things, but you know, stepping into this role and really seeing the level of expertise and support that we have to bring those things to life, and my job is to just clear the path so that we can be as effective as possible.”

But in everything she plans to build, streamline and modernize across the state, Pardoe said, she is keeping her digital services experience front and center: “It’s been interesting moving from my role in CODE PA into my role as CIO, because there’s a lot of forward-facing experiences that CODE PA was focused on, like pa.gov grants. And so much of my accountability now is on keeping the train on the tracks behind the scenes, so that when you go to a website, it’s going to load, it’s going to work, it’s going to be fast, and those experiences are going to be best in class.”