Venice Goodwine exiting role as Air Force CIO

Venice Goodwine, who has served as the Department of the Air Force’s chief information officer since 2023, announced Thursday that she will depart from federal service after more than three decades of working for the government.

“This concludes a rewarding journey through military service, private industry, and government leadership. It’s been an honor to support our mission, lead technology initiatives, and work alongside the exceptional personnel of our Air and Space Forces,” she said in a post on LinkedIn announcing her exit. 

Goodwine was tapped to serve as DAF CIO in August 2023, and oversaw modernization efforts for information technology, cybersecurity, data and artificial intelligence for both the Air and Space Forces. She led several initiatives throughout her tenure that aimed to streamline the DAF’s experimentation and adoption of emerging AI capabilities, while also pushing for increased transparency on the department’s development and spending on the technology.

In 2024, she helped stand up the DAF’s NIPRGPT 1.0 platform, where airmen, guardians, civilian employees and contractors can interact with a generative AI chatbot on the Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet). The tool served as a way for the department to experiment with large language models to help determine best use cases in the future.

Goodwine was also involved in the department’s work to adopt zero-trust cybersecurity frameworks, as mandated by the Pentagon. Her Zero Trust Strategy, released last year, emphasized leveraging cloud-based capabilities and integrating identity, credential, and access management (ICAM) solutions.

Prior to serving as DAF CIO, Goodwine was the director of enterprise information technology for the department. She previously spent more than two years as chief information security officer at the Department of Agriculture.

Goodwine is an Air Force veteran, having joined active duty in 1986 and serving as a signals intelligence analyst. She then served in the Air Force Reserve from 2002 until her retirement from uniformed military service in 2022.

Although she is leaving federal service, Goodwine noted in her LinkedIn post that she is open to other opportunities outside of government.

“After years of tackling complex challenges, I’m looking forward to this period of rest and reflection. But make no mistake—this is just a break, not an ending. I remain excited about future opportunities and new ways to contribute,” she wrote.