President Donald Trump has nominated Ryan Cote to become the assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer (CIO) at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the White House announced on Tuesday.
The dual-hatted role is currently filled in an acting capacity by Eddie Pool, who previously served as the agency’s deputy CIO. Pool took over the role for political appointee Kurt DelBene, who left the job in January 2025.
As the CIO, the assistant secretary is responsible for overseeing the VA’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) and delivering secure, cost-effective technology services to the department. The assistant secretary serves as the principal advisor to the VA secretary and deputy secretary on matters relating to information and technology management.
Cote is no stranger to the Federal IT scene. He previously served as CIO at the Transportation Department (DoT) from 2019 to 2021, where he oversaw an annual IT budget of $3.7 billion.
In an exclusive interview with MeriTalk in 2020, Cote shared how he quickly leveraged technology during the COVID-19 pandemic to allow DoT employees to work from home safely.
“We were able to leverage the technology we had and improve it so when we went to maximum telework, it simply worked instantly,” Cote told MeriTalk. “From the IT perspective, our largest priority has been ensuring that the technology is always available and that it’s robust, resilient, and secure. In less than 10 days, we switched from about 40 percent telework-ready to 100 percent telework-ready.”
Later that year, Cote joined a MeriTalk webinar in which he said the workforce landscape had “changed forever” due to remote work and new tech investments.
Prior to working in the Federal government, Cote worked at Gartner – an IT research and advisory company. As a CIO executive partner, Ryan advised fellow CIOs through Gartner’s Executive Partners Program.
He also serves on the advisory board at Nubeva Technologies, a developer of ransomware and network decryption software solutions. He has over 30 years of experience working in the IT business and is also a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps.
If confirmed, Cote will inherit major IT modernization projects at the VA, including the Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program, the Financial Management Business Transformation (FMBT) program, and the Digital GI Bill (DGIB) program.
The VA’s total budget request for fiscal year 2026 is $441.3 billion, which includes a proposed $3.5 billion to accelerate the EHRM program.