A pair of departures in the federal technology community

Nand Mulchandani’s time as chief technologist for the CIA has come to an end. In an email to FedScoop, Mulchandani announced that his last day with the intelligence agency was June 21, exactly three years to the day that he was sworn in as its first CTO in 2022. Though he’s stepping down from the CTO role and as a full-time agency employee, Mulchandani said he will retain a role as an adviser to the CIA. Separately, in a public post on LinkedIn, he said he’s “planning to return to my roots in the tech industry as an entrepreneur, board member and advisor, and to spend time in academia.” Playfully, he now lists his latest role on his LinkedIn profile as the founder of an entity called “Sharks with Lasers,” a comical reference to the concept brought to life by Dr. Evil in the film “Austin Powers in Goldmember.” Mulchandani wrote: “I’ll deeply miss the Agency, its mission, and my friends and colleagues there, and will always be grateful for an experience that was, in every way, life changing.” Mulchandani also spent three years in the Department of Defense as chief technology officer for the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, a predecessor organization for what is now the Chief Digital and AI Office. There, he played an important role in institutionalizing the Pentagon’s centralized AI capacity. After nearly three decades of federal service, Winston Beauchamp announced on July 4 that he’s departing from his role within the Department of the Air Force. Beauchamp began working for the department in 2015, and most recently served as the director of security, special program oversight and information protection within the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. In that role, he oversaw the Air and Space Forces’ highly-classified special access programs (SAP) and worked on insider threat mitigation. But Beauchamp’s 29-year career spans across multiple positions at the Department of the Air Force, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). By and large, he either led or was involved in several critical events within the national security space — so much so that someone once described him as “the Forrest Gump of the national security world.” In an exclusive interview with DefenseScoop, Beauchamp shard more about his decadeslong career and what’s on the horizon with his departure. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.