Harsha Vakkalanka

Harsha Vakkalanka is an innovative leader with over 25 years of experience in different roles in technology services. He has led many initiatives around Strategic Plans, Portfolio Analysis, Organizational Assessments, IT Roadmaps, Technical Architecture Evaluations, and Cost-Benefit Analysis. He has led numerous cutting-edge technology implementations both CONUS and OCONUS and has a proven track record of building high-performance teams, implementing best practice methodologies, and continuous improvement programs.

Harsha Vakkalanka joined the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) as the Chief Information Officer in October 2020. PRAC’s mission is to promote transparency and use data to detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. PRAC was created by the CARES Act to support and coordinate independent oversight of pandemic relief spending.

The PRAC’s goal was to build an affordable, flexible, and scalable analytics platform that can support OIGs during their pandemic-related work. The Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE) was established in support of this effort. The PACE is led by the PRAC’s Chief Data Officer, who in coordination with the Chief Information Officer, is responsible for the coordination of technology, data, and business priorities.

Harsha is responsible for driving the adoption of cloud services, cost-effectively utilizing technology in alignment with PRAC’s goals, cybersecurity, fostering and hiring the right talent in the support of IT Services for Technology Business Management.

He holds a Master's degree in Computer Science and holds numerous certifications such as CSPO, CISM, CDPSE, FITSI-M, Continuous Delivery and DevOps.