Lisa W. Hershman (born November 13, 1963) is an American government official who served as the chief management officer of the Department of Defense from December 19, 2019, to January 1, 2021. She previously served as the Deputy Chief Management Officer of the Department of Defense from April 13, 2018, to December 19, 2019. On December 1, 2018, she became the acting chief management officer of the Department of Defense following the resignation of John H. Gibson. On July 22, 2019, Hershman was nominated for the position of Chief Management Officer of the Department of Defense.[3] On December 19, 2019, this nomination was approved by a voice vote of the U.S. Senate, making her the highest-ranking woman ever confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a Pentagon position at the time. Upon her departure from the Pentagon in January 2021, Hershman was awarded the Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest civilian honor awarded by the Department of Defense. Hershman was further honored by having a room at the Pentagon named in her honor – the first room in the history of the Pentagon to be officially named after a woman. Education Hershman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering and industrial distribution from Clarkson University. She has also studied innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland. She later received an executive certificate in finance from Cornell University. Career As the chief management officer of the Department of Defense, Hershman worked with the Secretary of Defense on policy development, planning, resource management, and program evaluation responsibilities related to business transformation and reform throughout the department. Her role had direct oversight of a more than $160 billion budget and 120,000 employees of the 28 Defense Agencies and Field Activities known informally as the Fourth Estate, which includes the Defense Logistics Agency, the Defense Finance Accounting Service, the Defense Health Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, among others. Tasked by the Secretary of Defense to improve its fiscal planning process, Hershman successfully completed the first unified budget build of these agencies in the history of the department. Leading her Pentagon team, Hershman achieved more than $37 billion in reform savings, which was independently validated by the Government Accountability Office. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hershman served as the senior official in charge of COVID response for the Department of Defense office space in the