Tracy Lee
Shady Side,MD
Summary
With a distinguished federal career, including thirteen years in the Senior Executive Service, I bring extensive experience in information technology strategy, planning, budgeting, operations, applications development, product management, coaching, and transformation. As a strategic leader, I have a proven track record of driving organizational success and fostering team collaboration. My expertise lies in developing and implementing high-impact strategies, ensuring operational excellence, and adapting to dynamic business environments.
Overview
37
37
years of professional experience
Work History
IRS Technology Transformation Executive Lead
Internal Revenue Service
11.2023 - 03.2025
- Fully accountable to establish vision, strategically plan, and oversee execution of foundational technology transformation
- With an initial planned budget of $20B portfolio over 10 years, I designed a strategy to migrate all legacy applications and technology to a digital, platform-based architecture
- I partnered with the CIO and CTO to identify priorities, align resources, develop execution plans, and deliver over 100 innovative new capabilities each year to improve tax administration and make it more efficient
- Appointed by the CIO to lead historic IRS technology transformation with a portfolio of over $20B over ten years
- Coordinated across the IRS to understand customer needs and challenges, and to design a prioritized roadmap to deliver valuable improvements to IT services and capabilities
- Oversaw the execution of Year 1 of the IT transformation, to include reporting to the IRS Commissioner and Senior Executive Team, US Treasury, and other key stakeholders
- Managed risk, cost, schedule, and governance activities
- Developed the corporate strategy to migrate a complex legacy ecosystem that leverages an innovative model to enhance business value and accelerate technology delivery with improved technology operations
- Instrumental in transitioning the IRS legacy delivery model to a new customer-centric and agile operating model that accelerates technology delivery, leveraging managed service providers to deliver capabilities through common platforms
- Completed development of the Individual Tax Processing Engine that converts legacy ALC to Java for retirement of Individual Masterfile (IMF) for the first time in ~60 years
- Within six months, partnered with Business stakeholders to implement low-code/no-code solutions to eliminate the need for shadow IT within non-IT organizations
Associate Chief Information Officer, Enterprise Operations
Internal Revenue Service
10.2022 - 11.2023
- Led the largest IRS IT departmental office, accountable for the performance of 14 Executive Directors and 2,500 employees and contractors, and an annual $160M budget
- Ensured integrity and availability of all IRS systems, network, and data through the leadership of two large IRS data centers that process tax and information returns, support customers online and via call-centers, and enable compliance and enforcement capabilities
- I was responsible for leading IRS Filing Season Readiness to ensure performance targets were met
- I spearheaded operational excellence and improved performance measures, which resulted in the first outage-free filing season in 2023
- I championed FinOps and DevSecOps practices, optimized the usage of cloud and on-prem resources, implemented an improved IT Asset Management policy and processes to reduce security risks, and significantly improved the performance of several Executive Directors
- I functioned as the CIO advisor during all production issues, and led rapid response and expeditious resolution across dozens of IRS organizations and vendor partners to minimize downtime and improve customer experience
- I regularly engaged with C-Level vendor executives to establish strategic partnerships and to drive expected high performance
- I directed multiple major contract awards and implementations, including large scale Customer Relationship Management platforms (Salesforce and ServiceNow) and the IRS portal
- I led the migration of terabytes of data from On-Prem data centers to a cloud based Managed Service Provider, reducing the IRS operations budget by tens of millions per year
Associate Chief Information Officer, Strategy and Planning
Internal Revenue Service
09.2020 - 10.2022
- Managing a portfolio over $4B, I developed a comprehensive integrated financial management program to plan, analyze, execute and report on all technology spend
- I led Capital Planning and Investment Control for over 500 IT investments, reporting quarterly on portfolio health to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Government Accounting Office (GAO), and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA)
- I instituted IT Risk Management practices, implemented the IT Workforce Strategy to address employee reskilling and cultural change, and delivered a CIO Dashboard to measure technology service delivery to internal and external customers
- I ensured agency compliance with Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and provided adaptive technology for employees
- Significantly, I delivered the IRS Modernization Plan to transform IRS from legacy systems and manual processes to a digital organization focused on world class taxpayer service with enhanced compliance and enforcement
- I served on the enterprise leadership team who expanded on this document to deliver the IRS Strategic Operating Plan- a 10 year view into a full transformation for the IRS business, human capital and technology operations per the Inflation Reduction Act
Sr Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement
Internal Revenue Service
06.2020 - 09.2020
- I served an urgent temporary role as the primary advisor to the Deputy Commissioner, representing business interests to quickly establish remote work capabilities for 50K IRS employees during the COVID-19 Pandemic
- I engaged directly with the CIO to define and negotiate priorities to ensure IRS continuity of operations
- This effort included procuring and installing new technology for remote work and increasing network bandwidth across all 50 states
Dpty Associate Chief Information Officer
Internal Revenue Service
01.2018 - 01.2020
- I was responsible for maintaining and enhancing over 300 applications that run 24x7, 365 days per year to administer the tax system
- My teams enabled the processing of 200 million individual and business tax returns, received over 3 billion information returns, issued all IRS notices and correspondence, collected over $3 trillion in revenue, and securely stored all taxpayer data
- At the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I anticipated the massive technology contribution that would be required of the IRS and immediately stood up a 24X7 team to deliver the CARES ACT
- I established executive relationships and MOUs with Social Security Administration, Bureau of Fiscal Services, and the Veterans Administration to securely collect the necessary data
- This unprecedented effort resulted in the first 130M Economic Impact Payments being issued within 60 days
- The framework I designed was reused to deliver payments for the Consolidated Appropriations Act and the American Rescue Plan, with over 450M payments totaling $800B issued in just over one year
Director, Corporate Data Domain- Applications Development
Internal Revenue Service
01.2015 - 01.2018
- I was responsible for maintaining and enhancing IRS core tax processing systems and the Masterfile- where the entire tax history of all taxpayers is securely stored and leveraged for conducting audits, issuing notices, and conducting compliance and collection activities
- Processing of 200 million individual and business tax returns, received over 3 billion information returns, issued all IRS notices and correspondence, collected over $3 trillion in revenue, and securely stored all taxpayer data
- To accomplish this, I led an organization of 350+ employees with $75M in annual vendor support to deliver two major integrated releases per year
- This complex environment of modern and legacy systems included those built in the 1960s, which gave me the unique opportunity to develop strategies for retaining critical but outdated legacy developer skillsets while incrementally building new systems in more modern technology
- Concurrently, I served as the IRS Executive Technology Lead for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was the most significant tax code reform in over 3 decades
- Alongside the CIO and the Commissioner of Wage and Investment, I received the Presidential Gears of Government Award for my leadership
- Other significant contributions include launching the redesign of hundreds of IRS Notices, initiating adoption of Agile development practices, and addressing longstanding cultural issues between IRS staff and vendor teams
Director, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)
Internal Revenue Service
01.2012 - 01.2014
- I led the strategic planning, design and technical implementation of a new ecosystem that enabled all Foreign Financial Institutions and Foreign Governments to comply with US FATCA legislative requirements
- I procured IRS’s first Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud and implemented international financial reporting with secure two-way communication within 4 months of contract award
- I obtained crucial Direct Hire Authority from US Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) and built an outstanding and innovative technical team that was recognized with industry awards for leveraging Agile development practices in government
Senior Manager, Applications Development
Internal Revenue Service
01.1999 - 01.2011
- I built and led a team to perform functional, performance and integration testing of the initial release of IRS electronic tax filing
- I designed the test strategy, hired staff, secured contracts and training, oversaw the build-out of test environments and established the foundational XML data set for testing electronic forms
- I also led major releases of legislative changes, integrating across 100+ systems to support efficient tax processing each year
- I led the first phase of Individual Masterfile modernization- moving the IRS from weekly to daily processing of tax returns
- As a top IRS leader, I was selected for the prestigious Executive Readiness Program
Manager, IT Operations Magnetic Media Unit
Internal Revenue Service
01.1995 - 01.1998
- I led 30 employees across 3 shifts to effectively manage an inventory of 150,000+ pieces of magnetic media containing sensitive taxpayer data
- I was awarded IRS Headquarters Best Practice Award for outstanding data management practices
- I led the effort to disband my Unit and migrate all data to the Martinsburg Computing Center during IRS Mainframe Consolidation, and was commended for my organizational and transformational leadership
Submissions Processing and Information Technology Specialist
Internal Revenue Service
01.1988 - 01.1995
- I began my career in the mailroom at the IRS Service Center, where I was rapidly promoted to Team Lead for demonstrating outstanding leadership competencies
- I ensured the achievement of production quotas for 50 employees in support of tax filing season
- I was further promoted to the Mainframe Operations team where I contributed to office automations
Skills
- Twenty five years management and executive experience in information technology strategy, transformation, budgeting, data center operations, applications development, product management, and leadership development
- A recipient of the PerformanceGov 'Gears of Government President's Award' from President Trump, for leading the IT implementation of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the largest overhaul of the tax code in over three decades
- A recipient of the Internal Revenue Service Commissioner’s Award for driving efficient operations
- Delivered the IRS Technology Modernization Plan
- Key contributor to the 2023 IRS Strategic Operating Plan (SOP), which is guiding a multi-year enterprise digital transformation
- Led the IRS IT rapid response to the CARES Act, the largest economic relief package in US history, including the delivery of 130M Economic Impact Payments within 60 days
- Finalist for the ACT-IAC ExcellenceGOV award for IT Innovation Excellence
- Led Strategy and Planning, the IT budget, planning and oversight organization with over $4B in annual spend
- A recipient of the Internal Revenue Service Deputy Commissioner for Operations Award
- A recipient of the Internal Revenue Service Chief Information Officer’s Individual Award
- Appointed to provide advice and counsel to the IRS Deputy Commissioner to develop rapid response to Covid-19 Pandemic
- Outstanding Senior Executive performer – eleven of thirteen years as an executive
Timeline
IRS Technology Transformation Executive Lead
Internal Revenue Service
11.2023 - 03.2025
Associate Chief Information Officer, Enterprise Operations
Internal Revenue Service
10.2022 - 11.2023
Associate Chief Information Officer, Strategy and Planning
Internal Revenue Service
09.2020 - 10.2022
Sr Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement
Internal Revenue Service
06.2020 - 09.2020
Dpty Associate Chief Information Officer
Internal Revenue Service
01.2018 - 01.2020
Director, Corporate Data Domain- Applications Development
Internal Revenue Service
01.2015 - 01.2018
Director, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)
Internal Revenue Service
01.2012 - 01.2014
Senior Manager, Applications Development
Internal Revenue Service
01.1999 - 01.2011
Manager, IT Operations Magnetic Media Unit
Internal Revenue Service
01.1995 - 01.1998
Submissions Processing and Information Technology Specialist
Internal Revenue Service
01.1988 - 01.1995
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