Leadership
About
The founder and leader of Cyrrus Analytics is Richard Beutel
A nationally recognized expert in IT acquisition management and cloud policy, Richard Beutel has 25 years of private sector experience and was the founder and co-managing director of the Dell Government Relations Team.
Beutel left government service in 2015 to establish Cyrrus Analytics LLC, a boutique policy and legislative affairs consultant specializing in IT acquisitions and deployments for the federal government. He is currently a Senior Researcher at the Baroni Center for Government Contracts at George Mason University, following his time as an Adjunct Faculty member at Georgetown University Law Center.
In 2020, Beutel was appointed as a Director of the prestigious Procurement Roundtable. Previously, he served on the Executive Committee of ACT-IAC, working to implement reforms in IT acquisitions and to accelerate the deployment of modern digital technologies across the federal enterprise.
Beutel was instrumental in numerous major initiatives to advance the original Cloud First Policy by pushing IT modernization frameworks across the federal government. He assisted in the preparation of the original text of the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act, working directly with Senate staffers to push forward this essential proposal to modernize IT across the federal government.
While in Congress, Beutel worked as a Professional Staff Member in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (ranking Member Susan Collins), as well as the House Oversight Committee (Chairman Darryl Issa). In both assignments, Beutel was the subject matter expert on acquisition and IT policy, reporting directly to the Chief of Staff and the Ranking Member/Chairman.
During his tenure in the House, Beutel recognized the need to empower federal CIO's with the necessary tools and authorities to drive a modern, 21rst century digital government. Based upon his research, he authored (and served as legislative manager) for the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA). FITARA was signed into law in December 2014, and provides Chief Information Officers (CIO's) with unprecedented budgetary and legal authority over the operation and deployment of critical Information Technology systems across the federal government.
