Lorelie Diestro

Lorelie Diestro serves as the Deputy Director of Digital Innovations for the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) in Arlington, Virginia.

Lorelie is a customer-centered, results-driven IT professional with over 14 years of experience delivering innovative solutions that maximize operational efficiency, streamline business processes, and enhance the customer experience. She has extensive experience in transforming legacy systems and paper forms into smart digital forms with automated workflows, following the industry standard ITIL framework, for a variety of business units including Information Technology, Finance, Ethics and Compliance, Research Administration, Business Development, Communications, and Design.

As the Deputy Director of Digital Innovations, Lorelie is responsible for guiding and executing the corporate strategy for implementing innovative solutions that achieve business objectives and solve business problems. She works closely with business units across the organization to lead discovery sessions to understand the environment, identify business needs, and define functional requirements to ensure high quality technology services.

Prior to this position, Lorelie worked for almost 14 years at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. She began her professional career in the Human Resources department before pivoting to Information Technology where she held positions of increasing responsibility. Lorelie served as an Applications Support Analyst, acting as the functional analyst for Oracle E-Business Suite customers; Business Process Analyst, where she supported the implementation of the organization’s first automated business process management system for Contracts and Procurement staff located in the U.S., Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Thailand; and Senior Digital Innovations Manager, where she implemented the ServiceNow platform and managed the team of engineers and developers overseeing system administration.

Lorelie holds a Master’s Degree in Information Technology, with a focus in Systems Engineering from the University of Maryland Global Campus. She is a member of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, having ranked in the top 10 percent of her graduating class. Lorelie also holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Physical Sciences with a primary concentration in Aerospace Engineering and secondary concentrations in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park, and was the founding class member of Alpha Omega Epsilon, the University of Maryland’s first engineering sorority.