About Our Council

Marcela Escobar-Alava serves as the Deputy Commissioner and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Social Security Administration (SSA). As SSA’s senior information and technology executive, Escobar-Alava oversees the day-to-day activities of SSA’s Digital Modernization Strategy and Transformation, managing a $2B budget and a team of approximately 6,000 government and contract team members.

Prior to her role with the SSA, she served as Special Assistant to the President and Chief of Enterprise Applications for the Office of Administration where she delivered technology strategy and enterprise solutions across the Executive Office of the President. Within the Biden-Harris Administration, she also served as the Deputy Director of White House Information Technology.

Prior to her federal service, she was the transformational CIO for Monarch Companies where she led the integration of acquisitions towards a unified culture and single operating model. Prior to Monarch, she was the Chief Digital Officer for the Hispanic Scholarship Fund where she developed the digital products, technology and marketing strategies to enable the broadest reach, largest grants, donations and generational impact the organization has ever attained. Prior to HSF, she was the Divisional CIO for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, a multi-billion-dollar division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. In that role, she oversaw the Global Information Technology strategy and direction to support and enable Home Entertainment’s business operations, including sales, marketing, manufacturing, distribution, business intelligence, finance, and digital functions.

Originally from Los Angeles, Escobar-Alava holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in International Business from Loyola Marymount University, and a Master’s of Business Administration in Information Systems and Operations Management from the University of Southern California. Her proudest accomplishment has been to have a progressive career while raising 3 beautiful and generous human beings, Alex, Nikki & Robert. She continues to give back as a mentor, inspirational speaker and has served and led a variety of non-profit boards and Advisory Committees at the local and national level within the STEM, Early childhood education, Higher Ed and DE&I spaces.