Jonathan Witter, DFAS Director

Jonathan Witter is the Director of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) as of November 18, 2025. Mr. Witter leads the day-to-day accounting and finance activities of the Department of War (DOW). DFAS employs over 9,900 DOW civilian and military personnel at 10 locations throughout the United States, Europe and the Pacific. In fiscal year 2025, the agency disbursed over $652 billion by processing 132 million pay transactions to 6.6 million military personnel, federal civilian employees, military retirees and annuitants; 12.4 million commercial invoices; and 5.2 million travel payments. Responsible for 1,619 active DOW appropriations, DFAS is the trust fund manager for $933 billion in foreign military sales and $2.4 trillion in military retirement and health benefit funds. Last year, DFAS maintained more than 38.2 million general ledger accounts containing billions of transactions and handles accounts for worldwide operations and multi-disciplined appropriations of DOW.

Prior to this role, Mr. Witter served as the Principal Deputy Director since January 2021, where he assisted the DFAS Director in overseeing the day-to-day accounting and finance activities of the DOW. Other positions held with DFAS include serving as DFAS Director’s Deputy for Operations where he led the agency’s mission-based organizations, which provide finance and accounting global shared services support to the DOW and other non-DOW agencies. Mr. Witter was also the DFAS Director’s Deputy for Strategy and Support, where he was responsible for developing and guiding implementation of the agency’s strategy and directing the agency’s mission support activities. Mr. Witter was Director of the DFAS Columbus network where he oversaw a full spectrum of accounting, disbursing, call center and systems operations supporting the Department of the Air Force, DOW’s Acquisition Commands, and multiple Department Agencies. He joined DFAS in 2006 as the Director, Business Requirements and Integration and led financial management modernization initiatives for DFAS and DOW.

During his career, Mr. Witter has served in joint executive leadership positions at the Office of the Under Secretary of War (Comptroller) culminating as the Director of Finance and Accounting Policy and the Director of Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness.

Mr. Witter began his federal career in 1995 as an auditor in the Office of the Department of War Inspector General, performing Department-wide operational and financial statement audits.

Mr. Witter is an Indiana University of Pennsylvania graduate and has a master's degree from Central Michigan University. He has completed executive leadership programs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to being a certified public accountant, Mr. Witter has earned level 3 certification in the DOW Financial Management Certification Program and is a certified Lean6 Green Belt. He is a member of both the AGA, previously named the Association of Government Accountants, and the Society of Defense Financial Management (SDFM)

Updated Dec. 5, 2025