Mats Persson, Deputy Director, Information and Technology

Mats Persson is the Deputy Director of Information and Technology for the Defense Finance and Account Service.  He joined DFAS in 2015 and assists the director with oversight and direction of DFAS information technology expenditures of approximately $350 million per year.

Prior to this assignment, Mr. Persson served as the Director of Financial Management with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a component within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).   He joined DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2011.  

Mr. Persson served as one of the leads to support DHS in receiving a clean audit opinion in 2013 and 2014.  He received a joint Financial Management award from DHS Chief Financial Officer in 2013 for this accomplishment.  In Fiscal Year 2014, his organization made the largest audit improvement of all DHS organizations and two material weaknesses were eliminated.

Mr. Persson joined DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2011 where he was responsible for managing two Finance Centers in Burlington and Dallas.

Mr. Persson joined the Department of Defense as a Highly Qualified Expert (HQE) in 2007 serving as the Program Executive Officer for Financial Systems in the Business Transformation Agency (BTA).   During his four -year tenure, he worked exclusively with the OSD Comptroller and DFAS on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) initiatives.  He served as the Program Executive for the Defense Agency Initiative and several major DFAS systems such as the Business Enterprise Information Services (BEIS), the Defense Departmental Reporting System (DDRS), and the Defense Cash Accounting System (DCAS).  

Mr. Persson served as a partner for Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) from 1997 to 2007 when he left to join DoD.  He was Program Manager for a number of major Information Technology programs while with CSC.  He was involved with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Financial Systems implementation of SAP software which supported a "clean" audit opinion for the IRS in the first year of the new system. 

Mr. Persson worked for Oracle Corporation between 1987 and 1992.  During this time, Oracle released the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suite (Oracle Financials) and was one of the first Project Managers in the world to implement the technology. 

He earned his Bachelor of Science in Investment and Finance from the University of Karlstad, Sweden and his Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden.

Page updated May 12, 2015