Jonathan Witter, DFAS Principal Deputy Director

Jonathan Witter was appointed the Principal Deputy Director in January 2021. In this capacity, he assists the Director, Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) in overseeing the day-to-day accounting and finance activities of the Department of Defense (DoD). DFAS employs over 11,000 DoD civilian and military personnel at 10 locations throughout the United States, Europe and the Pacific. In fiscal year 2023, the agency disbursed over $598.2 billion by processing 135.4 million pay transactions to 6.5 million military personnel, federal civilian employees, military retirees and annuitants; 11.7 million commercial invoices; and 4.8 million travel payments. Responsible for 1,601 active DoD appropriations, DFAS is the trust fund manager for $755 billion in foreign military sales and $1.8 trillion in military retirement and health benefit funds. Last year, DFAS maintained more than 50.7 million general ledger accounts containing billions of transactions and handles accounts for worldwide operations and multi-disciplined appropriations of DoD.

Prior to this role, Mr. Witter served as the 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 Department of Defense and other non-DoD agencies. He also has served as 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, DoD’s Acquisition Commands, and multiple Defense Agencies. He joined DFAS in 2006 as the Director, Business Requirements and Integration and led financial management modernization initiatives for DFAS and DoD.

During his career, Mr. Witter has served in joint executive leadership positions at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (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 Defense Inspector General, performing Defense-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 DoD Financial Management Certification Program and is a certified lean6 Green Belt. He is a member of both the Association of Government Accountants and American Society of Military Comptrollers.

Updated January 17, 2024