New Deputy Chief Financial Officer comes to SI from the National Science Foundation

John Lynskey has been selected as the Smithsonian’s new Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Controller within the Office of the Under Secretary for Administration. He will begin in this new role on June 28.

Lynskey comes to the Smithsonian from the U.S. National Science Foundation, where he served as the Controller for the past 20 years, overseeing day-to-day financial operations for a $10 billion agency. As Controller and Financial Management Senior Executive, his responsibilities included fiscal stewardship of NSF’s daily financial operations and leading NSF programs for internal control, improper payments, financial audit, and strategic financial initiatives. Under his stewardship, NSF achieved sustained success in obtaining 100 percent “clean” audit opinions as well as financial reporting excellence.

Prior to his time at the NSF, Lynskey spent eight years serving the U.S. Secret Service, where he developed their first financial statements and a detailed budget model for protective events. His duties also included serving as part of security teams for events such as political conventions, United Nations General Assemblies, the State of the Union Address, and the Olympics.

Lynskey has been very active in the Association of Government Accountants, where he has served in many positions culminating as the AGA National President from 2018-2019. He graduated with honors in 1989 from James Madison University in Virginia with a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting. John is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Government Financial Manager.

“John will be responsible for overseeing the daily financial and accounting operations of the Smithsonian,” said Under Secretary for Administration Ron Cortez. “He will advise senior leadership and unit management on financial issues as well as current and new financial management and accounting rules and regulations. During his transition from July through September, John will be sharing his time between both agencies. He will be on board with us full-time in October.” Cortez continued. “I hope you will join me in welcoming John to the Smithsonian! We look forward to his contributions and having him on our team.”

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