Maliz Beams, who was spearheading Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s initiative to reduce the size of the agency, is stepping down after three months on the job, according to a new report.
Beams’s role was intended to oversee the reorganization of the State Department, a top priority for Tillerson. She was named as counselor to the department on Aug. 17.
Beams is returning to her home in Boston and Christine Ciccone, Tillerson’s deputy chief of staff, will head up the overhaul, Bloomberg reported Monday.
Tillerson has faced pushback for his plan within the department and Congress, which have said important positions are not being filled and that morale remains low.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign relations has said Tillerson’s team is not “anywhere close to having a plan to present relative to the reforms that they want to make there.”
Reports of low morale at the State Department have emerged, but Tillerson has refuted that there is an issue.
“I walk the halls, people smile,” he told Bloomberg last month. “If it’s as bad as it seems to be described, I’m not seeing it, I’m not getting it.”
