GSA citizen services IT office gets a new leader

The General Services Administration office developing technologies to help the government better serve citizens is finally getting an official leader.

GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini announced in a blog post Tuesday the promotion of Phaedra Chrousos to associate administrator of the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. Chrousos joined GSA in June 2014 as its first chief customer officer.

The GSA OCSIT associate administrator position has been in transition since Dave McClure announced his departure from federal government in April. As McClure moved on to cybersecurity firm Veris Group, Kathy Conrad, then-principal deputy associate administrator at OCSIT, stepped up to the role of acting associate administrator.

Chrousos will receive direct support from Conrad in her new role, with a direct line of communication to 18F Executive Director Greg Godbout, Tangherlini wrote in the post. She will also retain her job as CCO, in which she supports the voice of the customer in everything GSA does, Tangherlini told FedScoop in December.

In November, Chrousos wrote a blog post of her own for GSA in which she described the first step in her new role as CCO as creating “a robust understanding of GSA’s customers, and a shared vision for what we want our customer experience to look like.”

“We’re meeting with all of our programs, interviewing hundreds of customers, combing through survey data, and creating customer journey maps. Naturally, this effort shines a light on areas of our customer experience that appear disjointed or need improvement,” she wrote. “As we’ve pulled together cross-functional teams from across GSA to work on improvement initiatives, we’ve looked not just to industry best practices but also to the agency itself for organically grown solutions.”

Before joining the federal government, Chrousos had a successful run in the startup world. In 2009, she co-founded health care startup HealthLeap, which was acquired by MDx Medical; after that, she co-founded digital media brand Daily Secret, for which she still maintains an advisory role, according to her LinkedIn profile.

“Phaedra is ideally suited for this role, given her experience founding and managing two successful companies in the digital media and healthcare industries, respectively,” Tangherlini wrote. “I am confident that she will do an outstanding job in this new position.”

This announcement comes as GSA continues an agencywide effort toward enhancing digital services for its customers, particularly through OCSIT and 18F.

“I see this role increasing to the point where GSA is as closely associated with digital technology as it is with the public buildings or acquisition,” Tangherlini wrote.