Just as everyday life itself drastically changed over the past 15 months amid the COVID-19 pandemic, so did the concept of leadership.
As human touch and in-person interaction were removed from federal operations in large part during the pandemic, IT leaders were forced to communicate and engage with their teams in new — often virtual — ways. Nevertheless, the federal workforce and supporting industries rose to the occasion and sustained the vital technology operations and services that Americans depend on.
FedScoop is once again honoring the Best Bosses in Federal IT, this year with an emphasis on celebrating the decision-makers and champions of federal technology who rose to the occasion to lead their organizations in light of the continuing challenges of the COVID-19 crisis.
“The one thing the pandemic has shown us as a federal enterprise is that when we lean into using modern tools and technology, we can deliver on our mission in ways we initially thought were impossible,” Federal CIO Clare Martorana told FedScoop. “We’ve found new ways of working and collaborating with our colleagues — and have also identified areas in which we can be working smarter, such as by enabling digital signatures, launching agency self-service tools, websites that are focused on customer needs, and giving the federal workforce and the American people access to digital forms.”
Martorana continued: “The pandemic has shown us that it’s more important than ever to think about ways we can deliver exceptional customer service to our citizens anytime, anywhere, from any device securely. We have so many opportunities before us to turbocharge digital modernization efforts across government.”
The list of winners comprises CIOs, CISOs and other tireless federal IT decision-makers striving to deliver on their agency’s mission and serve the American public through technology. The list also includes leaders from industry who play an instrumental role in working with federal agencies to provide the mission-critical commercial technologies they use.
Nominees were sourced from community nominations and the winners chosen through open voting over the last several months.
As always, we interviewed the winners, this time, placing an added emphasis on the importance of leadership and how they had to adapt over this past year to keep their agencies successful in the pursuit of their missions.
Please join us in congratulating the winners and see their thoughts on federal IT leadership in profiles below.