Dive Brief:
- The White House named Megan Smith, a former Google executive, as the nation's new chief technology officer. Smith will follow in the footsteps of Todd Park, Athenahealth co-founder, who left the position to move back to Silicon Valley.
- At Google, Smith worked on the Google[x] project, a research and development program for long-term technology projects, like Google's glucose-sensing contact lens.
- Alexander Macgillivray, formerly general counsel at Twitter, will be Smith's deputy, according to a blog posted Thursday from the Obama administration. Macgillivray will focus on "Internet policy, intellectual property policy, and the intersection of big data, technology and privacy," according to the White House.
Dive Insight:
As CTO for HHS, Park developed Healthcare.gov; As U.S. CTO, he later helped with the repair and error-fraught relaunch of the site. This will doubtless be a large part of Smith's new role. At Google, Smith's job was to look to the future and bet on what was to come. In this position, it is expected that she tap into that expertise and be an "agenda-setting and forward-looking" part of the President’s team, according to the Washington Post.
Want to read more? You may enjoy this story on Todd Park's decision to leave his role as CTO.
