Jim Williams, former acting administrator of the General Services Administration and partner at Schambach & Williams Consulting, discusses the exodus of staff at GSA, and why finding a replacement leader for the Technology Transformation Service will be a challenge.
Several senior employees at the General Services Administration have announced their departures. These include Assistant Commissioner of IT Kay Ely, Login.gov head Joel Minton, Technical Advisor Dave Zvenyach and Technology Transformation Service head Joanne Collins Smee. Jim Williams, former acting administrator of GSA and partner at Schambach & Williams Consulting, says that finding a replacement for Smee will be important, but difficult. “It’s got to be someone who understands transformation, understands technology, and knows how to work in an environment where not everybody works for you. You really have to bring a lot of stakeholders together,” said Williams. “When they pick that next lighthouse agency after USDA… how do you continue that success? One of the administration’s major goals is modernizing information technology infrastructure to deliver better citizen services. It takes a lot of different people working together in the White House, whoever the next lighthouse agency is, working with GSA and 18F… a lot of those people were hired on term positions and they are going to cycling out. It is a big challenge.”
