Federal 100: Adm. James G. Stavridis

Adm. James G. Stavridis
Commander, U.S. European Command
and NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
Defense Department

Adm. James Stavridis leads a command of more than 100,000 personnel scattered across nearly 11 million square miles of land and 13 million square miles of ocean. One of the best ways to communicate across such a vast swath of territory is social networking. And no leader does it better than Stavridis.

He uses tools such as Facebook and Twitter to build cooperation abroad, communicate security strategies and maintain peacekeeping operations.

“Stavridis has interwoven social media and strategic messaging with national security implications,” said Robert Carey, DOD’s deputy CIO. “He does all the messaging himself.... He is a State Department tactician and an instrument of the president and defense secretary. This is a transparent leader using IT as an instrument of national policy, and that’s something that hasn’t been seen before.”

Read more about the 2011 Federal 100 award winners.