Name: Dave Powner
Title: Director of IT Management Issues
Agency/Company: Government Accountability Office
Oversight optimist. GAO auditors can sometimes be adversarial figures. But Powner views oversight as a collaborative effort, and it shows in his work and in the collegial way he presents his findings during congressional hearings. He is passionate about building relationships with CIOs and helping agencies move away from legacy IT and reduce maintenance costs by finding ways to ramp up investment in cloud technology. Powner’s work on developing the scorecard methodology for measuring improvements under the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act was particularly important in 2016, earning him plaudits even from CIOs who had hoped for better marks.