Name: James Cook
Title: Vice President, Strategic Engagement and Partnership
Company: MITRE Corp.
Modernizing with people in mind. Cook has long focused on IT modernization and the need for the government to buy better technology. That work reached a crescendo in 2018. However, Cook recognized that modernization also requires workforce changes. He led the creation of a workforce symposium hosted by the Office of Management and Budget that brought together human resources leaders to plan for the increasingly digital future of government work. “For him, it’s not a day job, a night job, a volunteer job,” said Judy Douglas, chair of ACT-IAC’s Institute for Innovation Advisory Board. “For Jim, this is who he is.”