Biden taps 18F veteran Robin Carnahan to lead GSA

Robin Carnahan, formerly Missouri's secretary of state and the lead of state and local government practice at 18F, is the administration's pick to lead the General Services Administration.

Carnahan founded GSA's state and local practice in 2016 and led the effort through 2020. The state and local practice grew out of a pilot project in California to rebuild the state's legacy Child Welfare System using human-centered design and agile acquisition and development practices.

More recently, Carnahan has been active in efforts to urge federal coordination for modernizing overstressed state and local legacy unemployment insurance and other benefits systems. The weaknesses in those systems have been exposed by claims activity associated with the pandemic and economic crisis.

"I've spent my career working to improve the delivery of government services to the public," Carnahan tweeted on Tuesday. GSA "plays a critical role in the government's ability to effectively deliver services, and I am honored to be nominated...to lead this important agency at this important moment."

Carnahan is currently a fellow at Georgetown University's Beeck Center and is co-founder of the State Software Collaborative.