Jennifer Kerber joins GSA

The General Services Administration's Office of Citizens Services and Technologies has a new addition to its team: former TechAmerica Foundation president Jennifer Kerber.

In the last few months OCSIT lost two major cloud leaders, David McClure and Katie Lewin, and now Kerber will be stepping into her first federal government position as director of Federal Cloud Credential Exchange program. GSA announced early on June 9 that Kerber "will be working in partnership with our FCCX team and our agency partners," the U.S. Postal Service and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Since April of last year, Kerber has served as executive director of the Government Transformation Group, a non-profit coalition that works to improve the effectiveness of federal government.

Prior to that, she was at TechAmerica for several years in various roles, until January 2012 when she was named president of the TechAmerica Foundation. Kerber filled that role for more than a year.

Olga Grkavac, a former head of public sector at TechAmerica, met Kerber when she came in to interview at the association.

"One of the many reasons we hired her was because of her rare expertise in identity management issues," Grkavac said. "She has such a passion for the issues, and loved working with industry and government."

OCSIT certainly has plenty on its plate in the coming months. In March it launched 18F, a government IT consulting office at GSA, which is rumored to be hiring up to 50 new employees before the end of the summer. And now that the FedRAMP deadline has passed, management of cloud government-wide will be of even greater import.

Kerber is no stranger to cloud -- at TechAmerica she worked on the Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud, CLOUD2, in 2011 -- work that earned her a 2012 Federal 100 award. It was one of the first notable studies on cloud of its time, and is still looked to by many cloud leaders in government. Grkavac said no matter what challenge is thrown at her, Kerber will be successful.

"It's her passion that really raises her even above other outstanding people," Grkavac said. "Her desire to do the best job possible and her dedication."