Kirsten Dalboe
CDO, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Data is arguably the most valuable asset in government, according to Kirsten Dalboe, who heads up the data initiatives within her agency with a wide variety of priorities. That includes regulating electricity’s sales and infrastructure, energy’s environmental impact to the reliability and future investments within energy resources.
“Our mission is economically efficient, safe, reliable and secure energy for consumers, which is underpinned by data,” Dalboe adds. “Data governance and data management done right is an enabler to agency mission and continued investment in data governance brings a strong positive ROI due to the improved downstream data quality and data integrity necessary to enhance data-driven decision-making to better serve the American people.”
Her team’s recent focus has been creating a data stewardship framework to establish the enterprise approach for managing data as a strategic asset. That means ensuring data stewards across the organization know and can perform their responsibilities and that they consistently follow the principles of the four C’s of the framework: capture, collaborate, check and communicate.
Under her guidance, the team is building a 3-year data analytics platform roadmap leveraging the power and scalability of the cloud. This plan allows for agile prioritization of the data technology and data needs for the platform.
Dalboe is especially proud of launching a data science training program and facilitating monthly Lunch & Learns to bring together the first cohort of trainees to collaborate and share ideas. Additionally, she has facilitated greater cross-agency collaboration through the Federal CDO Council and its committees and working groups.
“The work of CDOs is foundational to the mission of an agency, but this foundational work brings about change — and we need to maintain strong partnerships both internal and external to our agency while we implement the tools and institute the data governance and data management functions necessary for continued success,” Dalboe says.
