GSA’s Hashmi squares away industry plans; Kraden heads to OGP

There was an awful lot of movement in the federal IT community over the last few weeks. There was maybe none more surprising than Sonny Hashmi's decision to lea...

T here was an awful lot of movement in the federal IT community over the last few weeks.

None may be more surprising than Sonny Hashmi’s decision to leave as the chief information officer of the General Services Administration. Now we know who made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Box, the emerging secure file sharing company, hired Hashmi in what one industry source called a federal strategist role.

It’s not 100 percent clear what that means, but several government and industry sources said Box has been aggressively recruiting feds to improve their federal presence.

According to Box’s website, the company doesn’t list any federal clients, and only one contractor, GovPlace, an IT enterprise solutions contractor. Hashmi becomes the second federal connection. In May, Box announced Aneesh Chopra, the former federal chief technology officer, was on board to serve as a special adviser in the company’s healthcare and life sciences practice.

The other big mover is Greg Godbout, the executive director of GSA’s 18F. Sources said he’s heading to the Environmental Protection Agency to be its CTO.

Emails to Godbout were not returned, and his staff remained mum on his next plans, just tweeting that he’s off to another agency.

There are two other moves of note in the federal IT community as well.

Jonathan Kraden is heading to GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy in yet another move to reinvigorate the office.

Kraden comes to OGP after spending the last eight years as a staff member for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

He was influential in the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) legislation, improper payments and acquisition bills during his time on the Hill.

At OGP, Kraden will be director of customer coordination and communication, where he will work with the CIO community and help GSA to meet the government’s needs around identity management.

Quietly, OGP is seeing a resurgence, specifically around identity management and other IT policy issues. For years, OGP acted as the right hand of OMB’s E- Government Office. But over the last six or so years, reorganizations and different leadership priorities basically left OGP without an IT bent.

Don’t be surprised to see more from OGP over the next year, including leading an aggressive effort around identity management policies.

Finally, the Education Department promoted Steve Grewal to deputy CIO from chief information security officer.

Grewal spent the last three years as Education’s CISO where he led the effort to launch an internal security operations center.

Education has been trying to raise its cyber posture over last few years. In the latest Federal Information Security Management Act report to Congress, OMB reported Education received a score of 91 percent, up from 89 percent in 2013.

This post is part of Jason Miller’s Inside the Reporter’s Notebook feature. Read more from this edition of Jason’s Notebook.

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