Cabinet

Chief Transformation Officer

A Virginian born and raised in Richmond, David Wilkinson is a former senior White House official and is a national leader in government transformation. His work has contributed meaningfully to the fields of customer-centered, results-driven government in the United States. At the federal and state levels, he has helped design, pass and implement laws and policies advancing better, more effective government using data, technology, evidence, and process reforms to deliver improved outcomes for residents and businesses.

Wilkinson was most recently founding Executive Director of Yale University’s Tobin Center for Economic Policy, Yale’s flagship U.S. domestic policy center. He previously held two cabinet roles in Connecticut. As Connecticut’s Chief Performance Officer, he led statewide efforts to advance data-enabled, streamlined, outcomes-driven government. Previously, as Connecticut’s Commissioner of Early Childhood, he directed one of the state’s largest agencies, deploying or leveraging annual funding of nearly half a billion dollars in support of approximately 200,000 children and families, and gaining national recognition for innovations in outcomes-based procurement and customer-centered program design.

As President Obama’s Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation, Wilkinson led efforts in the Obama Administration to identify and scale measurably better government services, advancing Presidential priorities that strengthened communities and enabled upward economic mobility. Wilkinson previously served on the White House Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ) as Senior Policy Advisor for Impact Investing. At CEQ, he developed policies enabling investors and capital markets to better support sustainability, decarbonization, and environmental resilience. Earlier in his career, he worked in affordable housing, mission finance, and community development. He has served as an intern for then Lt. Governor Tim Kaine.

At the federal level, Wilkinson is a member of the Commission on Social Impact Partnerships, to which he was appointed by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Yale Law School and on the Young Alumni Council of the University of Virginia.

Wilkinson has won national recognition for advancing innovations in government, which have won broad, bipartisan support. Wilkinson is a graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Virginia. He lives in Richmond with his wife and two children, the eldest of whom is a kindergartner in Richmond Public Schools.