David Nelson – 2020
David Nelson has a long career in IT leadership. Before serving as CIO of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, he was CIO of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and also worked in senior roles at several telecom companies. Nelson told FedScoop that good leadership in IT comes from “looking ahead and understanding what’s really going to be important for your organization to enable them to move forward to use a kind of technology.” But he realizes he cannot do this alone. “It’s really about your people and keeping your people feeling good about where we’re going…A job like a CIO is not something that you can do on your own. It can only be done through your people, and it takes a considerable number of resources, moving in the same directions to be successful.”