ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Data gathering is important at all levels and recently, the State of Kansas hired a new Chief Data Officer, Kimberly DeWitt, to help with just that.
As DeWitt tells it, her path toward her new role began at a young age.
“I like to say I've worked in I.T. since I was about 12 years old, or at least that's what it feels like. I started out building computers from scratch and working in my church's computer lab, and those experiences were my first major exposure to I.T.,” DeWitt said. “Being young, I decided I wanted to become a hacker at that time, and while that ultimately didn't really amount to anything, it did expose a love of data for me, and that's when I discovered I.T. as its own space, and I decided I really liked being there. My first professional job was working for AmeriCorps, and in my particular role, I learned about databases and data and shifting from really old systems to newer systems, and throughout the course of the rest of my career, I've worked with bigger entities like Sprint and Black & Veatch. I ended up starting my own consulting firm back in 2021 after working in the I.T. industry for about 15 years at that point, and I reached a point in my corporate ladder climbing where I couldn't reach the glass ceilings, so to speak, so instead of being at someone else's table, I decided to make my own. We went international in 2023, and I have a satellite office in Tanzania. In terms of I.T., I've never strayed too far from it, and it remains pretty close to my heart and my focus, and data has always been it for me once I discovered that.”
DeWitt added, however, her interest in I.T. goes back even further.
“Back in the days of AOL, when you could have Internet access for 30 days on a trial through a random e-mail address, that was our family's first opportunity to have Internet,” DeWitt said. “And once you have Internet access, that really opens up the world for you, and among that initial thought of 'Oh my gosh, we have Internet for the first time ever,' I discovered web programming. With that, I came across the FBI and white hat hackers and things of that nature, so I had it in my 13-year-old brain to become a white hat hacker since it just sounded so cool. But, for young inner-city girls, that is not the most accessible pathway. My other path to I.T. was very similar because at the church where I was volunteering, there was a professor from Baker who would come to the church and wanted to teach computer fundamentals and computer science to children, and I was lucky enough to meet him, and he introduced me to hardware and software and everything else. He was literally teaching us how to build computers from scratch with bits here and there from RadioShack and recycled motherboards and other items of that nature. I got really into that, and I now had an opportunity to engage with computers on a more physical level, which I thought was pretty awesome for my teenage brain. I did that for a number of years and between getting involved on the software side and studying data and everything else, I realized I could turn basically nothing into something, and I really enjoyed that space. Throughout high school, I was learning programming languages and things of that nature, which led to my aforementioned AmeriCorps position, and the rest is history.”
DeWitt said it was all that experience that factored into her decision to apply what would ultimately become her new role.
“I left Corporate America about five years ago because like I mentioned earlier, I was hitting a lot of barriers, and it was very frustrating for me to be in positions where I could have the money and title and all of that, but not the recognition – i.e., I couldn't get that formal 'Manager' or 'Director' or similar title even though I was doing the work of those positions already and had been doing so for multiple years,” DeWitt said. “That was particularly frustrating for me, so I left Corporate America and decided to create my own company and be my own CEO, and instead of being someone else's code monkey, I'd be my own code monkey, and I did that. Throughout the course of building my business and getting everything rolling there, a business partner friend of mine said this CDO position had opened up and thought it would be a great fit for me and my skillset. To be honest, I was a little skeptical because I'd been running my own business and was reporting only to myself, so I wasn't particularly excited, but I said I would give it a look. So I did, and after reading the job description, I said to myself 'That is EXACTLY what I've always wanted to do!' I've always wanted to be in a position of influence where I could guide individuals and groups and connect people and data and do what I've done for a long time. After spending some time thinking about it all and talking it over with some friends, I gave it a shot and felt it could be a great strategic opportunity while also allowing me to fulfill a milestone I didn't think I would. A small part of me is always called back to I.T., and this is a great chance for me to keep doing that. I've been able to come back and hit a personal milestone in addition to some other goals I have, and I hope to be influential and help create collaboration between people who might not otherwise have worked together. Also, there are not very many people in the I.T. industry who look like me, so I also hope to create more of those spaces and be one of those people who inspires someone to chase their dreams.”
DeWitt added she has multiple goals for her new role.
“The great thing, and the challenging thing, about creating a new organization, is before the organization existed, people had already been working and figured out various workarounds and processes in order to accomplish their organizational goals,” DeWitt said. “But what typically doesn't happen, in the data space, is there isn't really a lot of cross-collaboration – it might happen on a smaller scale every so often and on a more ad hoc basis, but when you talk about more widespread collaboration and enterprise-level organization, that typically doesn't happen before the umbrella entity exists. We're in a unique position right now where every group and entity in Kansas is creating and organizing data and reporting data, with some of those entities even having some level of data governance above them. But there hasn't really been an umbrella entity to be the leader and lead collaboration and bring everyone together. Data can be a great unifier, but before we can unify that data, we have to unify people, so quite a bit of my work will be centered around unifying people. I have an initiative called 'Finding the Tribe,' whose main goal is to reach across all the branches of the state government and find those people who engage with data – and surprisingly enough, that includes a lot of people. What that will do is create those connections between people who might otherwise not have come together and show them when they're in the data space, we're all connected, and everyone and everything has value. After that, we'll be able to get to a place where we can talk about how to unify our data and utilize it better as an enterprise.”
Another goal is education, DeWitt said.
“Right now, most people, when they utilize data, they're using it in that moment and don't necessarily think about the bigger idea of how data exists and how to better utilize it from a more educated standpoint,” DeWitt said. “A lot of people, if they had that education, would apply that to daily life and to the other data they interact with. If people knew more about artificial intelligence or had some basic training on it, they could create more and better applications within their organization(s) that could better use the data that's available. We'll be starting on that very soon, and that will include a five-part series on artificial intelligence which will go from a more basic overview to some of the more sophisticated ways it can be used.”
Overall, DeWitt said, she is excited for her new role with the State of Kansas.
“I'm pretty passionate already, and I'm one of those I.T. folks who like being around clients and people, which I feel is kind of rare in my field. I love people and love engaging with clients, so I'm really excited about, since data is such a big unifier, and because it has more of a voice now, to go out and rock boats a little bit,” DeWitt said. “Organizational development is hard, and when you have fairly enclosed systems like state government, there can be a lot of roadblocks you have to get past just to get to a baseline where you can start to grow. State government, in the big scheme of things, is no different than any other entity I've worked for in terms of building up teams and organization. At the center of everything is people, and if we can't have people come together to a middle ground and talk about goals and plans, my ability to be successful will be very limited. But I take that as a challenge, and I'm going out on this engagement campaign and talking to a wide variety of people and positions, and I can't be successful if my team isn't successful. Part of the goal of establishing these partnerships is figuring out where those similarities lie, because there are ALWAYS more similarities than people might think. I'm excited for the chance to open more conversations that maybe hadn't taken place before due to whatever circumstances were going on at the time. I'm excited to bring more people together to get those conversations going and progress things in ways we hadn't been able to before. I'm pretty even-keeled and non-judgmental, and I try to work as best I can with everyone and anyone, because everyone has great ideas and deserves to be heard.”
