Steve VanRoekel served as the Executive Vice President and the Chief Operating Officer for The Rockefeller Foundation since March 2019, where he oversaw the organization’s Operations, Human Resources, Organizational Performance, Information Technology, and Finance teams.
He was appointed as the second United States Chief Information Officer by President Obama on August 5th, 2011. In this role, he spearheaded a transformation in the Federal Government’s use of technology by “Innovating with Less”, driving savings and promoting innovation across the $85 billion federal IT portfolio by upgrading cyber security capabilities, creating new open data policies, fostering delivery of mobile services to citizens, consolidating data centers, and promoting the government’s transition to cloud computing. Wired Magazine named VanRoekel one of the United States’ top 10 cloud influencers and thought leaders in 2012.
In addition to his position in the White House, Steve served at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as both the Chief Innovation Officer for the 2014-15 West African Ebola response and as the Executive Director of Citizen and Organizational Engagement. From 2009-2011 he was the Managing Director/Chief Operating Officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Before joining government in 2009, Steve spent his entire private-sector career at Microsoft Corporation, rising to lead one of the fastest growing parts of Microsoft – the Server and Tools Division – where Microsoft named him Manager of the Year. He also served as an assistant to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, where among other things he worked closely with Mr. Gates during the formation of the global health aspects of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
He received a B.A. in Management of Information Systems from Iowa State University.