In 2009, President Obama appointed Vivek Kundra became the United States’ first federal chief information officer. Placed in charge of a $71 billion budget and oversight of IT across the federal government, Kundra cracked down on wasteful spending, migrated the system to the cloud, and strengthened cybersecurity. His cloud-first policy now serves as a model for government IT departments around the world. He is currently a fellow at Harvard University and the executive vice president of emerging markets at the computing firm Salesforce. Updated 2014
Vivek Kundra
IT administrator
Born in: India
More 2011 Great Immigrants
Hao Jiang TianOpera singer
Hector RuizFounder, chairman, Advanced Nanotechnology Solutions
Guillermo Linares
C. Michael FoaleAstronaut
Get the Carnegie Reporter and our best articles delivered to your inbox.