Kelly Olson

Head of Strategy, Public Sector, Adobe

Kelly has spent two-decades supporting various organizations within the public and private sector and holds vast expertise in strategy, public-private partnerships, communications, marketing and technology. She has played a key leadership role in many important initiatives critical to the development and implementation of government-wide policies and programs focused on digital transformation, IT modernization and innovation in government.

Kelly leads Adobe’s strategy for Digital Experience across the public sector: federal, state, local, defense and national security agencies. She is focused on leveraging how their largest commercial and global customers have transformed experiences at scale and translates these insights to help governments around the world create more data driven, integrated digital experiences for the public.

Before joining Adobe, Kelly served in multiple leadership roles at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) working closely with the White House Office of American Innovation, Office of Science and Technology Policy and Office of Management and Budget to organize teams and execute key strategic priorities, partnerships and investments. As the Deputy Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) and Director of the Technology Transformation Service (TTS), she led innovative acquisition and government-wide digital transformation initiatives to help agencies build, buy and share technology to better serve the public. FAS delivers more than $50B of products and solutions to enable federal agencies to accomplish their mission and TTS provides top technical talent, strategy and programs to drive digital transformation across government through 18F Digital Services, Office of Products and Programs, Presidential Innovation Fellows and the IT Modernization Centers of Excellence.

As Director of the TTS Innovation Portfolio, she led several innovation and digital services initiatives and platforms. She served as a senior advisor and strategist for collaborative innovation approaches and digital public engagement. The award-winning programs under her charge included Challenge.gov and CitizenScience.gov, both Harvard Innovations in American Government award winners, as well as Digital.gov, the U.S. Web Design Standards and the Emerging Citizen Technology Office. As the Director of Strategic Initiatives at GSA’s Office of Citizen Services & Innovative Technologies, Kelly played a key role in many important IT initiatives critical to the development and implementation of the Federal Cloud Computing, Open Data, Digital Government initiatives as well as FedRAMP.

Prior to government service, Kelly held leadership roles in business strategy and operations as Vice President at Government Executive Media Group & Defense One; stakeholder engagement and marketing communications as Vice President at ConnellyWorks — and events and program management as Director of Operations & Events at the American Council for Technology.

Kelly is a graduate of George Mason University and currently in the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, Design Thinking & Innovation Program. She was hailed as one of the 40 Design Thinkers + Innovators to Connect with by LeadTail in 2016, a Force Multiplier in WashingtonExec’s 5 Experts to Know About in 2017, a FedScoop 50 Award Winner for Federal Leadership in 2018 and a Top Executive to Watch in 2019 by WashingtonExec.