Amy Tong

GoldenGov: State Executive of the Year 

Tong was named California’s secretary of government operations in March, following five years as CIO. She oversaw rapid-fire technology improvements during that time, with the state launching more than 20 data dashboards for tracking COVID-19 and undertaking 75 emergency tech procurements, accelerating the timeline on projects that otherwise would have taken much longer, Tong says. “We all have become more comfortable in taking cautious risk and kind of coupled that with a lot of the transparency of what we’re doing — sharing the journey of how we reach our end goal — and that is bringing a lot of folks along,” she says.