AI Gov: Future of RPA

Gerard Badorrek is the Chief Financial Officer of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). As the senior financial executive at GSA, he is responsible for the management of its $25 billion budget and over 600 financial personnel at GSA’s central office and across 11 regions. Mr. Badorrek oversees all financial functions and activities, including strategic planning, performance management, budgeting, accounting, analytics and reporting, financial operations and audits. He also serves as GSA’s Performance Improvement Officer.

Since joining GSA in December 2014, Mr. Badorrek has completed a comprehensive transformation of the GSA finance organization that will standardize business processes, tighten financial controls, and enhance operational performance and drive efficiencies. The effort included centralizing four budget organizations into an overall GSA Budget Office; creating new Performance Management and Analytics offices; and streamlining the Regional Financial Operations from 11 regions into 4 zones. In addition, Mr. Badorrek led the successful transition of GSA’s Financial Management Line of Business to another federal agency in support of the federal directive for shared services.

Prior to this role in federal government, Mr. Badorrek spent more than 25 years in the private sector. His expertise in financial management and business operations successfully drove organizational change and improved performance levels at both public and private companies. Mr. Badorrek was a Senior Vice President at Xerox Services, holding positions as a Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer(COO) of the State Government group. He had an extensive career with MCI Communications including roles as Vice President of Finance, Vice President of Business Operations, Executive Director of Corporate Business Analysis and Business Unit CFO and Controller with responsibilities for leading large organizations, building teams and solving complex operational and business problems. He also served as CFO and COO for several private technology companies.

Mr. Badorrek has an MBA degree from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, a Master’s degree in Economics from Case Western Reserve University and Bachelor degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering at Cornell University.

Krista Kinnard is the Chief of Emerging Technologies at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in the Office of the Chief Information Officer. In this role, she leads the organization’s discovery and adoption of new technologies and solutions to meet the unique business challenges faced by DOL agencies. She helps foster the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA) and other emerging technologies across the organization in support of mission work.

Prior to joining the Department, Krista was a Director of the General Service Administration’s (GSA) Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence, where she partnered with federal agencies to foster the adoption of AI and automation capabilities. She played a critical role in DOL’s standing-up of a robotic process automation capability for procurement and IT based processes. Additionally, she helped lead the Artificial Intelligence Community of Practice (CoP) for GSA.

Krista has several years of experience as a data scientist and technical project lead in the private sector, leading the design and development of machine learning based systems for government clients.

She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology, a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Portuguese from the University of Arizona, and a Master of Science degree in Data Analytics and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

Ms. Carrie A. Lee is the Deputy Chief Information Officer for VA’s Product Engineering Service (PES) organization within the Office of Information and Technology (OIT). Product Engineering Service builds products that deliver unparalleled value to Veterans and those who care for them by leveraging emerging technology, methodologies, and trends including Software as a Service (SaaS), Low-Code Application Platforms (LCAP), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Data Management and Analytic Platforms, and Veteran Facing digital services.

Under Ms. Lee’s leadership, Product Engineering Service combines the best aspects of focused, process-driven IT organizations with the leading practices of innovative development organizations to deliver products with a clear value proposition and the ability to meet customer needs, do it reliably, and in less time than any other organization.

Ms. Lee joined the VA in Jan 2019 as part of the Office of Information Security (OIS). In this role, she established VA’s cloud security and FedRAMP authorization program. Her team developed cloud security authorization policies, procedures, and guidelines in alignment with FedRAMP requirements. In addition, she developed VA’s Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) 3.0 program and led the development of VA’s first TIC 3.0 use cases which facilitated the ability for VA users to connect directly to Microsoft365 to support remote work capabilities during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In September 2020, Ms. Lee joined the Product Engineering team as the Senior Technical Advisor. She served as the Acting Executive Director from Jan to Aug of 2022. During this time, PES has continued to uphold its mission and provide exceptional outcomes for Veterans. She has prioritized hiring efforts and internal promotion opportunities, growing the team exponentially and bringing in exceptional information technology talent. Ms. Lee led PES to successfully establish the Summit Data Platform, creating a modern, resilient data platform for enterprise use supporting multiple Data and Analytics capabilities. She also led the team to deliver the first Continuous Authorization to Operate (C-ATO) in the VA in the Lighthouse Delivery Infrastructure, creating a secure development pipeline, and allowing teams to deploy new products in weeks instead of months. Ms. Lee led the expansion of the VA Health Connect program, VA’s first nationwide clinical contact center that serves over 9 million Veterans and over 30,000 clinical cases a month. In FY22, the team also delivered 210 low-code/no-code products, a 163% increase from FY20.

Ms. Erica Thomas works for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Comptroller). She is currently the Program Manager for OUSD(C)’s Robotic Process Automation (RPA) initiatives and co-leads the DoD’s RPA Consortium. Outside of DoD, she is an active champion for the Federal RPA Community of Practice and co-led the “Use Case, Process Selection, and Automation Sharing” practice area.

Prior to her current role, she served as the Team Lead for DoD’s Financial Management Reform efforts and as a Senior Accountant in the Business Integration Office, leading enterprise wide Procure-to-Pay initiatives and DATA Act reporting compliance. All told, she has over 14 years of DoD Financial Management experience.