ACT-IAC names David Wennergren as its new CEO

NOTE: This article appeared first on FCW.com.

The American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council has picked David M. Wennergren to be ACT-IAC CEO. His first day will be May 13.

Wennergren, who is currently a managing director at Deloitte Consulting, has been a CIO at a number of defense agencies, served as vice chair of the federal CIO Council and has been the executive vice president and chief operating officer at the Professional Services Council.

He succeeds Ken Allen, who served for 14 years as the executive director of ACT-IAC and last summer announced his plans to step down. The new position of CEO is designed to empower the office with more control and responsibility and to provide a continuing leadership despite the regular changes in the membership of the organization’s two component boards.

“It is truly an honor to be selected as the CEO of … an extraordinary and long-standing force for good in the federal technology community,” Wennergren said. “ACT-IAC has a very special place in my heart. We have seen the power of the partnership when government and industry work together.”

ACT President Renee Wynn and IAC Chair Richard Spires both welcomed Wennergren while also praising Allen’s years of service. (Allen won a 2019 Federal 100 Award for his final year of leadership, which saw a wholesale reinvention of ACT-IAC’s signature Executive Leadership Conference.)

Wennergren’s vision for the organization builds on its history of fostering collaboration between government and industry to address the technology challenges. “Technology is fundamentally changing the way government and industry work,” he said. “ We need to learn and share the best examples of what works so that agencies can actually use them.”

He also stressed the need to enlarge the pool of government participants in those conversations. The CIO Council has long worked closely with ACT-IAC, and Wennergren told FCW he wants similar engagement with chief financial officers and chief human capital officers. He promised ACT-IAC would “reach out to all the centers of energy where new work is underway.”

ACT-IAC is a non-profit educational organization established in 1989 when an organization of government executives added a second component -- executives from industry -- to represent an important part of the technology equation needed to advance U.S. government mission performance. The group today boast participation by more than 12,000 executives from government and industry.

Wennergren is a Fed 100 winner as well, and in 2007 was the Government Eagle Award winner. He also writes regularly for FCW.

Troy K. Schneider contributed to this report.