Executive Director, Strategic Initiatives, NYC Department of Education

>> My name is Samantha Brenner. I work for the New York City Department Education in the technology division overseeing strategic initiatives. So we connect the people who work on infrastructure which provides network internet services to the schools or application development shop, which provides in-house technology applications that schools use for day-to-day administrative functions, data services, digital communication services. All of this work happens on a project basis, both across teams within the technology division and within, across different central offices and with schools. So my team helps to provide project management and leadership coordination across special initiatives, new projects and just helps everyone to work together more smoothly. And my job, I'm the first person ever to be in my job. So my job didn't exist before I had it. And when I, the way I got this job I was already working at the department, working closely with the technology division and saw this gap in terms of a need for someone who, and a team that could both speak technology and speak program and understood the work happening in schools and understood the work happening in technology. Because sometimes technology people and program people don't communicate as effectively as one would hope. So I saw the opportunity and pitched the chief information officer on the idea of coming over to his team and starting up a group to focus on this. And he saw a need as well. So we've been very busy since we started. Every day is different. I spend a lot of time in meetings with colleagues and various groups and stakeholders. So I might start a day meeting with folks in our application development shop on a new project that is impacting schools. I might have lunch with a group of folks from different central department of education offices that are running a variety of technology initiatives and schools from pilots on teaching software engineering to pilots on blended learning. So online learning in the classroom, teach instructor-led. So bringing together folks who might have a planning lunch from groups from several different offices. We, I have a team. So I spend a fair amount of time meeting with them, talking about their work, advising them on their work, proofreading their work, giving them feedback. And I spend a fair amount of time meeting with the chief information officer just to discuss kind of whatever the big strategic issues of the day and what our division is doing in response to them and to then go on and coordinate responses. So every day is different. I don't have a typical day.