Tom Cochran (born 1977) is a former

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office following his victory over Republican nomine ...

appointee, having served both in the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

and

Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...

between 2011 and 2016. He is a partner and the Chief Growth Officer at 720 Strategies, as well as a keynote speaker, writer, and adjunct professor at

American University The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...

Early life and education

Cochran grew up both in Japan and Thailand due to his father's job as a

foreign service officer A Foreign Service officer (FSO) is a commissioned member of the United States Foreign Service. FSOs formulate and implement the foreign policy of the United States. They spend most of their careers overseas as members of U.S. embassies, cons ...

. He attended a British Anglican school in Kobe, and International School Bangkok while living in Thailand. He graduated from

Phillips Exeter Academy Phillips Exeter Academy (often called Exeter or PEA) is an Independent school, independent, co-educational, college-preparatory school in Exeter, New Hampshire. Established in 1781, it is America's sixth-oldest boarding school and educates an es ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

in 1996. Following high school, he went to

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private university, private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provide ...

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

, graduating with a degree in economics.

Career

Following university, he moved to the

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, area to work as an IT consultant for now-defunct American Management Systems. While there, he worked as the lead developer on a patented

content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content ( content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

and a patent-pending feedback management system. He was hired by Blue State Digital as their first employee, shortly after the company was founded, following the end of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign. There, he was a senior developer, helping design and build the technology to power the

Democratic National Committee The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the principal executive leadership board of the United States's Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party. According to the party charter, it has "general responsibility for the affairs of the ...

's digital engagement efforts for the 2006 mid-term elections. This software eventually evolved into the platform behind the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.

Obama administration

Cochran joined the Obama White House in 2011 as the first director of new media technologies, responsible for the technology behind WhiteHouse.gov. He also led the engineering team charged with designing and building We the People to allow Americans to directly petition the government on any issue. He left in 2012 to join

Atlantic Media Atlantic Media, Inc. is an American print and online media company owned by David G. Bradley and based in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. It held numerous publications and businesses. Since 2020, it holds a minority stake in ''The Atl ...

as their chief technology officer. As CTO, he performed a study on the company's use of email, calculating that each email actually cost the company the equivalent of 95 cents in lost labor, and added up to over a million dollars. The study ended up as part of Cal Newport's book ''Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (2016).'' In 2014, he was appointed by President Obama to the State Department, helping "take the lessons of the Obama campaign and apply them for American foreign policy around the globe" joining former

digital colleague, Macon Phillips. While at the department, he was responsible for launching ShareAmerica, a government

Upworthy Upworthy is a media brand that focuses on positive storytelling. It was started in March 2012 by Eli Pariser, the former executive director of MoveOn, and Peter Koechley, the former managing editor of '' The Onion''. One of Facebook's co-found ...

clone that is a "digital-first platform with socially-optimized content that was policy relevant," available in seven languages to cover an audience of 4 billion people.

Post-administration

After leaving the Obama administration in 2016, Cochran was tapped to lead the public sector practice as chief digital strategist for Acquia, a

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

-based

software-as-a-service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike oth ...

company. In October 2018, he was hired to run the digital and integrated marketing practice for Edelman in Washington, DC. In July 2019, he left Edelman to rejoin 720 Strategies as partner and chief growth officer. Cochran speaks internationally on his government experience pushing digital and cultural transformation. He emphasizes a change management approach focusing on establishing credibility, embracing risk, and adopting emerging technologies. He's also an adjunct professor at American University and a writer, having contributed to publications including

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a not-for-profit, independent corporation that is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. ''HBR'' is published six times a year ...

Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

, and

Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cochran, Tom 1977 births Obama administration personnel United States Department of State officials American University faculty Vanderbilt University alumni Living people Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Civil servants from Washington, D.C.