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Christopher Alvares serves as the Chief Data Officer (CDO) at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In this role, he is responsible for developing strategies that enable USDA to fully leverage its data as a strategic asset, improving organizational decision-making and outcomes for citizens. He is also a member of the Federal Chief Data Officer Council working with other CDOs to improve the use of data across government.

Chris started his career in the private sector, working for several small biotechnology companies analyzing the relationships between genetics and human diseases. He worked in the labs generating data and quickly moved into genomic analytics. Chris became the Director of a data analytics staff providing genomic analytics services to other biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients.

Chris began Federal service in 2008 as a data analyst for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). He helped grow and build out the analytics office from a staff of five to over 20 which supported a wide range of analytics and reporting for FSIS. Chris moved into leadership roles as Branch Chief and then Director of the Data Analytics and Integration Group in FSIS. Chris also served on the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration with representatives from FSIS, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to advance analytics in foodborne illness. In 2018, Chris became a Special Advisor to the General Services Administration (GSA) Center of Excellence (CoE), leading a team to modernize data analytics at USDA. Chris joined the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) as Deputy Chief Data Officer in 2019 where he has been continuing the analytics modernization across USDA.

Chris graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a Bachelor of Science degree and earned a master’s from Johns Hopkins University while working. He is a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute’s Leadership for a Democratic Society program.

Francisco Salguero joined Salesforce with over 25 years of IT experience. He started his career in the private sector within the technology and telecommunications industry, working on start-up and established organizations. Then transitioning to federal government service with 16 years of total service, 8 of those years as a member of the senior executive service. Francisco held several executive IT positions within the federal government to include: Chief Information Officer at USDA Rural Development (RD), USDA Department Deputy Chief Information Officer, and Chief Information Officer at Federal Communications Commission.

While at USDA Francisco led key IT Modernization efforts working with the Whitehouse/GSA Centers of Excellence, USDA Mission Areas, and OCIO. Key IT Modernization efforts included Cloud Adoption & IT Infrastructure Optimization COE, Data Analytics COE, Enterprise End User Consolidation, Network Modernization, and USDA IT organizational restructure. In 2020 Francisco Salguero was Federal 100 winner for his efforts in the USDA modernization efforts.

As the CIO for the FCC, Francisco was responsible for the oversight of the commission’s information technology, management, and governance. He was responsible for the executive strategy and decision-making process for budgeting, multiyear and annual planning, programming, and reports related to IT. One of his significant contributions included the implementation of the FCC COVID Telehealth system in support of the 2020 CARES ACT. The system was developed in record time by leveraging Platform as a Service technologies and agile development methodologies, laying the foundation for new transformative development efforts within the commission.

Francisco attended the Federal Executive Institute, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Strayer University.

Natalie Alms is a staff reporter at Nextgov/FCW covering federal technology policy, service delivery, customer experience and the government's tech workforce. She is a graduate of Wake Forest University and has written for the Salisbury (N.C.) Post. Connect with Natalie on Twitter at @AlmsNatalie.