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ITAA Nabs Pelosi Aide For Outreach
by Heather Greenfield
The Information Technology Association of America has created a chief advocacy position and hired a high-profile Democrat to fill it. Cindy Jimenez, a former adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will be ITAA's vice president for government relations.
The new position is designed to be more of an outreach, advocacy project to educate lawmakers on IT issues and the nation's ability to compete in a global economy.
"Cindy has an extraordinary background in politics and policy that will significantly strengthen our ability to reach out to key decision makers," ITAA President and CEO Phil Bond said. "In concert with ITAA's unrivaled grassroots-to-global network, Cindy's hire marks a new era for the association's leadership in national IT policy advocacy."
During her five years with Pelosi, D-Calif., Jimenez worked on issues including the federal budget and immigration, and began as deputy communications director in the Democratic whip's office. Before joining Pelosi's office, Jimenez was the communications director for Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas.
Jimenez has helped coordinate election campaigns since 1992, most recently through the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
She also served as a liaison to the Hispanic and American Indian communities, as well as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. During the 108th Congress, she helped develop House Democrats' national outreach strategy on the immigration and budget debates.
"Since his arrival, Phil Bond has sought to make ITAA more visible in Washington, to be more engaged politically and to do these things in a bipartisan fashion," ITAA spokesman Charles Greenwald said. "Therefore, it was important to expand our government relations team and to do so by adding a high-profile Democrat.
Sen. Allen's Loss Is The Chamber's Gain
Another former congressional aide also has left Capitol Hill, though perhaps not by choice.
John Reid had served as the communications director to Sen. George Allen, R-Va., who was defeated for re-election last fall. As of this week, Reid is working as the director of editorial communications at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
He will oversee message development and strategic outreach for internal communications, media reports and advertising. Reid began working for Allen in 2003 and was president of the Senate Press Secretaries Association, and before that, he was a television anchor in Richmond, Va.
The National Association of Manufacturers, meanwhile, has lured a lobbyist away from the tech group AeA to serve as NAM's new director of technology policy. The job went to Marc-Anthony Signorino, who had served as both the director/counsel for technology and environmental policy at AeA and as the executive director of state government affairs program.
Signorino previously helped launch the Washington office of the eBay online auction service.
EBay To Add Staff, Items To Policy Agenda
In addition to the traditional tech policy issues, eBay's founder would like to see Washington policy changes to make his personal philanthropy more effective.
To that end, Pierre Omidyar has named a new leader for his personal philanthropy, Matthew Bannick. According to The New York Times, Bannick will become a managing partner at the Omidyar Network. He was most recently the director of eBay's global philanthropy.
Omidyar told the Times that government regulations can affect his charity's experiments with microfinancing, which provides poor people with small loans to start businesses.
In addition to advocating better public policy, Bannick is expected to double the 30-person staff and establish new projects.
Speaker Appoints Panel On Global Warming
Edward Markey will chair the new House Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee, and James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin will be the ranking Republican.
"We are facing an issue that will test the capacity of democracy to respond in time to affect the fate of the planet," said Markey, D-Mass. "We have the technology, the ingenuity and the experience to reverse the inexorable buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. I look forward to working with my colleagues to find the consensus needed to move boldly and quickly.
Pelosi appointed the committee members for a two-year period and charged the temporary panel with recommending to Congress the policies, strategies, technologies and other innovations to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources and to prevent global warming.
Searching For A New Career
Over the past week, various news sources have reported that the Microsoft vice president who led the company's push into the Internet search business is leaving. Christopher Payne is now looking to start his own company.
Payne has worked for Microsoft for 14 years, working briefly for the online retailer Amazon.com for three years and then returning to the software firm. He was considered instrumental in Microsoft's decision in 2003 to compete with Google for the Internet search business rather than trying to buy it like it did other smaller search engines.
According to BusinessWeek and a Nielsen/NetRatings report, Microsoft now runs about 9 percent of searches, compared with Google's 53 percent and Yahoo's 23 percent.
Carnegie Dean Is Named Cyber Champion
Pradeep Khosla, the dean of the Carnegie Institute of Technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, has won the annual Cyber Education Champion Award from the Business Software Alliance.
Khosla is an internationally recognized authority on technology education, innovation and competitiveness. He is particularly noted for his expertise regarding federal investment in university research, intellectual property policies, and rethinking the research and development relationship between universities and industry.
In addition to his position as dean, Khosla is a professor in Carnegie's college of engineering and school of computer science. He also is the founding co-director of CyLab, a research, development and community outreach center that involves more than 40 faculty and 100 graduate students from five different colleges within Carnegie Mellon.
"Our vision is that future engineers must be able to enable, create, manage and deploy innovation in multinational, distributed environments," Khosla said.
As director of the Carnegie-Mellon Information Networking Institute, Khosla has more than doubled enrollment, created the master's of science degree program in information security technology and management, and defined international graduate programs with the Athens Information Technology Institute in three locations -- Athens, Greece; Japan; and South Korea.
"The future of the global economy and continued growth in the technology sector are dependent on our ability to foster excellence in engineering education, technology, math and science," BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman said. "Dr. Khosla has made countless landmark contributions in these fields."
BSA presents the award to individuals in the education profession who have demonstrated exceptional skill and commitment in teaching students and educators about the importance of technology innovation, cyber ethics and intellectual property.
Quote Of The Week
"This department has been so political that I think for the sake of the nation, Attorney General Gonzales should step down."
-- Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation" after the FBI's recent disclosure of its improper use of administrative subpoenas to obtain private citizens' telephone and e-mail records.
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