• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia
TechMost Powerful Women

5 Things We Learned From Hillary Clinton’s Campaign CTO

By
Kia Kokalitcheva
Kia Kokalitcheva
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Kia Kokalitcheva
Kia Kokalitcheva
Down Arrow Button Icon
August 29, 2016, 10:47 PM ET
Courtesy of Steph Hannon

Even a presidential campaign needs a strong technology leader to keep the machine well-oiled and the Amazon Web Services bill paid.

Stephanie Hannon is that person—the chief technology officer—for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Hannon took the job in April of last year, and prior to that, was a director of product management at Google, where she spent much of her career over the last decade.

Clinton’s campaign has turned to the usual tech-driven tactics, like using social media to reach out to voters, but it’s also come up with some creative ideas, like its mobile app for volunteers that helps them participate and adds an gaming element to keep them motivated.

On Monday, Hannon participated in an online question-and-answer session hosted by Product Hunt, a leaderboard for tech products. Here are some highlights:

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

What does a campaign CTO do?

Much of Hannon’s job is similar to a typical CTO role in the private sector. She and her team build and manage the gamut of technology tools developed and used by everyone working on Clinton’s campaign.

“That spans a broad space: fundraising, organizing (empowering field organizers and helping volunteers be efficient in canvassing and phone banking), voters (registering to vote, GOTV, voter protection), data analytics infrastructure, storytelling and rapid response, engagement and mobile apps,” she said.

And her team is quite productive. “This has been one of the biggest surprises of this job, I could not have predicted how many different tools and products we would build and launch,” she said. “The count is likely over 50 now.”

See also: Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Uses This Messaging App to Foil Hackers

Hillary is all about those hip startups

Clinton can’t exactly book a vacation home through Airbnb or pull out her Uber app to grab a ride, but that doesn’t mean she’s totally unfamiliar with these startups.

“I helped host a roundtable with Silicon Valley leaders from the sharing economy, like Airbnb, Box, Lyft, Instacart, and Uber last August,” said Hannon, adding that she expected Clinton to not be a personal user of these companies’ services.

“But she absolutely knew every bit of those companies, products, users, and challenges. And she led a deep and thoughtful conversation about the regulatory, tax and infrastructure challenges that make growing those businesses challenging,” she said.

See also: Alphabet Executive Resigns from Uber’s Board Amid Growing Rivalry

Clinton’s tech team uses Slack

Presidential campaign teams are just like us—they use Slack to chat with their teammates. Along with general shop talk, Hannon’s team also uses the instant messaging system to encourage and celebrate its hard work and achievements.

“Team members will gift a hat with a Pear on it to reward work and then post a picture in Slack,” she said to describe her team’s tradition when celebrating a coworker’s accomplishment.

Other common work tools Hannon’s team uses include JIRA (a tool for managing work tasks made by Atlassian), and Amazon Web Services to host all of its work.

The campaign volunteer app for Android is coming soon

Hillary’s small mobile development team is hard at work on the Android app, which will be out in the coming weeks, said Hannon. The iOS version debuted a month ago.

Hillary’s tech team is diverse

Tech companies, take note: Women make up just under 40% of Hannon’s team, which she said is diverse in other ways as well.

“It took significant investment to get there, so the early part of culture was our recruiting process,” she said. “We focused on sourcing from diverse meet-ups [with] groups and communities in NYC, we were deliberate about diverse interview panels, and we prioritized emotional intelligence and soft skills along with technical skills and experience.”

That’s not to say that it hasn’t faced any challenges when it comes to culture and inclusiveness. For example, some team members were made fun of for not being familiar with certain tools or suggesting ones they had experience using. “With such a diverse team that uses so many different technologies (Python, Ruby, PHP, Node, etc.), we’ve spent a lot of time working with the team to use inclusive language so that no team member feels less than the others for their background or the technology they work with,” said Hannon.

About the Author
By Kia Kokalitcheva
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • Future 50
  • World’s Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
Sections
  • Finance
  • Leadership
  • Success
  • Tech
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Environment
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Health
  • Retail
  • Lifestyle
  • Politics
  • Newsletters
  • Magazine
  • Features
  • Commentary
  • Mpw
  • CEO Initiative
  • Conferences
  • Personal Finance
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
About Us
  • About Us
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Diversity And Inclusion
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Most Popular

placeholder alt text
Commentary
Yes, you're getting a bigger tax refund. Your kids won't thank you for the $3 trillion it's adding to the deficit
By Daniel BunnJanuary 26, 2026
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Success
Despite running $75 billion automaker General Motors, CEO Mary Barra still responds to ‘every single letter’ she gets by hand
By Preston ForeJanuary 26, 2026
1 day ago
placeholder alt text
Economy
An unusual Fed ‘rate check’ triggered a free fall in the U.S. dollar and investors are fleeing into gold
By Jim EdwardsJanuary 26, 2026
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Personal Finance
Current price of silver as of Monday, January 26, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJanuary 26, 2026
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Personal Finance
Current price of silver as of Tuesday, January 27, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJanuary 27, 2026
13 hours ago
placeholder alt text
Success
'The Bermuda Triangle of Talent': 27-year-old Oxford grad turned down McKinsey and Morgan Stanley to find out why Gen Z’s smartest keep selling out
By Eva RoytburgJanuary 25, 2026
2 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.


Latest in Tech

Photo of Elon Musk
Big TechX
New filings exposing Elon Musk’s financials for X in the U.K. show revenue plummeted 58% in 2024
By Lily Mae LazarusJanuary 27, 2026
5 hours ago
People walk outside of a WeWork office building in London.
Future of WorkOffice Culture
Amazon and JPMorgan led the Fortune 500 in returning to the office 5 days a week. Now they’re leading a coworking comeback
By Jacqueline MunisJanuary 27, 2026
6 hours ago
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
AIEye on AI
At Davos, CEOs said AI isn’t coming for jobs as fast as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei thinks
By Jeremy KahnJanuary 27, 2026
6 hours ago
Corning CEO Wendell Weeks.
AIData centers
A Meta deal just turned this 175-year-old company into a linchpin of the AI data center boom
By Sharon GoldmanJanuary 27, 2026
7 hours ago
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
AIDario Amodei
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s 20,000-word essay on how AI ‘will test’ humanity is a must-read—but more for his remedies than his warnings
By Jeremy KahnJanuary 27, 2026
9 hours ago
trump
CybersecuritySocial Media
The White House vows ‘the memes will continue,’ but misinformation experts say please, make it stop
By Kaitlyn Huamani and The Associated PressJanuary 27, 2026
9 hours ago