The White House has selected Google executive Megan Smith to be the nation’s next chief technology officer, and plans to announce her appointment once security vetting is complete, according to a source familiar with the situation. Current CTO Todd Park recently stepped down to return with his family to Silicon Valley, where he will help recruit tech talent for government roles.
Bloomberg previously reported that Smith was “a top candidate” for the role, with Fortuneadding that fellow candidates included former Twitter (TWTR) general counsel Alex Macgillvray was in the mix. One possibility is that Macgillvray will succeed Nicole Wong, also a former Twitter lawyer who had been serving as U.S. Deputy CTO for the past year. Prior to Twitter, both Macgillvray and Wong both worked at Google (GOOG).
Also in the running was DJ Patil (LNKD), a former LinkedIn executive who currently is head of product at RelateIQ (which recently agreed to be acquired by Salesforce)..
Smith currently is vice president at Google X, which oversees “moonshot” projects like self-driving cars. She previously led business development and the company’s Google.org philanthropic arm. Neither she nor Macgillvray have responded to requests for comment, nor did a White House spokeswoman.
The CTO role was first established by President Obama upon entering office, with Smith to follow Park and Aneesh Chopra. It is unclear what will happen to the position once Obama’s term ends in early 2017.
