I've never heard of BNO News before, but this story certainly sounds legitimate, and is apparently breaking several hours before it's supposed to, so it seems diary-worthy.
http://www.bnonews.com/...
Washington, D.C. (BNO NEWS) – President Barack Obama will announce on Saturday that Jeffrey Zients will join his administration as the Chief Performance Officer while Aneesh Chopra takes on the job as his Chief Technology Officer.
The announcement, which will be made during Saturday's weekly radio address, was embargoed by the White House until 6 a.m. EDT on Saturday but was broken when Federal Computer Week ran a story more than 6 hours early.
Jeffrey Zients, who has 20 years of business experience as a CEO, management consultant and entrepreneur will also serve as Obama's Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget. "He will work to streamline processes, cut costs and find the best practices throughout the government," the White House said.
Aneesh Chopra, who will become Obama's Chief Technology Officer, is currently serving as Virginia's Secretary of Technology. "Chopra will promote technological innovation to help the country meet its goals from job creation, to reducing health care costs, to protecting the homeland," the White House said. "Together with Chief Information Vivek Kundra, they will help give all Americans a government that is effective, efficient and transparent."
President Obama, in Saturday's radio address, will also say that he is eliminating dozens of government programs which have shown to be wasteful or ineffective. "All across America, families are making hard choices, and it's time their government did the same," Obama said.
Here's one particularly interesting line:
"And this Monday, at my first, full Cabinet meeting, I will ask all of my department and agency heads for specific proposals for cutting their budgets. "
Now that's interesting...I thought that Kathleen Sebelius was still undergoing the confirmation process?? Or was she finally confirmed?
Here's the original story from Federal Computer Week
Here's FORBES' profile of Jeffrey Zients: Apparently he's a director at Sirius/XM
Here's Aneesh Chopra's profile at the official Commonwealth of Virginia website.
Apparently Zients was a huge Hillary supporter during the primaries ($4,600 to her back in 2007), gave gobs of money to the DNC, and also, interestingly, gave money to John Kerry, Howard Dean and Joe Lieberman back in 2004. Definitely a heavy Dem donor.
Meanwhile, Chopra gave more modest amounts to Obama, and also supported Kerry and Dean in 2004.
Interesting--apparently the two of them worked together in the past at the Advisory Board Company, where Zients was CEO and Chopra was Managing Director. I presume that Obama hired one of them, who then recommended the other one for the complementary position?
Here's the official Mission Statement of "the Advisory Board Company". Make of it what you will:
The Advisory Board proceeds in the belief that organizations in certain sectors—health care, education, and government among them—have a charter above commerce, but preserving this higher calling requires an unyielding insistence on improvement. Our mission is to surface and secure economies of intellect on behalf of member organizations—discerning “True North,” communicating these insights and best practices with clarity, and providing innovative services such that our members can set compass and elevate performance accordingly.
Hmmm...improving the performance of health care, education and government institutions. Hmmmm....