Tom Cochran (technologist)
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Tom Cochran (born 1977) is a former
Obama Administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...
appointee, having served both in the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
and
Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
between 2011 and 2016. He is a partner and the Chief Growth Officer at 720 Strategies, as well as a keynote speaker, writer, and adjunct professor at
American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...
.


Early life and education

Cochran grew up both in Japan and Thailand due to his father's job as a
foreign service officer A Foreign Service Officer (FSO) is a commissioned member of the United States Foreign Service. Foreign Service Officers formulate and implement the foreign policy of the United States. FSOs spend most of their careers overseas as members of U ...
. He attended a British Anglican school in Kobe, and
International School Bangkok The International School Bangkok (ISB; , ) is a private PK-12 American-style school in the Pak Kret District of Nonthaburi Province, Thailand in the Bangkok Metropolitan Area. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges ...
while living in Thailand. He graduated from
Phillips Exeter Academy (not for oneself) la, Finis Origine Pendet (The End Depends Upon the Beginning) gr, Χάριτι Θεοῦ (By the Grace of God) , location = 20 Main Street , city = Exeter, New Hampshire , zipcode ...
in
New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
in 1996. Following high school, he went to
Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
in
Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...
, graduating with a degree in economics.


Career

Following university, he moved to the
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, area to work as an IT consultant for now-defunct
American Management Systems American Management Systems (previous NASDAQ symbol: AMSY) was a high technology and management consulting firm, founded in 1970 by a group of five former United States Department of Defense, Defense Department officials who had worked under Rober ...
. While there, he worked as the lead developer on a patented
content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content (content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...
and a patent-pending feedback management system. He was hired by
Blue State Digital Blue State Digital is an adtech that specializes in online fundraising, and campaign consultancy. The company was founded by 4 former staffers of the Howard Dean 2004 presidential campaign. The company became notable after providing digital strate ...
as their first employee, shortly after the company was founded, following the end of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign. There, he was a senior developer, helping design and build the technology to power the
Democratic National Committee The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well a ...
's digital engagement efforts for the 2006 mid-term elections. This software eventually evolved into the platform behind the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.


Obama administration

Cochran joined the Obama White House in 2011 as the first director of new media technologies, responsible for the technology behind
WhiteHouse.gov whitehouse.gov (also simply known as wh.gov) is the official website of the White House and is managed by the Office of Digital Strategy. It was launched on July 29, 1994 by the Clinton administration. The content of the website is in the ...
. He also led the engineering team charged with designing and building
We the People The Preamble to the United States Constitution, beginning with the words We the People, is a brief introductory statement of the Constitution's fundamental purposes and guiding principles. Courts have referred to it as reliable evidence o ...
to allow Americans to directly petition the government on any issue. He left in 2012 to join
Atlantic Media Atlantic Media is an American print and online media company owned by David G. Bradley and based in the Watergate in Washington, D.C. It publishes ''The Atlantic,'' a print and online publication that also holds themed events; and offers business ...
as their chief technology officer. As CTO, he performed a study on the company's use of email, calculating that each email actually cost the company the equivalent of 95 cents in lost labor, and added up to over a million dollars. The study ended up as part of Cal Newport's book ''Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (2016).'' In 2014, he was appointed by President Obama to the State Department, helping "take the lessons of the Obama campaign and apply them for American foreign policy around the globe" joining former
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
digital colleague, Macon Phillips. While at the Department, he was responsible for launching ShareAmerica, a government
Upworthy Upworthy is a website dedicated to positive storytelling. It was started in March 2012 by Eli Pariser, the former executive director of MoveOn, and Peter Koechley, the former managing editor of ''The Onion''. One of Facebook's co-founders, Chris ...
clone that is a "digital-first platform with socially-optimized content that was policy relevant," available in seven languages to cover an audience of 4 billion people.


Post-administration

After leaving the Obama administration in 2016, Cochran was tapped to lead the public sector practice as chief digital strategist for
Acquia Acquia is a software-as-a-service company co-founded by Dries Buytaert and Jay Batson to provide enterprise products, services, and technical support for the open-source web content management platform Drupal. Overview The company is venture cap ...
, a
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
-based
software-as-a-service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is cons ...
company. In October 2018, he was hired to run the digital and integrated marketing practice for Edelman in Washington, DC. In July 2019, he left Edelman to rejoin 720 Strategies as partner and chief growth officer. Cochran speaks internationally on his government experience pushing digital and cultural transformation. He emphasizes a change management approach focusing on establishing credibility, embracing risk, and adopting emerging technologies. He's also an adjunct professor at American University and a writer, having contributed to publications including
Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Massach ...
,
Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
, and
Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
.


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cochran, Tom 1977 births Obama administration personnel United States Department of State officials American University faculty and staff Vanderbilt University alumni Living people Phillips Exeter Academy alumni People from Washington, D.C.