Play Podcast  (Right click to download)

Municipal CIOs have their work cut out for them. They usually have to live within tight budgets and to answer to many public entities. And if they hope to align infrastructure issues with municipal business strategies, they might just have to invite themselves to the boardroom.

Gail M. Roper has done an outstanding job of carrying out all the challenges of being a municipal CIO for the economically and the culturally diverse Kansas City, Missouri, with a population of a half million. In fact, she no longer has to invite herself to important meetings to stay deeply involved in organizational changes and to drive productivity where needed.

She has received numerous awards for transforming Kansas City into one of the country's most technologically sophisticated municipalities. She's not afraid to find ways to retain legacy programmers, advise Fortune 500 CIOs, and more. And the old stereotype of bureaucratic paper-pusher? This is a CIO who pushes envelopes!

Resources

Interview with Gail Roper

Center for Digital Government, Interview with Gail Roper

Bio

In 2001, Gail M. Roper became CIO for the City of Kansas City, Missouri. She joined the Kansas City government in 1996 to focus on technology infrastructure development. She moved up to IT director before becoming CIO. Prior to joining this Midwest city, Roper did development work on the network infrastructure for the City of Austin, Texas. She also worked in the private sector for 10 years.

She has received a number of distinguished awards and accomplishments for public technology, including Government Technology Magazine's award for the nation's Top 25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers; and the Present Day Leaders and Technology Award by the Black Family Technology Awareness Association. Roper has contributed to many national publications focused on the strategic deployment of technology.

Production Credits

Elizabeth Ferrarini, Producer
Dana Farver, Executive Producer, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Tom Parish, Audio Producer, Show Host
Kimberly Stone, Web Development Manager
Scott Ebner, Web Developer