Gov. Newsom named longtime technology executive Nolwenn Godard as director at the state Office of Data and Innovation (ODI), which was created July 1 by merging the Office of Digital Innovation, the Government Excellence and Transformation Center (GET Center) and the CalData Program into one entity. Newsom’s office made the announcement late Wednesday. California Government Operations Agency Secretary Amy Tong was the previous director of the Office of Digital Innovation, from Jan. 1, 2022, until her appointment as secretary the following month.In a Tweet Thursday, Joy Bonaguro, the state’s chief data officer, said she was “so excited” to welcome Godard to the team, and noted ODI is currently hiring for an executive coordinator, a principal analytics engineer, a principal data scientist and a senior data scientist.
Godard was most recently director of product at SoFi, a role she had since September 2020. Her previous positions include director of product and product principal at Galileo from 2020-2022, director of product at PayPal from 2015 to 2020 and other product roles at the company from 2007-2015. She was project manager and business analyst at Ubisoft from 2004-2007 and was a financial planning and analysis manager and IT consultant there from 2000-2004.
On LinkedIn, Godard says she is a “software executive building data-driven products & platforms to scale equal access to opportunity across the globe,” adding: “I advocate for inclusion and diversity in partner organizations and beyond.”
She holds volunteer roles at a number of organizations including the Alliance for Inclusive Artificial Intelligence, French Education Bay Area (EFBA), Impact Atlas, the Women Initiative Foundation, Hipower and the LEAP Network.
The new director has a Master of Business Administration degree from ESSEC Business School. She also holds certificates from the Women Entrepreneur Program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and in pricing for profitability and product management at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
Her position will require confirmation by the California State Senate; compensation is $210,000. Godard is a Democrat.
