In terms of her overall professional experience, Brown has worked in both the public and private sectors.
“When I was in state government, I was the head of the state’s labor agency,” she said. “It was the Agency for Workforce Innovation at the time, and we had a new administration. I was really concerned about how I could possibly wrap my arms around the agency in a short amount of time to be able to provide the best service possible.”
What really helped during this time, she said, was a friend’s recommendation to work with a company that completes SWOT analyses to pinpoint the agency’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
“What I was so grateful for is that they were ‘people people,’” Brown told Industry Insider. “They came in, talked to my team, understood our systems and processes, and brought in the right technology resources to help us move the agency forward.”
Similarly, after she switched to the private sector, incorporating technology and working with others once again played a significant role in her career as Walmart’s director of public affairs.
“I had an extraordinary role in Florida to lead our company’s investments in standing up COVID testing sites, and then later COVID vaccine sites, and obviously, it was a time when health risks were great, and many traditional health-care providers were unavailable,” Brown said. “My primary focus was to identify people and communities that needed access to care and to ensure that they were not forgotten.”
As for how her previous experience impacts her today, Brown said that her goals of valuing people’s time and delivering the best service possible remain the same, just in a different capacity, now that she and her team are working with the public sector.
“I like to approach any state or local agency mission-focused,” Brown said. “We know that they are busy people, their time is limited and it’s valuable, so for us, making sure we understand their pressure points and being prepared to provide solutions that help meet their needs is important, so that they can provide the best services to the people of the state or their community.”
Coincidentally, one of those solutions is technology.
“Several public-sector clients have begun to inquire about implementing AI and the relevant change management tasks that brings,” Brown said. “I think as we move forward, a lot of clients will be concerned about the data that AI produces and how to validate that data.”
Another notable area she pointed out is modernization.
“At North Highland, we have a team of experts that can help agencies prepare for modernization,” Brown said. “If an agency is considering a major system integration, or even something small, we’ve done that. Those big projects can be overwhelming, and oftentimes, they are once-in-a-generation projects, which, for some, maybe they don’t have any resources within their entity or agency that can support that. So, knowing that we have that experience and that we can bring people in that understand that their time is money and that they are working with limited and valuable resources and state taxpayer dollars is important.”
More information about North Highland’s public-sector work can be found online.
