Federal 100: Kathleen T. Cowles
Name: Kathleen T. Cowles
Title: Principal
Company: Deep Water Point
Reinventing an institution. As industry chair of the 2014 ACT-IAC Executive Leadership Conference, Cowles reinvented one of the community's signature venues for discussion and planning -- and, more important, created an incubator for several key ideas that continue to influence federal IT long after ELC adjourned. In shifting from lectures and speaker panels to open meetings and real conversations, she convinced skeptical stakeholders that, although ELC "wasn’t broken," it could be much better and more collaborative. The outcomes and the community feedback suggest it was a change well worth making.