Chris Cairns
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Managing Director @ Skylight, 18F Co-Founder, Presidential Innovation Fellow
Sarasota, Florida
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Managing DirectorSkylight Digital LLCJun 2017 - Current (9 years 5 months)Skylight is a HUBZone digital government consultancy driven by making government work in a digital world through design, technology, and procurement.
https://skylight.digital/- 18F Co-FounderGSA - Global Student AccommodationJun 2014 - Jun 2017 (3 years 1 month)Co-founder and member of the senior executive team who grew 18F’s digital services business from 15 to over 200 people distributed across 30 cities and over $30M in annual revenue in less than two and a half years.
Started, led, and managed the 18F Consulting line of business. In a little over a year, grew to 40 consultants, executed nearly 45 client agreements representing total signings of $9.2M, sustained a billable utilization rate of 70% (15 points above target), attained 100% client retention, influenced over $1B in IT acquisition spend, and enabled agencies to avoid nearly $500M in unnecessary technology acquisition costs.
Conceived, developed, launched, and scaled several initiatives designed to make the govern - Presidential Innovation FellowU.S. Department of the TreasuryJun 2013 - Jun 2014 (1 year 1 month)Strategic Advisor to the Executive Architect over the implementation of OMB Memo M-13-08, "Improving Financial Systems Through Shared Services,” which is expected to save more $500M annually through the consolidation and standardization of all 24 CFO Act Agencies’ financial management systems.
- Co-Founder and DirectorTrue North EquitiesSep 2010 - Jun 2013 (2 years 10 months)Acquired and operated a portfolio of six companies in high-growth public and commercial markets.
Built a new line of business focused on federal business consulting and support that brought in over 30 industry clients in less than a year and half. Successfully exited in 2016.
As interim COO, led the commercialization of a member company's DARPA- funded line of medical injury simulation products that are now used around the world at over 20 Army Medical Simulation Training Centers to train combat medics.
Won a strategic contract for a member company to support the Army Power Dreaming R&D initiative. Featured in Wired magazine ( - Program ManagerDHS / ICEJul 2009 - Sep 2010 (1 year 3 months)Led an IT strategy & management program ($20M annual budget, 20 FTEs) that delivered specialized services to business/IT executives and a multibillion- dollar portfolio of software acquisition programs (30+) and projects (200+).
- IIdeajamsIdeajamsMay 2008 - Current (18 years 6 months)Sandbox for creative and entrepreneurial endeavors (mostly web apps).
- Senior Management ConsultantSAICJun 2007 - Jul 2009 (2 years 2 months)Re-structured how $1.0B+ in IT investments are budgeted and governed at DHS / CBP.
- Management ConsultantIBMDec 2005 - Jun 2007 (1 year 7 months)Developed and commercialized new technology-driven market offerings for multibillion-dollar markets (e.g., Open Source Applications, Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness & Response). Also did some client work.
- Technology ManagerUnisysSep 2003 - Dec 2005 (2 years 4 months)Co-developed and launched Real-Time Infrastructure solution that became one of Unisys' core brands.
Education
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- Triple Degrees (1 BS, 2 BAs), Management Information Systems, History, Political SciencePenn State University
- MandarinBeijing Foreign Studies University
Projects (professional or personal)
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- 118F Digital Transformation Solution FrameworkJan 2016 - Apr 2016 (4 months)Developed a comprehensive solution framework for supporting federal agencies' digital transformation initiatives, in collaboration with over 10 technology executives.
Press coverage:
https://govfresh.com/2017/01/transforming-u-s-government-services-digital-world/ - DDigital Acquisition AcceleratorNov 2015 - Current (11 years)Conceived, architected, and co-led an accelerator program for increasing the adoption rate of digital acquisition practices across federal agencies.
Press coverage:
https://www.fedscoop.com/fbi-treasury-join-pilot-cohort-for-digital-acquisition-accelerator/
https://gcn.com/articles/2016/06/20/digital-acquisition.aspx - MMicro-purchase PlatformAug 2015 - Current (11 years 3 months)Oversaw the team that launched a platform for purchasing open-source-software contributions under the federal micro-purchase threshold.
Press coverage:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10998649
http://federalnewsradio.com/federal-drive/2016/02/david-zvenyach-alla-goldman-seiffert-why-bother-with-micro-purchases/ - RRFP Ghostwriting ServiceMar 2015 - Current (11 years 8 months)Conceived, developed, launched, and grew RFP (Request for Proposal) Ghostwriting service that has been used by nearly a dozen federal and state & local agencies in support of their digital acquisitions, including the State of California's Child Welfare System (http://bit.ly/1STq4ri).
Press coverage:
http://www.govtech.com/federal/18F-Launches-RFP-Ghostwriting-and-Review-Service.html - AAgile Delivery Services MarketplaceJan 2015Conceived and developed government-wide marketplace featuring vendors specializing in agile delivery services (e.g., user-centered design, agile software development, DevOps). The "prototype as proposal" approach inspired completely new ways of conducting technology procurements across the government.
Press coverage:
http://federalnewsradio.com/management/2015/01/gsas-agile-rfi-beginning-of-systemic-change-in-it-acquisition/ - TTreasury's myRA (my Retirement Account)Oct 2014Product Lead for front-end landing experience
- DDepartment of Interior's Natural Resources Revenue Open DataJun 2014Product Lead
- FFederal Financial Management Shared Services Marketplace GovernanceJun 2014Developed governance over the federal financial management shared services marketplace.
- FFederal Financial Management Shared Services Providers DesignationMay 2014Developed the evaluation criteria that led to the formal designation of four Federal Financial Management Shared Services Providers: Department of Agriculture's National Finance Center; Department of the Interior's Interior Business Center; Department of Transportation's Enterprise Services Center; and Treasury's Administrative Resource Center.
- FFederal Momentum Consortium Shared Services Strategy InitiativeApr 2014Led an initiative that formally chartered a community of agencies with classified needs (Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of State, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and U.S. Agency for International Development) to implement a shared services consortium operating model that leverages the Momentum software.
- FFederal Financial Management Shared Services Providers Needs AnalysisFeb 2014Analyzed the business and technical needs of the Federal Financial Management Shared Services Providers that concluded in a multi-year investment plan.
- ppickmo - free sports betting gameCreated pickmo.com, a free and legal sports betting game that brings the thrill of betting on sports in Vegas right to your desktop or mobile device. It was built using Ruby on Rails, jQuery, Javascript, pjax, CSS3, SASS, Twitter Bootstrap, HTML5, Postgres, RSpec, Heroku, and third-party APIs.
- SSmartlife - personal productivity & tech blogMay 2008 - Current (18 years 6 months)A blog on how to get more from life using technology and lifehacks. As Managing Editor, grew to 40k monthly visitors.
- IIT Schedule 70 Plain Language GuideIn partnership with Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS), launched IT Schedule 70 plain language guide, informed by research and interviews, to help technology companies interested in doing business with the federal government better understand how to join IT Schedule 70.
- RRosterHero - fantasy sports consulting (lean startup smoke test)To capitalize on the huge uptake in daily fantasy sports, ran a lean startup "smoke test" to determine the viability of offering expert fantasy sports advice.
Awards
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- GSA Administrator’s Award for Excellence in PerformanceGeneral Services AdministrationMay 2016
- Secretary's Award for Excellence in Customer ServiceDepartment of Interior
- 33rd Place in 2007 U.S. Army Gaming Championship - Command & Conquer 3 (Xbox360)
- CIO's Distinguished Special AchievementDepartment of Homeland Security
- NNational Dean’s List
- NNational Security Education Program Boren Scholar
- PPhi Beta Kappa
- SSchreyer Honors College
- SSocial Matchbox Summer Social 2009 - Top 10 Startups in D.C.
- SSumma Cum Laude
- Top 12 Influencers of 2012GovLoop
Publications
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- Supplement your team with specific digital expertise through our Microconsulting ServicesSkylight
- Modern Agile ProcurementAgileGovCon 2017
- Bootstrapping the way out of the legacy IT systems crisisFederal News Radio
- An agile financing model: Agile share-in-savingsFedscoop
- A Model for Agile Share-in-SavingsMedium
- Two agencies participating in the Digital Acquisition Accelerator pilot18F
- Announcing the launch of the Digital Acquisitions Pilot18F
- The EPA's new Environmental Digital Services marketplace18F
- Preventing technical debt18F
- Announcing 18F Consulting’s Digital Economy Practice18F
- Managing technical debt18F
- What is technical debt?18F
- Announcing the Agile BPA awards: A conversation about the process18F
- Don’t underestimate the danger of technical debt18F
- Behind the Buy #5: Managing and Delivering Digital Services for Agile Software DevelopmentWhite House
- Avoiding cloudfall: A systematic approach to cloud migration18F
- Agile development’s secret weapon: transparency18F
- Agile Acquisitions 101 SeminarFederal Acquisition Institute
- New RFP ghostwriting service to improve contract success18F
- Labor category descriptions for agile procurements18F
- Getting Started with Agile in GovernmentGovFresh
- Creating a federal marketplace for agile delivery services18F
- User-centered design at 18F: a design studio for natural resource revenues18F
- Federal Capture Management - Identifying Teaming PartnersGovLoopSep 2012
- GovLoop Templates - Project Risk RegisterGovLoop
- PPATENT - System for providing an interactive sports betting game to a plurality of participantsNov 2011US 13/289,596
System for providing an interactive sports betting game to a plurality of participants to compete for virtual goods or virtual currency units or both and share social information with other users. - PPATENT - titleStratification-based and categorization-based system and method for harnessing collective intelligenceMar 2011US 13/075,883
Stratification-based and categorization-based system and method for harnessing collective intelligence of betbots to predict sports outcomes - PPATENT - Stratification-based and categorization-based system and method for harnessing collective intelligenceFeb 2011US 13/031,781
Stratification-based and categorization-based system and method for harnessing collective intelligence to predict sports outcomes.
Aborted the filing process. Software and their methods belong to the public, so feel free to profit from this. :) - The current future of 18F marketplaces18F
- SSmartlife Blog