Tong, a 30-year veteran of state government, had been GovOps secretary for three years until passing the torch to Nick Maduros and taking on her new role at the request of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Tong, an Elk Grove resident, has been in technology leadership roles for decades, having risen through the state IT hierarchy. She has served, among other things, as acting chief information officer at the State Water Resources Control Board, chief of the data center for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), chief technology officer for the State Board of Equalization, deputy director and CIO of the California Lottery, chief deputy director for what’s now the Office of Technology and Solutions Integration, and agency chief information officer for OTSI’s parent entity, the California Health and Human Services Agency.
She was appointed acting state CIO in 2016 by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, was confirmed to the position the following year, then reappointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020. In December 2021, Tong was named director of the Office of Digital Innovation, a role she held for just over a year before Newsom named her GovOps secretary three years ago this month.
“My new title is senior counselor to the governor, focusing on government efficiency, tech and innovation,” Tong told Industry Insider — California in an interview Tuesday. “I will continue to champion tech and innovation, and I will assist on the L.A. [wildfire] recovery effort. The reason I want to continue to champion tech and innovation is because my career is really in this lane. I want to continue to use tech innovation as a change maker, a change agent. And when it comes to the government efficiency work, obviously we’re going to focus in a lot on programmatic process improvement. A lot of that process improvement is derived from what innovation can provide, but more important than that is the government efficiency lens that I'm looking into in this new role: How do we improve our service delivery to our residents?”
Just as important, Tong said, is to acknowledge the state’s financial limitations and to find new efficiencies. So, is she forming a California version of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)?
“It’s a fair question — people ask that,” she said. “But I don’t even bring up the name DOGE because really, we’re doing this more to focus on government efficiency, not because of reacting to what DOGE is doing in the federal government.” She said efficiency “is really something that this governor has long championed since he came into his role six years ago, and now, with a little bit more than 18 months to go, he really wants to leave the state government even more efficient than how he found it."
“That’s why, in this last two years of his administration, we wanted to accelerate that process.”
“A lot of the ideas on how to leverage tech or the idea of innovation — whether it’s tech or not — we really, really want to hear those ideas from our industry partners. And the way we want to hear from our industry partners is through the Request for Innovative Ideas process, RFI squared, and there’s a couple of changes we are already starting to make.
“One is, we don’t want the ‘hearing from the industry partners’ strictly to be a construction procurement process, because that, to me, is too restrictive. We really wanted to do more of, you know, the vendor showcase day, the vendor demo day, which we have done for [generative AI] GenAI. There’s a lot more back-and-forth open dialogue based on what the industry can provide in response to a challenge statement. The challenge statement can kind of help narrow what problem we’re trying to solve today, right? Rather than just be wide open, where you don’t have a lot of focus, we could have different challenge statements at different times that really help focus the conversation from the industry. The fact that we do that as part of the market research, it just allows a lot more flexibility to have that ongoing conversation. That’s one change I think you’re going to see more of moving forward.”
Tong acknowledged the feeling among some in the industry — and in government — that the state’s technology procurement process is too slow and cumbersome.
“We hear you that the procurement process is still lengthy,” she said. “Honestly, this is something that I’m going to advocate a lot more once I have the dedication of time to focus on government efficiency. We understand time is money, right? And the longer a procurement drags out, the more laborious process is involved. It requires investment from the industry. … We want to promote a dynamic conversation or quick turnaround of a solution. To shrink our procurement time and simplify our procurement process is going to continue to be a focus. For this administration, it’s ‘How do we streamline the procurement period?’”
To that point, CDT presented a Vendor Forum last week on new rules governing the disclosure and use of GenAI in state contracts, which some say adds to the time and effort required by vendors responding to a state solicitation. Tong was cautious in her response to questions about whether those new rules will be cumbersome or whether they'll ultimately streamline the process.
“I would recommend definitely following up with CDT a little bit more," she said. "You might see from the vendor community, ‘Oh, gosh, one more thing we have to report on.’ I don't want to speak for CDT, but … the earlier disclosure actually is going to save a lot of scrutiny down the road, because when it comes to GenAI, especially, it's not just the security, but the privacy aspect is still a very, very hot topic with the Legislature, and rightfully so.
“Because of consumer privacy protection, we always take the stand that being more transparent upfront is going to reduce the amount of back-and-forth at the tail end. We realize it's an extra step. But my understanding is CDT already took a pretty reasonable approach, that this type of disclosure should not cause a lot of extra work. We’ll continue with the spirit of trying these, piloting these ourselves, and then with a commitment to adjust as we learn more, if indeed this process becomes too laborious. I believe there's an open feedback loop for this [to] continue to be refined.”
Also of immediate concern to state government is the status of the state’s budget for Fiscal Year 2025-2026; Newsom unveiled his proposed budget in January, and the Legislature will have a look at it again during the May Revision, after which it will be approved by the Assembly and state Senate in whatever form it emerges in June. Tong noted the ongoing changes in the spending plan as the state grapples with costs from the Los Angeles wildfires, rising health-care expenses and other hurdles.
“I would say it is not a surprise that the budget is really, really tight," Tong said. "Really, it’s [the Department of Finance] that’s tracking this very closely based on all of the income tax and various other taxes coming in. That said, we have to just be a good custodian of the taxpayers’ money, right? We have to continue to plan for how we continue to deliver when the budget is going to be tight — which is another main reason why the governor wanted to put me in this dedicated focus on government efficiency.”
The solutions are as complex as the problem, Tong said.
“The easy way is, oh, when there's a budget cut, then we drop some service and we eliminate something in order to balance. That is not our goal. Our goal is that, one, our services are essential, and how do you continue to deliver those services when we're dealing with a very tight budget? Two, how do we do it more efficiently internally so we actually increase the capacity for delivery? And three — this is where the tech and innovation comes in — be very open to look at how we can do things differently. Not just faster doing the same thing, but how do we do it differently? So not only do we increase capacity, but really, really improve our service delivery from a user-centered aspect.”
Looking back on 30 years in government, with increasingly responsible positions and now as the governor’s senior counselor, Tong was asked what she missed about working in larger departments.
“I would just say to really value the team that you work with, and frankly, that is what I missed most when I moved from CDT to ODI and to GovOps," she said. "And now I'm leaving a GovOps team that I have gone through the thick and thin together with, the good times and the challenge times, together. I'm going to get emotional here. When you are so fortunate to have a team and you know they have your back, and I have done everything to have their back, and you build that level of synergy together and reach a level of very high performance because we have this trust … it's a rare thing, right? When you have that kind of a team environment to be working in, to me it’s a privilege, and that's what I'm going to miss the most."
Tong’s successor as GovOps secretary, Maduros, has his own pedigree as a longtime technology executive, having most recently served as director of the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. Does Tong have any words of wisdom for him?
“I don’t know if you’d even call it advice, but more of just knowledge-sharing with the incoming secretary is to really treasure the team, treasure the people.”
She added: “I think for someone that has been a career public servant my entire career, I feel I was never limited by that experience being a public servant, because I get exposure to so many different areas. … Now with this whole wealth of experience — gosh, 30 years of state service — I feel like I'm at this pinnacle point of my career where I can support the governor in this new capacity and work with the various secretaries and directors and help them improve service delivery. Every single one of them I've talked to — everybody, no doubt — are advocates of government efficiency. So from that aspect, I'm quite humbled to be given this opportunity.”
From that pinnacle, she remains active in the community, volunteering, mentoring and speaking to various nonprofits, cultural groups and professional organizations. She said she hopes her new position allows her to continue those activities.
“I will see how demanding the time and workload is going to be in this new role,” Tong said. “Obviously, my intent is to keep up as much community service as maybe humanly possible. I don't want to claim that I’m helping out with a bunch of nonprofits if I cannot actually invest the time to do a good job, but I also don't want to shy away, because I feel like that community connection keeps me grounded and gives me the perspective that I would not normally have if I don't have that connection. That's why I really value those volunteer experiences and still want to continue to do so.”
After a long day of leading a department or advising the governor or working with community groups, Tong said, she’s more aware than ever of the need to take care of herself, and that includes physical fitness.
“I recently picked up hot yoga,” she said, “except that I was told that to make it actually work, you're supposed to go two or three days a week. I'm happy if I could just do once a week! I’m also entering that age — I'm a woman over 50, and I need to invest a little bit of time in myself. That way, I can bring my personal best self to the things that I do.”
This story first appeared in Industry Insider — California, part of e.Republic, Government Technology's parent company.
