GOP CTO

The New York Times reports:

In March 2013, the Republican National Committee released an autopsy of its 2012 losses, titled the “Growth and Opportunity Project.” Among the conclusions: Republicans were being badly beaten in the data war. Different party institutions did a poor job of collaborating with one another and with outside allies. While Democratic campaigns increasingly used advanced analytics and data gathering to rigorously test different ways of reaching voters, Republicans still relied too much on gut and instinct. They had failed to foster a “culture of data and learning,” as the Democrats had, and needed to deepen the talent pool.

One of the party’s first steps in that direction was hiring Andrew Barkett, 33, a former senior engineering manager at Facebook. In June, Mr. Barkett accepted dual appointments as chief technology officer of the Republican National Committee and of Data Trust, a firm founded in 2011 by prominent former party officials and contracted to improve the party’s voter file, its most prized asset.

In recent months, Mr. Barkett has built out a pair of Silicon Valley offices for the party and for the company. Data Trust has become a kind of party-oriented engineering firm, developing a platform that will allow Republican candidates and state parties to easily swap and share data on Republican voters and create other analytic products — a capability that Democratic organizations have had for years.

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Mr. Barkett must draw talent to work on behalf of the party broadly, rather than for a single candidate. And the best engineers, he said, don’t see the Republican Party as the most modern place to work. “The G.O.P. has no culture of technical skill or excellence,” he said. But, he pitches recruits this way: “Who has a more interesting and meaningful big data problem right now? You can change the culture. You can change who the president is.” Mr. Barkett himself gave up stock options worth several million dollars at Facebook to join the Republican National Committee effort because he saw an opportunity to effect change.