Ashley G.

Enterprise Program & IT Strategy Leader
Rocklin, CA· Contact details redacted — engagements via Beacon

Professional Summary

Enterprise program leader with 10+ years across the State of California, currently directing strategic initiatives at the Office of Data and Innovation. Track record of building governance frameworks, technical infrastructure, and statewide programs from intake through full operational rollout — most recently designing CDCR's enterprise eDiscovery program from scratch and standing up cross-agency portfolio structures for the Governor's Fellowship Program (21 fellows per cohort across 9–11 agencies and 13–15 departments). Routinely operates across multiple IT domains — Business Technology Management, IT Project Management, and Software Engineering — having held Project Manager, Product Owner, and Acting IT Manager I responsibilities concurrently during a multi-year program build. Career defined by translating policy and compliance requirements into working systems that other agencies adopt as the standard.

Core Competencies

Enterprise Program Design Governance & Policy Formulation eDiscovery & Legal Compliance Public Records Act Operations Product Ownership & Agile Delivery Business Analysis & Requirements Cross-Functional Leadership & Supervision Executive & Stakeholder Engagement Enterprise Systems Implementation Procurement & Contract Management Statewide Training & Adoption Executive Reporting & Analytics
Click any competency to see where it shows up across roles.

Professional Experience

IT Specialist II — Strategic Initiatives
California Office of Data and Innovation (ODI) · Sacramento, CA
July 2025 – Present
  • Lead enterprise program management for the Governor's Fellowship Program — a continuous-cohort initiative spanning 9–11 state agencies and 13–15 departments, with 21 fellows per cohort delivering 12–15 concurrent cross-agency initiatives aimed at statewide innovation and operational efficiency.
  • Designed and implemented portfolio tracking structures, timelines, and executive reporting mechanisms that gave leadership consistent visibility across initiatives previously managed in isolation across multiple agencies.
  • Established governance frameworks defining roles, responsibilities, escalation paths, and decision rights — aligning Fellowship work with statewide strategic priorities and removing recurring approval bottlenecks across participating departments.
  • Partner with executive sponsors and program leads to define KPIs and measurable outcomes tied to statewide impact, then deliver briefings to GovOps and statewide stakeholders in conferences, hearings, and executive-level presentations.
  • Operate within a "Government-to-Government" delivery model with no allocated budget — requiring solutions that leverage existing state resources and cross-agency collaboration in lieu of contracted spend.
  • Manage the full project lifecycle — intake, scoping, requirements development, prioritization, and delivery oversight — while surfacing risks, dependencies, and resource constraints to leadership with concrete recommendations.
IT Specialist II — eDiscovery Program (incl. Acting IT Manager I)
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) · Sacramento, CA
December 2022 – June 2025
  • Built CDCR's enterprise eDiscovery program from the ground up — supporting civil litigation, internal investigations, and Public Records Act request processing across a 60,000-employee department, with defensible, timely data delivery against court-driven and statutory deadlines.
  • Held three roles concurrently — Project Manager, Product Owner, and Acting IT Manager I (six months) — directly supervising 4 staff with oversight of workload prioritization, performance management, and day-to-day program operations.
  • Directed implementation and integration of Microsoft Purview, RelativityOne, GovQA, and Veritas into a single end-to-end pipeline for data discovery, legal hold, and records release. RelativityOne deployment included managing a $1M two-year vendor contract rolled out to the full Office of Legal Affairs (35+ end users) with a pilot extending to PRA coordinators.
  • Authored governance frameworks, policies, and standard operating procedures that were approved by Legal and IT Security and adopted as departmental standards, aligning eDiscovery operations with SIMM/SAM compliance requirements.
  • Coordinated cross-functional teams across DOJ, Legal, HR, ISO, CDT, and external vendors — translating compliance requirements into technical specifications the engineering side could actually build to, supporting roughly 50 end users at maturity.
  • Led PAL/BCP efforts — preparing fiscal and technical justification, documentation, and approval routing for the program's funding lifecycle — and managed backlog, user stories, acceptance criteria, and sprint cycles to drive continuous product improvement.
  • Replaced fragmented, ad-hoc data discovery practices with a centralized eDiscovery program — improving consistency, reducing risk exposure, and creating a defensible position for civil litigation and PRA response.
  • Developed and delivered statewide training programs, onboarding curricula, and reference documentation to ensure adoption persisted past initial rollout.
IT Specialist I — Public Records Portal (GovQA)
CDCR · Sacramento, CA
October 2020 – December 2022
  • Served as Product Owner and Project Lead for CDCR's Public Records Act system — the platform that processes the department's statewide PRA request workload.
  • Led major system enhancements including online payment functionality and end-to-end workflow improvements that delivered an estimated 60% reduction in completion time for payment-required requests by eliminating manual payment-handling delays and allowing requestors to complete payments immediately at point of fulfillment.
  • Defined business requirements, user needs, and system enhancement priorities through structured stakeholder engagement and process analysis.
  • Authored SOPs, governance materials, templates, and training resources that standardized PRA processing across institutions and headquarters.
  • Built dashboards and reporting tools to track performance metrics, surface processing gaps, and inform program-level decisions.
  • Delivered training through 1:1 sessions, group workshops, and recorded video tutorials — and facilitated statewide coordination meetings as the primary liaison between program staff, Legal, and IT.
Information Technology Associate — Public Records & SOMS
CDCR · Sacramento, CA
March 2019 – October 2020
  • Operated as Business Analyst across two CDCR systems — the Public Records portal and the Strategic Offender Management System (SOMS) — conducting requirements gathering, workflow mapping, and UAT for system enhancements.
  • Designed and launched a statewide distance learning program for the PRA coordinator community during the COVID-19 transition — building scenario-based curriculum, guided exercises in a training environment, and video tutorials that trained 110–115 PRA coordinators statewide and ensured continuity of operations in a fully remote setting.
  • Provided subject-matter expertise on complex Public Records Act requests — ensuring responses met policy and statutory compliance requirements.
  • Developed workflows, intake processes, and documentation that improved consistency across PRA processing and reduced rework on returned requests.

Earlier Career

Associate Governmental Program Analyst
CDCR · Sacramento, CA
June 2017 – March 2019
Performed data analysis, audits, and reporting for statewide training programs. Served as LMS liaison improving system usability and resolving user-reported issues, and conducted legislative tracking and analysis on items affecting training operations.
AGPA — Outreach & Education Coordinator
California Department of Veterans Affairs · Sacramento, CA
October 2016 – June 2017
Led statewide outreach and education for Small Business and DVBE programs. Built tracking systems and performance reports to measure program effectiveness, and served as the department's SME for procurement and DVBE compliance across stakeholder presentations and trainings.
Staff Services Analyst
California Highway Patrol · Sacramento, CA
July 2015 – October 2016
Provided executive-level analytical support to the Assistant Commissioner, reviewing policy, legislation, budget proposals, and personnel actions while managing high-volume executive correspondence across divisions.

Education & Technical Toolkit

Education
Bachelor of Science, Communications
University of Phoenix, 2013
Technical Toolkit
Microsoft Purview · RelativityOne · GovQA · Veritas · Power BI · SharePoint · Teams · Asana · Airtable · Visio · Miro · Figma

Military Service

Operations Specialist (E-5) — United States Navy
U.S. Navy · Honorable Discharge
June 2006 – June 2010
Served four years as an Operations Specialist, advancing to E-5 (Petty Officer Second Class). Managed personnel operations, training, and administrative processes; provided airspace surveillance and operational coordination; and trained junior personnel on systems and procedures — early experience in the structured, accountability-driven environments that have shaped a public-sector career built on operational rigor.
References available upon request.