The organization announced the winner of the award Tuesday at its 2025 Annual Conference, indicating in a news release that the award goes to a state CISO who has accomplished notable work.
Drake has been with Ohio since 2022 and was appointed CISO in 2023, during which time Ohio has expanded agency-level security management, launched new services such as penetration testing and tabletop exercises, and improved statewide governance and incident response under her leadership. Drake collaborates across agencies and mentors early career cybersecurity professionals. She also launched “Coffee with the CISO” forums, illustrating a people-first leadership style, NASCIO said in its announcement.
In addition, NASCIO also recognized three state digital services leaders, giving the NASCIO State Technology Innovator Award to three officials it said advanced innovative, resident-facing technology.
Keith Perry, chief development officer for the Georgia Technology Authority, leads the GTA Strike Team focused on legacy modernization, digital services and cybersecurity, according to a separate NASCIO release. Perry is the authority’s chief development officer and leads the statewide application development team, credited with cost savings, building secure data exchanges, and modernizing resident applications that are accessible and efficient. He also was a key player in creating the agency’s Cloud Academy, the Georgia AI Innovation Lab and more than 90 initiatives this year alone. Perry has been a state technologist for more than two decades, according to LinkedIn.
Bryanna Pardoe, executive director of Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience (CODE PA), led efforts to consolidate more than 70 agency websites into a single portal at pa.gov, according to NASCIO. The platform streamlines access to roughly 1,000 state services and was developed with resident feedback to improve usability and accessibility. The project raised the site’s accessibility score from 37 percent to 95 percent and drew about 9 million visits in December 2024. Pardoe has served CODE PA since its 2023 launch, and this month was named as the state’s acting CIO.
Josiah Raiche, Vermont’s first chief data and AI officer within the Agency of Digital Services, has led statewide efforts to expand responsible use of artificial intelligence and data, according to the release. He established the state’s Council on Artificial Intelligence and the state’s AI code of ethics to promote transparency and accountability. Raiche also oversaw creation of a Criminal Justice Information Services-compliant data lake and ChatVT, a secure chatbot that supports more than 300 state employees weekly. His work has advanced data management, cloud services and cost-control initiatives while strengthening compliance and AI literacy.
Additional details about past and present NASCIO award winners are available on the association’s website.
