The position was previously held by Garrison Coward, who served as the state’s deputy CTO until his September appointment. Coward’s tenure followed that of Robert Ward, who was appointed in 2024. Ward was the state’s second CTO after Eric Moeller.
The state established the role through a 2022 executive order with the stated goals of enhancing transparency and accountability, and improving government efficiency and effectiveness using performance metrics.
“By working together across agencies, deploying modern technology and cutting red tape, we can create a government that better responds to the needs of families, businesses and local communities,” Wilkinson said Friday in a statement.
Wilkinson’s public-sector experience is extensive, per the announcement and his LinkedIn profile. He has been serving as a commissioner for the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Commission on Social Impact Partnerships since September 2023.
In 2019, he was named the state of Connecticut’s first chief performance officer, with the mission of supporting data-driven work. He took the role after serving as a commissioner for the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood for nearly two years.
Earlier still, at the federal level, he served the second President Barack Obama administration as director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and as a senior policy adviser, supporting social finance and environmental resilience.
He was named the inaugural director of Yale University’s Tobin Center for Economic Policy in September 2019, when he began serving as a senior fellow for the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies.
Wilkinson is a graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Virginia.
A state spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
