Kimberly Essary Appointed as EEOC Deputy Chief Data Officer

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced the appointment of Kimberly S. L. Essary as deputy chief data officer, a key Senior Executive Service mana­gerial position at the federal agency.

Essary will provide executive leadership and manage a full range of program activities within the EEOC’s Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics (OEDA), including data management and governance, the collection and analysis of mission-critical data and information and the recommendation of approaches and procedures to improve agency operations through data-driven decision-making. OEDA was created in 2018 to build a 21st century data and analytics organization at the EEOC which utilizes state-of-the-art data science tools and techniques, and efficiently leverages data to reduce burden and costs while protecting privacy and promoting program transparency. 

Essary has served in several high-level roles at the EEOC since she joined the agency in 2009 as a career attorney-advisor. Since 2018 she has served as the deputy director and senior counsel of OEDA, where she was instrumental in the development and creation of the new office as well as the agency’s first Data Governance Board. Additionally, during her tenure she was selected and served as a federal data fellow as part of the federal government’s Federal Data Strategy Team. This core group of cross-discipline federal data experts developed practices and action steps as part of the government-wide Federal Data Strategy. Prior to joining the EEOC, Essary served at the U.S. Department of Labor as a senior policy advisor and worked in private practice at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in Washington, D.C. She holds a J.D., with honor, from the University of Maryland School of Law and a B.A. from Smith College in Northampton, Mass.   

“The EEOC is indeed fortunate to have Kimberly Essary in her new role,” said EEOC Chair Janet Dhillon. “Accurate and reliable data have always been important to our mission, and it becomes ever more crucial today. We can be confident that Kimberly will continue to contribute to our work in that area in ways we can trust and depend on.

Essary said, “I am honored to have the opportunity to serve in this new role. I look forward to building upon the agency’s work in recent years to modernize our data and analytics capabilities and to better serve the American people through data-driven decision-making.”

Martin Ebel, director of the EEOC’s Office of Field Programs, said, “Kimberly Essary’s incredibly vast knowledge and experience in the world of data make her the perfect person for this position.”

The EEOC advances opportunity in the workplace by enforcing federal laws prohibiting employ­ment discrimination. More information is available at www.eeoc.gov. Stay connected with the latest EEOC news by subscribing to our email updates.