My Background
Garren Givens is an entrepreneur, investor, and consultant. Garren Givens served as the inaugural Executive Director of the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program, an initiative launched in 2009 to bring technologists into the federal government to tackle some of the nation’s biggest challenges. His efforts helped make the program permanent through legislation. While serving in government, Garren co-founded 18F, a digital consultancy inside the General Services Administration. Garren was a trusted advisor to White House leadership, and worked closely with cabinet officials and agency heads across government to identify opportunities for technology to drive meaningful product and policy outcomes.
Between these two organizations, he helped recruit over 250 technologists, digital strategists, and innovators to the federal government. In the process, he has designed and deployed a number of technology solutions and platforms to aid in strategic recruiting and technical assessment.
Since leaving government, Garren has continued to advise companies and non-profits on lean organizational design, TQ transformation and strategic use of technology to create high-leverage outcomes. Garren has contributed articles to VentureBeat and Huffington Post, and his startups have been covered by Entrepreneur, Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and other publications. Garren lives in Washington DC with his family, and holds a BA and MBA from Yale University.