Katie Savage Became the State of Maryland’s Chief Information Officer at Eight Months Pregnant. She Has Not Looked Back Since.
Katie Savage got the call in late 2022. Maryland’s governor needed someone who understood digital services and cybersecurity to run the state’s IT office, and her name kept coming up. It was the kind of opportunity most people wait a career for, a chance to build something real alongside a governor everyone was watching.
She was eight months pregnant.
Most people would have asked for time. A few months to have the baby, find her footing, start the job with both hands free. Katie didn’t have that instinct. She said yes, and then she figured out how to carry both.
There was zero lead-time. A hefty budget, a new team, and her due date all arrived within the same couple of months. Ruthless prioritization and boundaries were skills that had to be mastered instantly since there was little room to ease into this position.
Three and half years later, Savage now oversees the State’s cybersecurity strategy, communications infrastructure such as Maryland’s radio and broadband networks, an IT investment fund for software development, enterprise software platforms, AI strategy, and a platform for managing public benefits.
A Political Science Major Who Didn’t Care About Politics
As a high schooler, Savage came to Washington DC as a Political Science major but found out on Capitol Hill that she is not a policy thinker. She likes to build and set deliverables.
She went to Malawi in the Peace Corps for two years and did human-centered design without even knowing its name yet. She still recalls the brown spiral-bound manual the Peace Corps provided her on participatory assessment techniques and wants to get her hands back on it.
She completed her Master’s in City Planning from UPenn and ended up spending the summer at the city hall in Chicago as a fellow under the supervision of Brett Goldstein – the country’s first municipal data officer. Together they built the first open data portal and mapped the foreclosure crisis for the city’s housing department. This experience changed her perspective on her career: data and technology as community development tools.
Thrown To The Wolves
At the very beginning of this job, Goldstein tasked her with an impossible mission: convince the city’s GIS team to make their data available. The team protected this data fiercely and it was messy, handwritten with no cleanup. She still considers it a turning point. When people guard something that tightly, it usually means there’s something worth chasing.
Goldstein later moved her to DC to join him at the Defense Digital Service (DDS) where they continued programs like Hack the Pentagon, the government’s first ever bug bounty program and she got deep into federal cybersecurity. Supporting the DOD at a unique time in history, DDS launched products such as a COVID-19 tracking application, cybersecurity products to advance Operation Warp Speed, a planning tool for Ukrainian supplies, and communications for Operation Allies Refuge Noncombatant Evacuation Operation of Afghanistan.
A Different Kind of Leader
Before taking up the role of Director at the DDS, a leadership coach taught her something that changed her mindset entirely: stop comparing yourself to your predecessors. It won’t fit you and won’t work for you.
By letting go of the pressure, she embraced the qualities that worked well for her: listening, collaboration, building the right teams, being patient rather than aggressive. Suddenly something clicked. This is what she calls finding her groove.
The Hill
Savage is the runner who goes to the hills. Her motto: never give up on a hill. Get to the top and only then decide whether the view was worth the climb.
She takes the same approach both in parenting and work. Consider whether the hard parts need an adjustment in support, pace, or just a snack. Being a working parent has also inspired her to do more for other working families. Through her team running the State’s benefits platform, she met a mother who shared her story of juggling her kids to multiple program offices using the bus to apply for the support she needs. Her team ultimately created One Application, which now streamlines all those benefit applications to a single, mobile-first application that can be completed in less than 30 minutes.
And here is her message to her kids, watching this back video in thirty-five years: the work was done not despite them but because of them. And never give up on a hill.
Support LBT
☕ Buy Me a Coffee · 📖 Get the LBT Book
Listen to Life Between Titles
·📺 YouTube · 🟢 Spotify · 🍎 Apple Podcasts · 🎵 Amazon Music
Join the Community
📝 Substack · 📸 Instagram · 💼 LinkedIn
Partner with LBT
This is a fantastic write-up! Love your style. Keep going!