Rusty D. Pickens

Rusty D. Pickens is the Founder and Principal of 580 Strategies. He is the former Senior Advisor for Digital Platforms at the U.S. Department of State, and former Acting Director for New Media Technologies at the White House, where he led teams who operated cloud platforms for the Obama Administration to increase public engagement, improve user experience, enhance staff productivity, and heighten security posture. During this time, Rusty created new systems for and built new teams to lead Whitehouse.gov, the White House email outreach services, the Presidential correspondence system, the We The People petitions system, the White House Appointment Center, and the U.S. Embassy contact management systems.

Rusty's two decades of leadership experience aligning organizational vision with technology strategy across top federal agencies and start-up environments included the Federal Salesforce Community of Excellence, the U.S. Small Business Administration, the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee, Obama for America 2008, and the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma. He currently advises clients on unlocking the potential of cloud computing and agile software delivery to vastly improve their digital presence and citizen experience.