Michael Akinyele, MBA, SES, is the former, founding Chief Innovation Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the largest federal civilian agency with a ~$250Bn budget and ~400K employees. He was appointed to the Senior Executive Service (SES) in 2019, and was responsible for leading, transforming and scaling enterprise innovation at the Department. Prior to his role in government, he spent most of his professional career leading management consulting teams focused on developing and implementing solutions.