Julie Leese (she/her)

Julie Leese, a federal public servant with a career spanning 33 years, is Transport Canada’s first Chief Digital Officer, leading the Digital Services and Transformation Office.

Julie has been with Transport Canada since May 2016 as their Chief Information Officer and has been leading the modernization and renewal of the department’s national IM/IT program and has facilitated the co-design of Transport Canada’s Digital Strategy in collaboration with her colleagues across the department.

Just this past January, Julie took on additional responsibilities in her new role as Chief Digital Officer, essentially bridging the Digital Strategy in with the department’s broader Transformation efforts.

In this context, Julie and her team are driving the adoption of design thinking practices to redefine how the department works, how it engages, and how it embeds ‘digital’ into its business and its services for its clients. Working with her colleagues, Julie and her team are driving transformation in key areas such as online services delivery, mobilizing the inspectorate, building capacity in BI and advanced data analytics, experimenting with new and disruptive technologies, and ensuring that transportation data is open and accessible.

In addition to her work at Transport Canada, Julie is also an active member of the Government of Canada’s CIO community, the Canadian CIO Association of Canada, and has also established a Womens CIO Forum and other Women in Technology events to advance dialogue and action in promoting women in technology.