#5: Abhi Nemani

Abhi Nemani was LA’s first chief data officer... “To say that public service is a thankless job is an understatement,” he wrote in an unofficial goodbye post on Medium. “The way most interact with a government official is to complain. But here’s the thing: our governments do wonderful work. Based on my experience at Code for America, I walked into City Hall last year with a list of things I wanted to do. Guess what? Most — if not all — were already in place.”

Nemani was formerly the co-executive director of CfA. As CDO of LA, Nemani was tasked with running the city’s open data portal. This includes coordinating departments to increase the number of publicly available data sets and improving user experience.