New York City's first Chief Digital Officer, Rachel Sterne

In my January feature on New York City’s 24/7 contact center, my sources told me that 311′s next objective was to secure a chief digital officer to pioneer their social media initiative. Well, they found one as of yesterday. Her name is Rachel Sterne and she is 27 years old with a background in entrepreneurship, journalism, academics, and of course, social media. She was an adjuct professor at Columbia Business School, founded an civic journalism site called GroundReport, and has apparently been speaking all over the country.  She was also named one of America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek.

Sterne was hired after a six-month-long search and will reportedly make $115,000 a year!

She has kicked off her new job with an active twitter feed (@rachelsterne) and is launching a 90 day social media listening campaign to be handed over to Commissioner Katherine Oliver and City Hall. She is encouraging New Yorkers to tweet suggestions to her about how to improve the city’s digital communications. Tweet your ideas to her, or just say congratulations!