Anahita Reilly is being recognized for her leadership and dedication to improving the experience customers have when interacting with the government. As one of the first Chief Customer Officers in the Federal government in the U.S. General Services Administration, Anahita stood up GSA’s customer experience office, and advised many other agencies that created Chief Customer Offices as well. She was selfless with her time, energy and commitment to CX and strengthening the government’s capabilities in building CX practices into the fiber of their agencies.  

 

At GSA, she introduced the agency to the discipline of human-centered design.  Through the Office of Customer Experience (OCE), she led CX training, Human Centered Design workshops, and provided hands-on support to GSA programs. As a result, GSA built CX and HCD capacities in their project teams to ensure that transformative initiatives are designed to meet customer needs. Anahita emphasized the important link between employee experience and customer experience. As a result of Anahita’s leadership, OCE focused their attention on how to improve the employee experience from the recruitment process to work life at GSA.  Anahita also standardized the technology platform GSA used to conduct customer surveys and ensured that programs incorporated customer feedback into their strategic planning efforts.  Anahita’s efforts built the CX business discipline into GSA’s customer-focused mission, goals, and business practices.  

 

Anahita was also a key driver to the implementation of the Cross Agency Priority (CAP) goal on “Improving Government Services” which has resulted in significant progress in bringing much needed attention to the highest priority services across the government.  Much of our success in keeping CX at the forefront of government program management was Anahita’s presence and support to OMB and other agencies.  She is a true leader, driver and evangelist for making customer experience a priority for government.