Beth Cobert

President Obama appointed Beth F. Cobert as Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management on July 10, 2015. She comes to OPM from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where she served as the Deputy Director for Management and the U.S. Chief Performance Officer since October 2013.

At OMB, she led the efforts to drive the President’s Management Agenda to make government more effective and efficient so it can deliver better, faster, and smarter services to citizens and businesses.

She oversaw the government’s performance, procurement, and financial management offices, as well as the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Under Cobert’s leadership, the Administration made progress on efforts to improve the management of Federal information technology (IT) spending, to modernize and improve citizen-facing services through teams like the U.S. Digital Service, and to reduce the Federal Real Property footprint.

She also led OMB’s work on the People and Culture Pillar of the President’s Management Agenda—including initiatives to improve employee engagement within agencies, enhance the Senior Executive Service (SES), and recruit and retain a talented and diverse Federal workforce. 

Before joining the Federal government, Cobert worked for nearly 30 years at McKinsey & Company as a Director and Senior Partner. During her tenure, she worked on key strategic, operational, and organizational issues across a range of sectors, including financial services, health care, legal services, real estate, telecommunications, and philanthropy. She led major projects to improve performance through process streamlining, enhanced customer service, improved use of technology, more effective marketing programs, and strengthened organizational effectiveness.  Over the course of her career, she led McKinsey’s initiatives on recruitment, training, development, performance evaluation, and retirement services and championed efforts to support the advancement of women into leadership positions.

Cobert also previously served as a board member and chair of the United Way of the Bay Area and as a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council. Cobert received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton University and a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University. She and her husband, Adam Cioth, have two children.