Growing up living in Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and attending school in Brownsville, Texas, Julia Gutiérrez did not foresee a career in digital services. Looking back, she doesn’t remember whether such services were even part of life for people living on opposite sides of the Rio Grande.
But Gutierrez was always interested in the role the government played in people’s lives. She said the bodies governing these border cities were one of the only differences between them.
- Name: Julia Gutiérrez
- Title: Chief Digital Officer
- Residence: Jamaica Plain, Boston
- Age: 32
- Education: Master's in public policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, 2017; B.A. in public and international affairs, Princeton University, 2012
Gutiérrez has since dedicated herself to public service, working at Fundación IDEA, a Mexican public policy think tank focused on social and youth development, and the Massachusetts Digital Service. Earlier this year, Gutiérrez was appointed as Boston’s chief digital officer by Mayor Michelle Wu.
After she moved to Boston to get her master’s in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, Gutiérrez used the city’s digital services to find her trash collection schedule, arrange textile pickups and register to vote. Now she leads the 13-person (and growing) team within the Department of Innovation and Technology that is responsible for managing constituents’ online experiences with the city government. Gutiérrez’s team works with departments across the city to make their information and services available to all residents digitally.
Gutiérrez recently spoke with BostInno about her path to this leadership role, her passion for equity and accessibility and goals for her tenure as chief digital officer.
How did your experience working with governments to design programs for youth at Fundación IDEA influence your move into public policy and digital services?
During my time there, I really realized that not only does government play a critical role in people’s lives, but that a critical part of making government work for its citizens is in how we deliver services that we provide as a government. A wonderful policy is not impactful if its implementation is not good. And in today’s world, technology and digital services are a key part of how people interact with each other, how government interacts with constituents. They’re a critical part of delivering services.
What made you take on the role of Boston’s chief digital officer?
I’m really excited about the vision of Mayor Wu to make a city of Boston that represents all Bostonians. The focus on inclusion and equity is something that really, really drives me and I think is really important. Three months in now … to see that in action and the way we tackle work (and) think about our priorities with this equity and accessibility and inclusion lens in everything that we do.
Just a few months into your new role, what do you see as your team’s priorities?
Bringing this user-centered lens into how we’re thinking about improving services I think is a big priority. How can we start making improvements to the user experience across our city services? How can we be inclusive and equitable in the way we’re delivering our services online? Those are really the themes and the trends that we’re going to be focusing on.
Government is often stereotyped as being very slow. How is your team trying to change that perception?
This is something that’s really prevalent in the agile product technology world: How do you build with your users? Like understand their needs, develop a prototype, test with your users, iterate on that. And once you go live with something, it’s not like it’s static and that way forever. It’s a living, breathing service and product you’re providing to your end user. That’s sort of the mentality that as government we should adopt.
In what ways do you think the city still needs to improve its digital services?
I have yet to be shocked or surprised at services that I think could really use a lot of improvement. I think overall the city of Boston is doing a pretty good job on a lot of things.
One of the things that we’re going to be working on is thinking of multilingual access to some of those things. Boston.gov is available in all 10 languages but there’s always more work we can do to — from an inclusion and equity lens — provide our digital services in different languages or streamline the way that some of those applications and processes work.
