Volcker Alliance Appoints Dustin Brown as Senior Fellow and Continues to Grow Team
Today, the Volcker Alliance announced that Dustin Brown has been appointed a Senior Fellow of the Volcker Alliance where he will focus on efforts to increase the effective interaction of government with universities. In addition, the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, established to advance effective management of government to achieve results that matter to citizens, hired a new Director of Communications and Program Fellow.
“We are thrilled with the wealth of knowledge and capabilities that Dustin Brown brings to the Volcker Alliance,” said Thomas W. Ross, president of the Volcker Alliance. “This new appointment creates exciting opportunities to improve government performance and management through strengthening partnerships between the federal government and universities.”
Deputy Assistant Director Brown will join the Alliance as a Senior Fellow through Title IV of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1970 (“IPA”) which permits temporary assignment of personnel between federal, state, and local governments, institutes of higher education, and other eligible nonprofit organizations. During this time, he will take a six-month sabbatical from his role as the Deputy Assistant Director for Management at the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB). While working with the Alliance, he will concentrate on improving recruitment of top talent from universities into federal government, while striving to reach consensus on the skills that will be most in demand within the federal government. In addition, his focus will be on ways universities can better develop those competencies and, also, examining ways to strengthen opportunities for government to communicate research questions to universities related to the management and effectiveness of government.
Deputy Assistant Director Brown joined OMB in 2001 and has worked on community and economic development policy, international affairs, and in the OMB Director’s Office before becoming the career SES head of the Office of Performance and Personnel Management in 2007. He has a master’s in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, a bachelor's degree from Manchester College in Indiana, and received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Quito, Ecuador.
Other staff announcements include Neilia Stephens, who joined the organization in July 2018 as the Director of Communications. She has more than 20 years of experience designing and implementing global strategic communications for cities, states, and countries. Prior to joining the Volcker Alliance, Mrs. Stephens served as a Principal on the public relations and marketing team at Conway, Inc., and previously worked at Development Counsellors International, where she held numerous roles such as Account Director, Director of Media Training, and Internship Director. Mrs. Stephens completed her bachelor’s degree in Corporate Communications at Baruch College.
Also, Robert Chislett recently joined the Alliance as Program Fellow. He currently supports the Truth and Integrity in State Budgeting initiative, a multiyear study of state budgeting practices. Robert is a United States Army combat veteran with over a decade of proven leadership and management experience derived from conducting domestic and global operations throughout the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. Previously, Mr. Chislett served as a Deep-Dive Associate for Ashoka Social Financial Services and completed a year-long capstone consulting project for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) where he worked with the Kingdom of eSwatini’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy (MNRE) to establish innovative policies and strategies that support the development of a national renewable energy market. He obtained a master’s in Public Administration from the New York University Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland University College.
“Due to their collective areas of expertise within the communications and public policy fields, I am confident that the additions of Neilia Stephens and Robert Chislett will be of great service to the Volcker Alliance and help achieve our core mission of increasing effective government,” said Mr. Ross.
