Hillary Clinton recruits a Google exec as her chief tech officer

Hillary Clinton may not have even formally announced that she's running for President yet, but that isn't stopping her from gearing up for what should be a very tech-heavy election. Both the Washington Post and Reuters claim that the former Secretary of State has hired Google executive Stephanie Hannon as her campaign's chief technology officer. The higher-up will reportedly watch over a team building apps, websites and other tools to help enchant voters.

While Hannon doesn't have direct election experience, she may well be a good fit. The exec helped Google share election information during her most recent stint as a product director for "civic innovation and social impact," and she has previously worked on projects as grand as Gmail and Google Maps. Clinton's behind-the-scenes operations are likely in safe hands, then. With that said, this isn't exactly the politician's greatest technical challenge at the moment. She'll probably want to get that email controversy sorted out before she worries about get-out-the-vote software.

If anything, it may have more of an impact on Hannon. She's one of the few women taking a position like this, and CTO campaign positions can serve as springboards for those lucky enough to get the job -- just ask Obama's officer, Harper Reed. Google may not be happy, though. Hannon is leaving the search pioneer right at a time when it's pushing for greater diversity, especially in leadership.

[Image credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images]

Source:Washington Post, Reuters

Tags:campaign, cto, election, elections2016, google, hillaryclinton, politics, president, president2016, stephaniehannon, video
http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/08/clinton-recruits-google-exec-as-cto/