Marshawn Kerner is OOD’s chief information officer (CIO) and leader of our Division of Information Technology. He is responsible for the agency’s entire technology portfolio, including the strategic planning, design, development, delivery, and daily operation of all information technology solutions. Marshawn is also a member of the State of Ohio’s Collaboration Platform Technology Innovation Committee for Microsoft 365 Governance. He is also a member of the SAALT group comprised of Senior African American Leaders in Technology (SAALT) that was formed as a grassroots organization for Information Technology professionals to build a network of C-Suite executives, entrepreneurs, and potential board candidates in Central Ohio.
During his 25 years as an IT professional, Marshawn has exemplified a career of developing people who were willing to be the best in their gifts and talents while delivering technology solutions that embrace social change to any organization and mitigate risk to the business. His leadership style exhibits innovation, collaboration, process governance, and customer service delivery. As a self-proclaimed “techie”, Marshawn has made a career out of exploring how technology can help people do better and more. That goes for customers and team members alike. As he puts it, “It’s all about people. I just want to help. That’s who I am.”
Marshawn is all about bringing change where change is needed—in a positive way—and he doesn’t hesitate to bust out of his comfort zone to embrace new things. In fact, it was the industry’s fast-paced pivot to cloud computing that inspired his return to the public sector to help state government and agencies make the giant leap to the cloud. Marshawn’s experience with this type of large-scale transformation positioned him well for leading our continued efforts to update and modernize OOD’s technology infrastructure. He served in the role as OOD’s Chief Technology Officer from (April 2020 – December 2021). Marshawn worked with his colleagues and senior management to continue assisting in the vision of modernizing and optimizing technology in alignment with the State of Ohio’s efforts and governance while serving Ohioans with disabilities.
In terms of community efforts, Marshawn was recently nominated as a potential award recipient for the “Rising Star Award” in October 2021 by the Central Ohio Tech Power Player Award in a recognition event that celebrates leading technology executives and companies within Central Ohio. Criteria of the “Rising Star” Award details leadership capabilities, a strong example of providing technology initiative that made a significant and positive impact on business, investment in themselves, and community leadership and impact.
Prior to coming to OOD, Marshawn served in a leadership role at the Department of Administrative Services from (2016 – 2020) as their Information Technology Manager and Microsoft 365 Service Manager. He primarily focused on Microsoft 365 Governance and subscription portfolio services to all state agencies equating to over 75,000+ customers and users. Through this work and career, he has been helping to transform the way State of Ohio agencies do business—a journey of cloud-based technology that helped many agencies work in a remote capacity as the pandemic transformed the way organizations do business today.
No matter where Marshawn has worked within state government or the private sector, Marshawn has been very instrumental in developing relationships to help organizations drive change, adopt new technologies, embrace technology and innovation to enhance their business goals and objectives.
Marshawn earned an MBA from Walden University, with a focus in Project Management, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology.