Anticipated 2016 presidential contender Hillary Clinton has reportedly hired a top executive from Google to serve as the chief technology officer for her campaign.
Both Reuters and The Washington Post cited unidentified Democratic sources Wednesday confirming Stephanie Hannon, Google’s director of product management for civic innovation and social impact, as Clinton’s new hire.
Hannon will reportedly lead the effort to develop new technologies to help Clinton engage with voters in the forthcoming 2016 presidential race, for which Clinton is seen as the likely Democratic frontrunner.
Those efforts will include websites, applications and other Internet-based tools that will help Clinton connect with voters while simultaneously collecting valuable demographic information on them, both of which were the keys to the digital grassroots campaign that secured the White House for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Hannon’s resume of previous projects include work on Google Maps, Gmail and a short tenure at Facebook.
Democrats have been widely seen as better utilizers of the online space in recent elections — with help from Google in particular — and Clinton looks intent to continue the trend. Current White House CTO Megan Smith is a former ranking Google alum, as is her deputy Alexander Macgillivray. Google’s own chairman, Eric Schmidt, personally oversaw custom voter turnout software for President Obama on election night 2012.
Clinton has signed a lease for a Brooklyn, New York office location to serve as her likely campaign headquarters this month, and is expected to formally announced her campaign sometime in April.