James Cook is an advocate for data-driven, outcome-focused government. He has spent his career helping to advance improvements in Federal and State government performance, focusing on better use of technology, acquisition reform, benefits administration, and effective stewardship of public funds through high-integrity payment systems. In his current role, he leads MITRE’s strategic corporate interactions with policymakers in the Executive Office of The President and Congress; and promotes development of new strategic partnerships with the non-profit policy community through MITRE’s Center for Data-Driven Policy. He also fosters partnerships with private sector, academia, and other non-profit associations and foundations to address public interest challenges at the federal, state, and municipal levels. Since 1983, Jim has led major programs at the Federal and state levels focused on modernizing business and technology operations and disbursing large volumes of payments to the public. He has experienced firsthand the importance of ensuring integrity in payment programs and the processes and systems that support them. From 2007 to 2017, Cook was vice president and director for MITRE’s Center for Enterprise Modernization (CEM), the federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Department of the Treasury and co-sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). He has sponsored ongoing efforts to research causes of improper payments and financial fraud and advance innovation, collaborative approaches to address them through data sharing, new public-private partnerships, and application of technology to advance prediction, detection and decision-making.