San Jose’s New Innovation Chief Talks Inclusion, Recovery

Source: Gov Tech Published: July 24, 2020

When Jordan Sun returned earlier this year from his second deployment to Afghanistan as an Army Reserve officer, it didn’t take him long to find work. As the chief operating officer for the Special Operations Joint Task Force — Afghanistan's technology team, Sun had been primarily focused on building and launching tech products for crisis response, and came home only to find cities across the U.S. engaged in their own crisis-driven technology projects, from telework to digital service transition amid a pandemic that had shuttered government offices and stalled local economies.

Now he’s focused on resiliency and digital equity in San Jose, Calif., as the city’s new chief innovation officer.

Besides his time in the Army, Sun brought with him a range of experience in private-sector work, including as CEO of a startup associated with Siemens Healthineers, an adviser to University of California, San Francisco Innovation Ventures, and a consultant of venture capital investment at In-Q-Tel in Menlo Park. Earlier in his career, Sun worked in foreign sales and trading at a Japanese investment bank in New York City, and as a diplomat in Taiwan for the U.S. State Department.

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