John Kamensky

John Kamensky lectures on performance management at the School of Public Policy, University of Massachusetts-Amherst He is also an Emeritus Senior Fellow with the IBM Center for The Business of Government in Washington, DC, which sponsors independent research by academics and nonprofits on management challenges facing government leaders.

During his time with the IBM Center, he edited or co-authored eight books, wrote articles, blogs, and reports, and spoke to a wide range of audiences.  He continues to write and speak on leadership, organizational performance management, collaborative governance, strategic foresight, and government reform.

Prior to his role at the IBM Center, he served in the U.S.  federal government for 24 years where he had a significant role in helping pioneer the government's performance and results orientation. As a federal executive, he served for eight years as deputy director of Vice President Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government in the 1990s. Before that, he worked at the U.S. Government Accountability Office for 16 years where he played a key role in the development and passage of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. He also previously led GAO’s work on federal-state-local issues.

Mr. Kamensky is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He was the recipient of the Association of Government Accountants’ Cornelius Tierney Research Award in 2011; received the Theodore Roosevelt Government Leadership Award in 2019; and was the recipient of the Harry Hatry Distinguished Performance Management Practice Award in 2022.

He received a Masters in Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelors of Arts in Government at Angelo State University, in San Angelo, Texas.