I think it should be pretty clear by now that our U.S. government could perform a lot better.  To say the least.

And one of the things which has often kept change from happening is that “good old boys”, the entrenched and entitled, are often fond of the “status quo”, whatever that may be.  It’s what has kept them in office and empowered, and, lately, digging a deeper financial hole for ourselves.  A trillion dollar hole,  we now are discovering, with other trillions of dollars of debt to come.  Not a very good performance review.

So, when someone mentions “change”, I’m all for it.  I’m particularly for it when “change” may be embodied and spear headed by a particularly capable woman.

Obama to tap new position- CNN.com.

That’s why, when I see President-elect Obama has created a new position, “chief performance officer,” to work on the federal budget and on reforming government, and is selecting a woman with credentials as long as your arm for the job, I am both relieved and glad to hear it.

The woman selected is Nancy Killefer, a senior director for McKinsey & Company,management consulting firm and former assistant secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration.

Nancy Killefer is a senior director in the Washington, D.C. office of McKinsey & Company, Inc. and a leader of of their Public Sector Practice, specializing in developing strategies and improving organizational effectiveness for government clients.

Killefer has the credentials, big time.

After receiving a B.A. with honors in economics from Vassar College and her M.B.A. from the Sloan School of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Killefer joined McKinsey in 1979. McKinsey, by the way, was once again named by Working Mother magazine as one of the “100 Best Companies” for working mothers. So, Killefer has selected an employer that offers a supportive environment for women, leading by example.

From 1997 to 2000, Killefer served as Assistant Secretary for Management, CFO, and COO at the United States Department of the Treasury.  In addition to overall management responsibilities for Treasury’s 14 bureaus and 160,000 people, she led a major modernization at the Internal Revenue Service, prepared Treasury’s systems for Y2K, and reshaped management processes, including installing an asset management program across the Treasury Department.

After returning to McKinsey in 2000, she joined the IRS Oversight Board, a public-private entity akin to a corporate board that oversees the IRS.  She served there from 2000 to 2005 and was its Chairperson from 2002 to 2004.

Yep.  Ms. Killefer knows how to manage people and money.

Evidently, she knows how to slice through bureaucracy to do it.

We get it. She’s good.  That should always be the first bar.  But we can see that it often hasn’t been. Performance during the Katrina crisis and other such catastophic failures show us that selecting from “the old boy’s club” is a dicey proposition, a gamble that often does not pay off.  And, when it fails, it takes us all down with it.  Two wars and a recession, simultaneously, offer further evidence that this criteria for leadership is deeply flawed.

But Nancy Killefer offers a lot more than her abilities.

She brings her values.

Killeferis’ public service gives us a glimpse us into her values.

Killeferis serves on The Retirement Security Project, which released a paper recently on “Retirement Security for Women: Progress to Date and Policies for Tomorrow.” With half of all working women, due to lower wages and time off for child birth, saving an estimated $34,000 in IRA or 401(k)-style saving accounts, as compared to an estimated $70,000 for men, this paper offers an array of policy solutions aimed at closing the saving gap between men and women.

Ok.  Ms. Killeferis is concerned about working women and the economic policies affecting them.

Even more convincing proof of Ms. Killeferis’ values and priorities is her service on the Board of Advisors of  Catalyst. Catalyst is a premier organization which seeks to level the playing field for women by setting benchmarks and working with Fortune 500 and other companies to support them in achieving those goals.

(Catayst was founded at the beginning of the modern U.S. women’s movement and declared it was “time to fix the companies, not the women”. One of their research papers, released in 2005, for example, was Women “Take Care,” Men “Take Charge:” Stereotyping of U.S. Business Leaders Exposed )

We don’t know very much about Nancy Killeferis yet.  But we like what see.  And this is change we can believe in.