Interview: Chris Belasco, chief data officer, City of Pittsburgh | Computer Weekly

""The complaints should come to me, and the credit should go to the team.""

""I've built the rest of the team, which has some incredibly sharp data engineering skills that I feel are a nice way to emphasise the capabilities of what the city has to offer.""

""Thirty-eight cities are either gold or platinum in the western hemisphere, and we are punching well above our weight class with the capabilities and practices that we're able to demonstrate,""

""What we're able to achieve through the work we're doing, such as partnering with Astronomer, is pretty spectacular.""

Chris Belasco moved evaluation and analytics skills from academia to municipal government after completing a PhD in public affairs and running impact evaluations for USAID. He joined the City of Pittsburgh in 2018 as enterprise project manager and became chief data officer in 2022. He focused on building data pipelines, refining operational processes, and assembling a skilled data engineering team. He emphasizes taking responsibility while crediting the team and forging partnerships to enhance capabilities. Pittsburgh earned an elevated Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities Certification, reflecting strengths in policy, funding allocation, service improvement, program evaluation, and resident engagement.

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