Chris O'Brien

Chris leverages over 30 years of consulting experience developing and implementing winning strategies for energy providers, local and national governments, and other large institutions facing critical, large-scale transformation, modernization, and change management initiatives.

Combining visionary strengths with client focus, he specializes in helping organizations successfully address the existential challenges they face. This includes reimagining the urban environment, decarbonizing operations or fleets, attracting and retaining talent, implementing transformative technologies, and improving the customer or citizen experience.

During his career, Chris has worked with the 20 largest US states, the top 15 cities, several national governments and multiple energy providers. He is the executive sponsors of the Guidehouse Workday practice for the implementation of a transformative Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform services currently leveraged by multiple cities, states, corporations and utilities. 

Before joining Guidehouse, Chris served as the CIO for the city of Chicago for six years, helping Mayor Richard Daley revitalize the third-largest city in the US. During this time, Chris worked across his Chicago colleagues to implement the country’s first 311 customer call center and deploy a comprehensive ERP system, while also launching innovative tools to connect citizens with their government and cultivate social trust.