Susan J. Grant

Energy
Susan J. Grant
Chief Financial Officer,
Director of the Office of Management,
Budget and Evaluation

Discipline. Accountability. Communication. These are the values Susan J. Grant emphasized at her nomination hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. They served her well at the Defense Department, where Grant was director for corporate resources of the Defense Financial Accounting System prior to her August 2004 appointment to the Energy Department.

Grant worked as a Defense Department civilian for more than 30 years. She seeks to bring to Energy the business practices she says are standard at Defense, such as five-year planning and performance measurement. "Because of the nature of the job here, we just don't have the sound project management we had in Defense. We're building it," she says.

Government chief financial officers must act as translators, Grant says, converting agency requirements into financial terms and vice versa. This requires moving beyond after-the-fact accounting to provide forecasts and analysis before decisions are made. "If you're driving a car, are you using the rear-view mirror or your front windshield?" she says.

The Energy Department needs to make better use of financial data in decision-making to retain its green rating in financial performance on the presidential management score card. The department's progress in this area has fallen behind.

One challenge she faces is what she calls "passive resistance" to change. Grant says her change-management strategy involves open discussion in which she emphasizes responsibility to taxpayers. "The whole move to have a government that's more responsive and citizen-centric is based upon accountability," she says. "I tell them, 'We're self-employed. Is this the way we want to spend our money?' It starts with that."