Dedicated to making technology a force for social good in government
At City Innovate, we’re truly mission-driven. Our people are passionate about procurement, contracts, and grants—functions that are essential to making government a force for social good. Our work helps millions of people get what they need from government agencies every day: to update their drivers’ licenses, access healthcare, and vaccines, or apply for low-income housing and other services. We get up every day and go to work knowing that what we do really matters.
- The company is structured as a public benefit corporation so we can focus on maximizing our impact in the government sector
- 60% of our team previously worked in government, many in procurement or technology-acquisition roles
- Everyone at City Innovate shares the belief that government should be a force for social good
Our Values
Innovation is in our DNA
We are resilient, fast-moving, and precise when solving customer problems.
Customer advocacy
We put the customer in the center of everything we do every day. If you have a problem, it becomes our problem.
Leadership
We are committed to providing national leadership in government procurement, contracts, and grants. Are these functions glamorous? No. They are, however, the engine of the work government does.
Giving back
Our mission is to make government more effective through technology. Effective government helps everyone.
When procurement goes well, almost no one notices. The urgency that sparked the technology acquisition is long gone. So one objective I had is to speed up the process, so that technology is acquired closer to when the need first surfaced, not 24 months after the fact. Modernizing procurement is a bit of a rallying cry for me personally. I’ve seen too many technologies acquisitions go awry because they took so long that the requirements specified were obsolete the date the RFP was solicited.
I joined City Innovate in order to provide more assistance to government procurement. We provide a centralized solution so that procurement officials can easily collaborate, navigate through sample SOW language, and consistent/standardized templates. Procurement projects that typically take 9-18 months are now being completed in as little as 9-18 weeks.
EVP of Professional Services
As CIO to the City of San Francisco, I started the Start Up in Residence Program (STIR), a cohort-based program that incubated startups focused on solving government’s problems. Our philosophy was to give the startups an education in everything they would need to secure their first government contract. It quickly became evident that the procurement process was a major barrier to the success of this program and the success of city agencies more generally in solving urgent problems. I left the city to go to City Innovate convinced that my life’s work would be around procurement: how to streamline the process, accelerate it, and reform it for the better.
Co-CEO & Founder
At California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), I served as Assistant Division Chief, Contracts and Procurements. DHCS spends nearly $124 billion for the care of 15 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries - California’s instance of Medicaid. The procurements I've worked on - both while I was at DCHS and now through City Innovate - make a huge difference in people's lives: Genetically Handicapped Persons Program; Newborn Hearing Screening Program; Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly; Every Woman Counts; Drug Medi-Cal services and Coordinated Care Management. Today my role is to provide white-glove service to some of my former colleagues ... to ensure they can move procurements through the system with more speed ... as needed to change people's lives for the better.
Director, Customer Experience and Success
Our Leadership
City Innovate was founded by Jay Nath (Co-CEO & Founder) and Kamran Saddique (Co-CEO & Founder) in 2014. Jay previously worked for the City of San Francisco as the country’s first-ever Chief Innovation Officer. Kamran founded City Innovate to develop and share best practices in technology innovation with government officials. Both worked together to make the Startup-in-Residence (STIR) program successful to incubate startups focused on government. Marlon Paulo (EVP Professional Services)–former Deputy CTO in charge of technology acquisition for the State of California–joined in 2021 to head up our Professional Services effort.
Work With Us
Are you passionate about using technology for social good? We are currently hiring people in engineering, product management, sales, marketing, customer success, and more. We can offer you a company culture that is results-oriented and at the same time friendly and kind. The majority of our roles are 100% remote. To qualify, you must have relevant experience working either in government, govtech, or enterprise SaaS.
