Marcus Thornton serves as the Deputy Chief Data Officer (CDO) for the Commonwealth and is from Danville, Virginia and has worked in software engineering for the last 20 years. As of late November 2021, he is acting as the Interim CDO until a CDO is appointed during the new administration. Before working with the Office of Data Governance and Analytics, he worked for a data company that specializes in the collection of retail pricing data across all of North America. As the Deputy CDO, he serves as the Chief Operating Officer to the Chief Data Officer and the CDO’s technical adviser. He creates new partnerships between the Office of Data Governance and Analytics and Commonwealth agencies and shows them how sharing data across the Commonwealth can be leveraged to make more informed decisions and increase their own efficiencies.