Congratulations to Fed 100 Winner: Karen Howard,Executive Director, Head of Office of Online Services at the IRS
Hosted by GovExec, the Fed 100 represents government and industry leaders who have gone above and beyond to make the government run better. The 2024 Fed 100 exemplified this through major achievements in cybersecurity, customer experience, service delivery and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
GovExec recently published its detailed summaries of the accomplishments of each 2024 Fed 100 winner. The Makpar team would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Karen Howard,
Executive Director, Head of Office of Online Services at the IRS, for making this illustrious list.
Ms. Howard was recognized for being a driving force for enhancing the taxpayer experience at the IRS, which includes the launch of the agency’s Where’s My Refund tool and the recently released Direct File pilot.
No stranger to driving new ways to enhance customer experience (CX), Ms. Howard has nearly four decades of public and private sector experience. For example, she has held management positions at major retailers such as Home Depot, Phoenix Textiles, and Tractor Supply Company, and parlays this experience into enhancing CX for the IRS.
“I love that my entire career, private and now public sector, has always been centered on understanding the people we are serving and driving innovative ways to make their experience at every contact point more enjoyable,” said Ms. Howard in this 2021 Public Sector Network Q&A interview.
As highlighted in this ExecutiveGov article, she leads a team of over 200 public servants at the IRS – with the goal of empowering the taxpayer experience with digital capabilities through understanding the taxpayer community’s voice and behavior as well as internal stakeholder requirements.
As a result of her efforts, more than 140,000 taxpayers successfully filed returns using IRS Direct File pilot, and saved filers an estimated $5.6 million in tax preparation fees for federal returns. In addition, the IRS surveyed more than 15,000 pilot users, and 90 percent of them rated their overall experience as being “excellent.”
Clearly, Ms. Howard’s efforts are playing a transformational role in helping the IRS enhance the overall taxpayer experience – now and well into the future!
Makpar would like to congratulate Ms. Howard for her ongoing successes at the IRS. Contact us here for more information on how we can help support your agency’s CX journey.