Executive Leadership · Organizational Value · Governance
Douglas Webster, DBA
Douglas Webster is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and the creator of Dynamic Value Management. His career spans senior federal executive leadership, management consulting, international assignments, organizational governance, military service, and professional scholarship.
Federal executive leadership
Webster served in two presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed positions. He was sworn in as Chief Financial Officer of the U.S. Department of Labor in January 2008 and as Chief Financial Officer of the U.S. Department of Education in January 2018, serving at Education through the end of 2018. At Education, he also served as Chief Acquisition Officer and supported and helped guide the integration of financial management and other administrative functions into a new Office of Finance and Operations.
His other assignments included Deputy Director of the Department of Defense Business Transformation Agency; Director of Government-to-Government Risk Management at the U.S. Agency for International Development; and Principal Finance Advisor to Iraq’s Ministry of Transportation.
Private-sector and international experience
Webster held consulting and leadership responsibilities with American Management Systems, Grant Thornton, and other firms, and served as a Partner at Computer Sciences Corporation. He founded and led Cambio Consulting Group. His work has included assignments in North America, South America, Africa, and Asia.
Governance and enterprise risk management
Webster served on the Board of Directors of PenFed Credit Union from 2004 through 2017, including as Chair of its Risk and Compliance Committee. He initiated the first Federal Enterprise Risk Management Summit in 2008 and became the leading co-founder and first president of the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management (AFERM).
He leads the Knowledge Capital and Thought Leadership Sub-Committee of AGA’s Enterprise Risk Management Committee and serves as Treasurer on the Executive Committee of the International Consortium on Governmental Financial Management (ICGFM), which is part of its Board of Directors.
Military service
Webster served as a U.S. Air Force navigator, including on C-130 aircraft, and held leadership responsibilities across flight operations, engineering, acquisition, and major programs. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel after 21 years of service.
Education and publications
Webster earned a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA), with research in activity-based costing. H. Thomas Johnson was an advisor on his dissertation. He also holds a master’s degree in systems management from the University of Southern California and an undergraduate engineering degree from UCLA.
Value-Based Management in Government
Wiley, 2020 · with Gary Cokins
Managing Risk and Performance
Wiley, 2014 · with Thomas Stanton
Chasing Change
Wiley, 2009 · with Robert Thames
Activity Based Costing and Performance
American Management Systems, 1994 · with Karen Burke
Dynamic Value Management
DVM emerged from decades of work connecting results, resources, risk, stakeholder value, and governance. In 2025, Webster adopted the name Dynamic Value Management to distinguish the leadership system from other uses of “value-based management.”
He has completed the manuscript Dynamic Value Management: Why Better Management Has Made Leadership Harder. His article “The Next Leadership Discipline” is forthcoming in Business Horizons. His current work focuses on professional discussion, executive presentations, research, and practical organizational applications.