Shalini Benson is a creative, kind, and curious leader with more than 25 years of experience in the federal, private, and nonprofit sectors in roles of progressively greater responsibility, including managing teams of 50-plus people and budgets over $5 billion. Benson is a subject-matter expert in federal budgeting, and she has dealt with virtually every type of federal dollar in her career spanning the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and leadership roles at the Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, and Federal Emergency Management Agency. Benson was also a subject-matter expert at CGI Federal. She is adept at enterprise risk management, the relationship between budget and accounting, and telling compelling stories with available data.
Benson is a first-generation Indian American with healthy dose of New Jersey–born pride. Her pronouns are “she” and “her,” and her name is pronounced SHA-lyn-ee. Benson earned her master’s in public policy from Georgetown University and her bachelor’s in politics and philosophy from Brandeis University. She is a graduate of the Georgetown Executive Leadership Coaching Program and treasurer of the Minority Scholars Program, a nonprofit organization.
