Jane Datta
Chief Human Capital Officer
NASA
“When you have the right people and right environment, you can ask them to do anything and they’ll excel at making it happen.” – Jane Datta
Ms. Jane Datta is NASA’s chief human capital officer and lead people champion. She wholly embraces that “we are people leaders in the people business” which guides her oversight of NASA’s human capital policies, practices, and operations. Ms. Datta is responsible for building the quality and depth of talent necessary for supporting the agency’s mission, improving capabilities for delivering out-of-this world human resources services, and positively shaping NASA’s culture to maintain high levels of employee engagement and commitment.
From 2017 to 2019, Ms. Datta served as the deputy assistant administrator in the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) where she successfully managed a robust portfolio of services and complex change initiatives, including workforce planning and analytics, learning and development, talent acquisition, and policy and accountability. One of her most notable and rewarding professional achievements has been overseeing OCHCO’s transformation from providing decentralized human capital services across ten centers to a centralized, functionally unified, line of business.
Ms. Datta joined NASA in 2007 as the director of NASA’s Workforce Policy, Planning and Analysis Division in the Office of Human Capital Management. Here she played an important role in coordinating activities to increase efficiency across the agency’s ten centers, such as the agency-level integration of workforce planning with budgeting and strategic planning. Ms. Datta also oversaw agency-level human capital policy, accountability, recruiting, hiring, and student programs.
Ms. Datta is known at NASA and across the federal government for her work and often shares her human capital perspectives and expertise with leaders and aspiring human capital professionals across industry and federal agencies. She serves as a member of the Office of Personnel Management’s Chief Human Capital Officers Council.
Prior to joining NASA, Ms. Datta worked in London, UK as an associate director of a classical music agency. After earning her graduate degree, she spent ten years at United Technologies Corporation in various human resources disciplines. In 2001 she moved to the Washington DC area and joined Booz Allen Hamilton as an associate, focusing on building their workforce planning practice, methodologies, and service offerings.
Ms. Datta holds an M.M. (Master of Business Administration) from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University. She enjoys playing and performing classical piano and spending time with her family.
