Heather Knuffke

As the Air Force Enterprise Change Manger, Ms. Knuffke leads the Air Force efforts to build change capacity and change competency in Airmen and Guardians. In 2018 she established the Air Force’s first enterprise change management program with resources nested in each major human resource organization in the Air Force. She’s trained over 100 Air Force Organizational Change Management (OCM) Practitioners, and regularly leads training and coaching programs for senior leaders, supervisors, and program management teams. She institutionalized change capacity in budgeting, contracting, leadership training, and professional development, and established a cadre of master trainers who instruct role-based OCM in their respective organizations. In addition to building capacity and competency, Ms. Knuffke leads the Air Force portfolio change management program for the Human Resource and Talent Management Digital Transformation. The Air Force is modernizing 118 + legacy systems and applications as it streamlines business processes and service delivery across the Active Duty, Reservist, Guardsman, Civilians, Non-Appropriated Funded Civilians, Retirees, and Families. Each of these global stakeholder communities are supported by separate organizations, systems, and processes. While the total population of Air Force employees numbers 650,000, the Air Force supports their families and dependents, and integrates deeply into their social and medical communities. Portfolio change management seeks to standardize the change support across these programs, promote a human centered design mentality, and project a unified voice through strategic communications. Previously, Ms. Knuffke led the Digital Transformation program at the United States Air Force Academy, modernizing their data, information technology, and business processes for recruitment, onboarding, medical clearance, scheduling, and cadet services. This included digitizing their warehousing, inventory, and point of sales efforts, and building their strategic communications, community, and fundraising engagement platforms. Before this, Ms. Knuffke served the Department of State, Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, and deployed twice to Baghdad, Iraq in service of the Multinational Forces during Operational Iraqi Freedom. When not supporting the Federal government, she’s conducted research in support of University of Michigan, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs at their Center for Homeland Security, the University of Colorado Denver, and the Buechner Institute for Governance. She holds graduate degrees in economics and public policy, and is a doctoral student in organizational leadership, performance and change.