Lisa Gelobter graduated from Brown University in 1991 at age 20 with a computer science degree focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning. As an engineer and program manager at Macromedia in the 1990s, she helped invent Shockwave, the platform that first brought animation and interactivity to the web and helped give rise to the modern GIF.
She went on to hold leadership roles at The Feedroom, Comet Systems, Brightcove and Joost, and was a member of the senior management team that launched Hulu in 2007, before serving as Chief Digital Officer for BET Networks.
In 2015, President Obama's administration recruited Gelobter as Chief Digital Service Officer for the U.S. Department of Education, where she led the team that built the College Scorecard and helped fix HealthCare.gov. She later founded tEQuitable, a platform addressing workplace bias and harassment, and in 2026 was named Chief Technology Officer for New York City.
- Co-inventor of Shockwave, pioneering animation and interactivity on the web
- Member of the senior leadership team that launched Hulu
- Chief Digital Service Officer, U.S. Department of Education, under President Obama
- Founder and CEO of tEQuitable
- Be the first if you have to, but build the door wider behind you.. She has repeatedly described herself as one of very few Black women in her field, while founding tEQuitable to address the barriers others face.
- Take your private-sector skills into public service when it matters most.. She left the tech industry to fix government technology under the Obama administration.
- Multimedia innovation and civic technology are not opposite careers — they're the same skill applied twice.. Her career spans from inventing Shockwave to building the College Scorecard.