Building Smarter Cities through Human-Centered Innovation

Melissa Kraft, Chief Information Officer, City of Frisco

With nearly nine years of military service—including leading network operations in Baghdad—Melissa Kraft brings a deep-rooted understanding of resilience, adaptability and mission-critical communication to every leadership role. This formative experience laid the foundation for a career that bridges public and private sectors, guiding teams through complexity with clarity and purpose.

Today, as a senior IT leader at the City of Frisco, Kraft is known for transforming technology into a strategic enabler of public value. Her champions collaboration over silos, aligns IT with long-term business goals and empowers others to lead. Whether enhancing service delivery, supporting data-driven decision-making or building future-ready systems, his focus remains on delivering sustainable, real-world impact for the community.

Through this article, Kraft highlights how Frisco is driving digital transformation by blending AI expertise with people-centered leadership, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration and trust. Her approach emphasizes scalable systems, resident-focused service delivery and adaptive change management for a smarter, more connected city.

Fusing AI Insight with Public Leadership for Smarter Cities

Digital transformation isn’t just about adopting new technologies—it’s about aligning those tools with strategic goals. My technical background in AI allows me to evaluate and pilot emerging tools with a discerning eye, ensuring that they serve a real business need. For instance, we’ve piloted AI for traffic analysis in partnership with a local university and are exploring smart city initiatives involving sensors and real-time data.

At the same time, my training in Public Leadership enables me to build trust and consensus across departments, making transformation a shared journey rather than a top-down mandate. That blend of technical curiosity and people-centered leadership is essential in a dynamic public sector environment like Frisco.

Designing Frisco’s Digital Future around Real Community Needs

We begin with listening. Our IT strategy is rooted in partnerships—with departments, businesses and the community. Frisco’s rapid growth means needs are constantly evolving, so we prioritize flexibility and frequent engagement. We’ve built strong internal relationships with departments like Parks, Public Works and Traffic, enabling us to co-create solutions rather than prescribe them.

“Kraft’s technical background in AI allows her to evaluate and pilot emerging tools with a discerning eye, ensuring that they serve a real business need”

On the citizen side, we’re working to modernize our digital services and rethink how people navigate our website and access city services. For instance, we recently launched an AI-powered transcription service for one of our main city phone lines that handles resident inquiries. While we still maintain a human touch, this automation has significantly reduced response time and freed up staff to focus on more complex needs, demonstrating how thoughtful technology use can enhance both efficiency and a positive resident experience. Everything we do aims to remove friction, increase transparency and make government more accessible to everyone we serve.

No Solo Rock stars, Just a Culture of Shared Success

I lead with intention, empathy and clarity. One thing that sets me apart is my commitment to building a culture where no one has to be the “rockstar” alone - we succeed as a team. I spend time developing individual talent but also invest in bringing people together around shared goals and giving them space to lead.

Transparency is another hallmark of my style. Whether it’s with my team or my peers in other departments, I believe in honest communication and shared accountability. When people understand the ‘why,’ they stay motivated, focused and aligned.

Building Systems Where Innovation Scales With the City

We’ve embedded innovation into our everyday processes by creating a structure that encourages collaboration, experimentation and continuous learning. One key initiative is our internal IT Lean Committee, composed of individual contributors across the department. This group meets regularly to identify inefficiencies, propose improvements and surface new ideas ensuring that innovation isn’t just top-down but driven by those closest to the work.

We also invest in professional development, mentorship programs, encourage cross-departmental partnerships and build space into our workflows for pilots and post-project reflection. For example, we recently stood up a dedicated Data Program Manager role to help us better coordinate data insights across departments and align our efforts with evolving city priorities. Ultimately, innovation for us is not about chasing trends, it’s about finding smarter, faster and more resident-centered ways to deliver value.

Preparing Today for the Technologies Shaping Tomorrow’s Cities

AI and automation will continue to reshape how we deliver services and engage with residents. Cybersecurity will remain top-of-mind as cities digitize more operations. Data transparency and integration across departments will also become even more critical as residents expect seamless, intuitive services.

Frisco is positioning itself to lead by modernizing our policies, encouraging pilots and building partnerships with academic institutions and the private sector. We’re also aligning our procurement and contracting processes to better support innovation while managing risk. Our goal is to stay nimble while keeping the public trust front and center.

Leading with Humility, Listening and Safe-toFail Space

Start small and build trust. Change management isn’t just about rolling out new tools, it’s about changing hearts and minds. Leaders need to communicate consistently, celebrate small wins and create psychological safety for their teams to take risks and learn.

Also, bring people into the process early. When employees and departments feel heard and involved, they’re more likely to embrace change. And remember you don’t need to have all the answers. The most effective leaders are those who ask the right questions and foster environments where others can shine.

If you don’t have internal resources to support this kind of engagement, don’t hesitate to bring in a third party or vendor to facilitate workshops or discussions. An outside perspective can often help unlock conversations and align teams in ways that might be difficult internally, especially when navigating complex cultural or organizational shifts. I’ve done this in two organizations and experienced success with this method.

AI

Change Management

Digital Transformation