Episode # 28: Kristi Putnam
Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.
It’s often the case that our policy patchwork asks families to fit programs, rather than fitting programs to families.
That fragmentation extends to how we hold public sector systems and leaders accountable, optimizing for avoidance of visible failure even at the cost of coherence.
Today’s guest spends a lot of time thinking about and teaching principles for public sector leadership to promote policy innovation.
Kristi Putnam has over 25 years of experience working on child and family policy across human Services, early childhood, health policy, and workforce development.
Most recently, she was Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Human Services under Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders from January 2023 to July 2025.
She also held leadership roles in the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Today, she’s the Dean of the Human Flourishing Academy, which recruits, trains, and deploys professionals passionate about policy into public sector leadership.
We talked about what blocks or unlocks policy innovation, how family policy systems consider and balance risk, and the tension between state responsibility and family autonomy.
We also talked about how her thinking about policy innovation evolved after overseeing the first significant rollout of Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas.
I walked away with a deeper understanding of how agency leaders reason under constraint, and I am sure you will too.
