From Data to Knowledge.
From Knowledge to Wisdom.

– Dr. John Pournoor

About Dr. John Pournoor, CEO

The Quick Story

John is the CEO and founder of Government Analytica.  He has 35 years of experience working at the nexus of governments and industry, most recently as VP of Government Affairs at 3M with operations in 29 states and in over 37 countries. Government Analytica provides its private and public sector clients research, analysis, and public-value thought leadership insights and content to better engage governments in health care, infrastructure, technology, trade, supply chains, safety, and security sectors

The Back Story

In September of 2001, John was asked by 3M, his employer, to chair a consortium of companies to respond to US Government needs.  During a challenging time in our nation’s history, CBRTA Alliance, which included Beckton Dickinson, Black and Veatch, Cargill, Mayo Clinic, Motorola, Honeywell, Lucent/Bell, General Dynamics, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, and 3M proved to be ideal grounds to work with leading organizations that employ a variety of strategies for effective U.S. government engagement and service, after 9/11. 

Soon after, he was asked to form 3M’s International Government Affairs Team while a new megatrend was taking hold.  Governments had begun to produce large amounts of data.  Access to this new wave of digital information on economic, social, and a myriad of other indicators was open to the public.  Yet, advocacy practitioners were not harnessing it effectively to elegantly quantify the public value of their proposals and excite communities, policymakers and governments. 

The Birth of Government Analytica

The challenge remains pervasive today.  Today the tsunami of government data is even more widely accessible, yet socioeconomic analytics for advocacy remain scarce and lacks tight alignment to client proposals. 

With the formation of Government Analytica, John embarked on applying new techniques he had developed to simplify the complexity of gathering government data and new tools to use them in public value analysis (for more information go to this page). 

John’s knowledge and wisdom comes from the practical experience of advocacy in the U.S. at the federal level, in 29 states, and in over 40 countries.  He has worked on advocacy during the Financial Crisis and COVID-19 Pandemic, key pivotal events.   He has worked on hundreds of projects in the U.S., European Union, Mercosur, ASEAN, Gulf Cooperation Council, and G20 countries.

John’s work has spanned the gamut of areas of perennial government, industry and multilateral interest: public policy analysis, population driven shifts, supply chains, trade, economy, industry and service sectors, healthcare, infrastructure, urbanization, mobility, safety, and security.

He has worked with both executive and legislative branch at the federal level in the U.S.  He has worked with U.S. Governors, their cabinets, and state legislature.  He has worked internationally with heads-of-state, cabinet members, ministers, parliamentarians, legislatures, ambassadors, diplomats, associations, NGO’s, multilateral organizations, foundations, and think tanks.  He has continued senior level engagements over many election cycles and leadership changes around the world, building a superior global network.  He possesses business, political, and data fluency in the U.S. at the municipal, state, and federal levels as well as at the international level.    

Years of experience in corporate
government affairs

Mastery of the underlying government data required and the experience
spanning thousands of projects.

Experience with a myriad of projects around development, trade, infrastructure, health care, safety and preparedness in over 40 countries.

The Art and Science of Public Value Storytelling

John is part analytics craftsman, part public value storyteller. He has developed novel approaches that simplify the complexity of highlighting superior public value.  His custom-fit outcome models use local data to home in on a proposal’s public-value and communicate it with cultural literacy. Today, Government Analytica systems mine and organize the world of Government data from a wide array of public domain sources.   Then our analytical tools and techniques are applied to this rich pool of structured information to extract the superior public value of client proposals or initiatives.  John and Government Analytica are here to help changemakers become stronger advocates and win the hearts and minds of communities, policymakers, and governments.

John earned his degrees in engineering (BS, MS & PhD) from the University of California, Berkeley, University of Washington, Seattle, and MBA from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Over many years he has applied his analytics skills to practical applications in Government Affairs, Public Affairs, Public Policy, and Government Relations, contributing to advancing each field.  John has worked for Intel, Chevron, Boeing, Dupont, and 3M.  He has served on numerous boards and has been appointed by U.S. Secretary of Commerce to the Minnesota District Export Council.  He is an inventor and holds several patents.  John is a tireless advocate and volunteer for community-based organizations. He lives with his wife, Erin, in Minneapolis where they enjoy film, music, and theater. He is an avid cook. His travels and his weakness for good food and good company has blessed him with many lasting friendships around the world.

The driver of data and analytics in advocacy is storytelling.  We help you find the powerful, inspiring, underlying stories of public value beneath the analytics.  Our expertise is in uncovering the hidden value and the big picture in data insights.

Select Public References to John Pournoor

Beyond Funding: A Case for using the power of people to advance health equity | 3m.com

John points out that advocacy is not unique to 3M or the healthcare sector; it’s an essential part of communicating with policymakers – and it happens around the globe.

How 3M Modernized its Global Government Affairs Center | Fiscal Note

Everything my colleagues and I do in government affairs emphasizes a spirit of service. We focus on areas of greatest public value where we share mutual interests born out of the desire to contribute to solutions within the scope and expertise we have.

13 Advocacy Strategies for Running a Successful Campaign | VoterVoice

“Measurement is becoming increasingly critical and that means we somehow need to translate soft data into something that has an assigned value to it, and that we report on that value or a hybrid of metrics that is able to better paint the picture of what government affairs does,” says John Pournoor.

Data by itself is inherently noisy.

We offer clients a meaningful understanding of geopolitical data without the anxiety that comes with working with vast data feeds.