Obama announces 'chief performance officer'

(REUTERS/Jason Reed)

The US President-elect Barack Obama announced today he was appointing former Treasury official Nancy Killefer to serve as the nation's first "chief performance officer" to oversee budget and spending reform.

Killefer, a director at McKinsey & Company and a former assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, will work with economic officials to increase efficiences and eliminate waste in government spending. The US budget deficit is projected to swell to a record $1.186 trillion in fiscal 2009.