Julius Genachowski to Head FCC: Report

Earlier in his career Genachowski worked as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justices David Souter and William J. Brennan, and was also on the staff of the Congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair.

If Genachowski is appointed FCC chairman, then Obama will need to look elsewhere for his CTO, a cabinet-level position responsible for overhauling government IT and breathing new life into the U.S. tech sector.

The tech-savvy President-elect has a big technology agenda, including a $10 billion project for electronic health records, modernizing public safety networks and making America the world leader in broadband penetration and Internet access.

It has been rumored that the CTO could be unveiled as soon as tomorrow, although Obama's transition team has given no indication that an announcement is imminent.

The media has nonetheless touted a number of big technology names for the CTO's role, including Amazon(AMZN Quote) CEO Jeff Bezos, Internet guru Vint Cerf, and even Microsoft(MSFT Quote) supremo Steve Ballmer.

Google(GOOG Quote) chief (and vocal Obama supporter) Eric Schmidt has also been cited as a possible Washington CTO, although the executive has since publicly stated his desire to stay with the Internet giant.

More likely, however, is that Obama will appoint a CTO from within his transition team, which includes executives from some of America's top technology companies. Sonal Shah, head of global development initiatives at Google.org, for example, is on the transition team's advisory board, along with Donald Gips, group vice president at Internet specialist Level 3 Communications (LVLT Quote).

Another possibility is Washington D.C technology chief Vivek Kundra.