Kay Coles James (born June 1, 1949) is an American public official who served as secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia from January 2022 to August 2023, and as the director for the United States Office of Personnel Management under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.

[1] Previous to the OPM appointment, she served as Virginia secretary of health and human resources under then-Governor George Allen and was the dean of Regent University's government school.

[9] She served under President George H. W. Bush as Associate Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and as Assistant Secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

[10] Paul Krugman noted that Regent University boasted of 150 graduates working in the Bush administration and criticized Coles James' tenure as the federal government's chief personnel officer when many of these hires occurred.

[11] Charlie Savage, a journalist with The Boston Globe, wrote that previous to Coles James, "veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools."

Noting that Regent University is ranked a "tier four" school by U.S. News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place, Savage said Coles James' changes resulted in lawyers with more conservative credentials, less prior experience in civil rights law and the decline of the average ranking of the law school attended by the applicants.

[16] On December 19, 2017, The Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative Washington, D.C.–based public policy research institute, announced that Coles James would be its sixth president.

[19] In March 2019, she was appointed to the Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC), which was set up by Google to advise on the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence.

[25] Her husband is Charles E. James Sr., who was the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs from 2001 to 2009 during the George W. Bush administration.