In 2019 and under Nathan Jones’ leadership, Red Hat partnered with IBM to stand up the IBM Transformation Factory. Powered by Red Hat, this program is a joint offering that brings together IBM’s leadership in digital strategy consulting and Red Hat’s leadership in open source to propel Red Hat’s clients forward with trusted, outcome-based solutions.
“My role was to not only drive the strategy for scaling this offering to our public sector customers but to also help evangelize it and highlight the power of Red Hat’s new partnership with IBM,” Jones said.
The IBM Transformation Factory acts as a catalyst for Red Hat’s customers’ digital transformation efforts.
“We kickstart their modernization journey by helping transform their technology, processes and culture,” Jones said. “As a result, agencies are better equipped to capitalize on the benefits of hybrid cloud infrastructure, cloud native application development and DevSecOps processes to improve quality, agility and speed of software delivery.”
This program is just one of the many ways Jones and Red Hat leaders help their customers realize the combined power of their partnership with IBM. As a long-time Red Hat leader, Jones has been in a unique position to educate the government and industry partners on the open way of doing business.
“Many of the innovations driving the tech community today come from open source and open standards, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to showcase how Red Hat can help enable the customer’s digital transformation mission,” Jones said. “Because at the end of the day, DevSecOps is not only about the tools and process — it’s about the culture of collaboration you nurture to use those tools and implement those methodologies.”
Jones has taken this approach in his AFCEA leadership, where he acts as Executive Advisory Council chairman and previously served as president. In these roles, his goal was to listen to the Defense Department leadership and work openly with industry peers and competitors to build content and recognition for the military IT community.
“My work with AFCEA gave me an outside perspective that has helped me become a better leader at Red Hat,” Jones said. “It takes a nonprofit industry group like AFCEA to deliver unbiased programming and convene the ethical exchange of information.”
Why Watch
Red Hat’s mission in 2020 is to “transform government the open source way,” and this mission will be delivered through DevSecOps. The company’s products and solutions have moved beyond Linux and infrastructure to integrated platforms that truly impact mission and user productivity.
“With the government’s initiatives around DevSecOps and digital transformation, you can expect to see a greater reliance on Red Hat to meet agency strategic objectives,” Jones added.
Furthermore, as IBM leverages Red Hat to build artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, coupled with the government’s demand for these solutions, Red Hat will also see a significant increase of new and expanded federal systems integrator joint solutions in 2020.
Read the rest of the “Top 30 Public Sector Leaders to Watch in 2020” list here.