Top CIOs to Watch in 2020

John Russell

Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Next Gen Technology, Northrop Grumman Enterprise Services

John Russell brings to his current role extensive experience across a wide range of technical disciplines in the public and private sectors. In 2019, he was hand-picked to lead the technology strategy helping digitally transform the company. Harnessing the power of Northrop Grumman’s integrated digital technologies, Russell and his organization are enabling more efficient information sharing to better empower product teams to conceptualize, design, build and sustain value-driven solutions.

The Northrop Grumman Integrated Digital Enterprise, or NGIDE 2.0, plays a foundational role in the company’s digital strategy, connecting people, processes, partners, tools, environments and data across the full product lifecycle. Russell’s team is evolving NGIDE to better integrate engineering processes at multiple classification levels and to enable digital thread/digital twin capabilities across the Northrop Grumman portfolio of platforms.

Underlying NGIDE is a secure multicloud strategy Russell and his team are leveraging for speed, scale, access and flexibility. This effort also aligns with major customers and better enables secure multitenant collaboration in model-based digital engineering environments.

Embracing uncertainty has emerged as a strategic imperative, requiring demonstrated system resiliency and capacity for employees to work from anywhere. Previous company investments in telework — coupled with expansion of virtual desktop infrastructure, virtual private network and WAN-friendly, web-based solutions — have helped ensure Northrop Grumman continues operations without impact to corporate initiatives or customer commitments.

Why Watch

Main focus areas include work to enhance and deliver the data-aware, intelligent enterprise platforms that enable improved integration and create a boundaryless experience for Northrop Grumman teams across different programs, functions and geographies.