Hilary Hageman’s Passion for Law, Tech Fuses with Early Exposure to Diversity of Thought, Experiences

Hilary Hageman grew up in a family committed to public service, and that same sense of duty shaped her career path.

As SAIC’s executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, she supports the company’s growth strategy by ensuring its alignment with ethics, compliance and corporate governance requirements.

Her role varies daily, and the broad demands of her position align well with her diverse professional and personal experiences. To understand Hageman’s leadership and perspective, you must first understand her foundation.

Diversity of Thought

Hageman’s father, the son of a U.S. Army officer, joined the Peace Corps after college, serving in Malawi before attending business school and taking a job that led the family to live around the world. As a result, Hageman spent her early years in Southeast Asia and Africa, attending primarily British schools in Thailand, India, South Africa and Liberia.

Experiencing different cultures, meeting people from around the world and learning to appreciate diverse backgrounds shaped her. “At an early age, I was exposed to a diversity of thought, experience and perspective,” she tells WashingtonExec. “I learned to appreciate and value each human being’s unique background and perspective — and to recognize that no single vantage point is inherently more legitimate or valid than any other.”

Hageman has a deep appreciation for the U.S. government, always aware of the protection it provides her globally. “I revered Marines and soldiers as a child,” she says. “We had complete trust in the American Embassies and their military staffs, especially when there was civil unrest in some of the places where I was growing up.”

Her parents’ love of sports also broadened her perspective. As one of three girls, Hageman was often encouraged to “race against the boys,” though the goal wasn’t always about being athletic. “He always pushed us,” she says. “So, it came as a horrible surprise to me when he explained to me as a teenager that while boys may be a little bit faster, there are other ways you can win — use your brain.”

Hageman developed an appreciation for sports but also learned how to compete and make an impact beyond athletics. She brought these experiences and perspectives with her when the family returned to the U.S. before she started high school.

It was the 1980s in the Midwest — a stark transition from her upbringing abroad — and Hageman had a British accent. “It was the first time ever in my whole life I’d gone to a school where everyone spoke with an American accent and they all were American,” she says. “I felt like a complete foreigner at first, but I ended up adapting and adjusting, and I loved school. I was a total nerd.”

Hageman was passionate about science, especially space and the U.S. space race achievements. In high school, she took every science class, was the only female in her physics class and earned the highest grade. She assumed she’d study science or go into medicine in college.

Hageman went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, not just because of its academic excellence, but also because of its diversity and student body with different backgrounds from around the world. There, she soon realized her love of history — and the influence from a female mentor at the time — trumped her love of science. So, she majored in it.

Hageman graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1990, and — to her surprise — went straight to law school. “If you had told me I would go to law school at any point prior to when I did, I would’ve said, ‘You’ve got to be joking,’” she says. Hageman wasn’t always privy to becoming a lawyer, but she knew she wanted to serve.

“Law school seemed like the practical path to public service,” she says, and it soon became her passion. Hageman received her Doctor of Law degree from Emory University School of Law, and then her Master of Laws degree from Georgetown University Law Center. “That’s where I put together my love of technology with law,” Hageman says.

She was also working at the Defense Department at the time in senior legal positions and wrote her thesis on the legal implications of remote sensing technologies from outer space. “It all came together perfectly with regard to my job, too,” she says.

When It All Came Together

Hageman’s law career started traditionally, with roles as a law clerk and prosecutor, plus industry experience. But she knew she wanted to work for the government. She moved to Washington, D.C., and persuaded a DOD intelligence agency to hire her despite her private sector background.

There, she rose to associate deputy general counsel and got thrown into space-related technology, government contracts, and international intelligence technology, with a focus on export compliance.

“I realized just how much I loved not only figuring out the data protection paradigms but also how the technologies integrated and worked together,” Hageman says. “I built partnerships with all sorts of constituencies, whether they were in the United States government or our foreign partners.”

After giving a presentation to a senior DOD attorney after Sept. 11, 2001, Hageman was pulled to the Pentagon to serve as lead attorney for outer space law and policy and work on export compliance and international partnership agreements.

“That was an amazing experience because it exposed me to the highest level of policymaking at the Department of Defense,” she says. “It gave me insights into government contracting and technology law that I hadn’t had before.”

Hageman was with the DOD for 12 years when a federal colleague left to become the chief technology officer of a defense contractor, and convinced Hageman to join her in the private sector. A Virginia-based contractor needed help with sensitive technology issues and setting up a board governance structure to review classified programs.

“I took a big leap of faith,” Hageman says. “If you can take a little bit more calculated risk in your career, you might consider taking it.” And this experience, Hageman says, was incredible.

This job combined her expertise in law with her experience in cybersecurity, space-based technologies, export compliance and technology transfer; but also exposed her to mergers and acquisitions, corporate law, building governance paradigms, supporting the board of directors and more.

Hageman spent nine years at CACI, rising to vice president and principal deputy general counsel. “I had a lot of fun at that company, helping them buy other properties that focused in space and technology that would be important to the U.S. government in defense and intelligence,” she says.

In 2016, Hageman was recruited by a director on the board of directors at SAIC. “I’d never seen a company with so many women on the board and in leadership positions, with such a mission-oriented culture,” she recalls. At this time, the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement was released and Hageman helped SAIC prepare for DFARS cybersecurity rules, among other responsibilities.

She was eventually promoted to senior vice president, deputy general counsel and assistant corporate secretary overseeing global legal operations and all business attorneys while continuing to support the board and doing mergers and acquisitions.

Although Hageman loved working at SAIC, she got a call to be senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of a public technology company based in CA.

She knew she needed this experience to hopefully be general counsel at SAIC one day, and was excited about the opportunity to hone her skills and spend time at a technology-focused public company.

“Cubic was like the highest skill level possible grad course for GCs because within a second of my getting there, I reorganized my new team for efficiency and later helped prepare the company for sale on highly favorable terms,” Hageman says. “We had a shareholder activist and COVID hit in the middle of this whole thing, and I’m responsible for contracts and risk.”

Hageman managed the law, contracts, subcontracts, global trade, security, ESG, ethics, risk management and compliance offices. She led the company through its sale at a higher premium than originally envisioned to Veritas Capital and Elliott Management, taking the company private in 2021.

And before she returned to SAIC, Hageman was offered a job helping a small satellite company go public. She served as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Terran Orbital Corp. for a year. “It was a lot of work but also right up my alley as I helped make sure all their space-based compliance was in order globally, which is a passion of mine,” she says. She successfully took the company public and shortly after, was offered to return to SAIC.

“I was just beyond delighted,” she says.

Making an Impact at SAIC

At SAIC, Hageman leverages all the technology and business skills she acquired over the years on a day-to-day basis to help SAIC continue to grow while serving its government customers, shareholders, and employees. She oversees legal, internal audit, internal controls, ethics and risk management, and quality assurance activities.

Specifically, she inserted technology into all functions under her responsibility to reduce cost and increase efficiency. This includes driving efforts to implement increased governance of SAIC’s technical solutions, like in its AI offerings and use of AI within the company.

“Technology comes into play every day, every second, and in virtually everything we do,” she says. Paralegals harness various search tools like AI to do their jobs more efficiently, and ethics teams used a data aggregator to visualize trends, spot challenges and figure out how to overcome them.

“We’re using technology creatively and compliantly to do our jobs faster and better,” Hageman says.

She also helped improve SAIC’s capacity to assess and address risk by implementing a robust framework to identify key vulnerabilities across the organization. “This ensures that there is prioritization for internal audit, risk and control activities with the most notable risks,” she says.

And on the mergers and acquisitions front, she led legal activities including the recent divestiture of SAIC’s supply chain business to better align its portfolio to its strategy, including a focus on systems integration.

Plus, she and her team led legal support of the Innovation Fund by creating a new charter document that formalizes investment decision-making processes in the technology business. This improved internal controls and business processes and the company’s ability to assess its progress in mitigating risk against a third-party metric.

Still, technology continues to play a top role. “My efforts have helped to better enhance governance of compliance activities by leveraging technology, such as data analytics and robotic process automation, to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of legal, internal audit and control processes,” she says.

Sights Set on the Future

Hageman rejoined SAIC in 2022, and has no plans of slowing down anytime soon. She is proud of her team’s accomplishments and she has big plans for the now and future.

“Operational AI is a major area of interest across the industry and at SAIC,” she says. Hageman helped establish and champion SAIC’s AI Council and led efforts to harness the use of AI in the company’s operations. The mission, she says, was to enable governance, compliance, strategy, execution and development of AI priorities. The council promulgates company guidance for responsible AI use regarding data privacy and protection, intellectual property, acceptable use policy and emerging technology instruction.

She’s also going to continue driving insight for how enterprises can use AI to better comply with regulatory mandates by automating the documentation and reporting of cybersecurity-related disclosures.

“By leveraging AI algorithms, organizations can also analyze vast amounts of data in real-time to identify behavior patterns indicative of cyber attacks, allowing for proactive mitigation measures,” she says.

And while technology is vastly important, it’s the people that truly make up the team, and focusing on them is crucial. Looking ahead as a leader, Hageman encourages her teams to deeply understand SAIC’s business alongside the larger industry, while focusing on interpersonal skills to effectively collaborate with the company’s business leaders.

“It is imperative to immerse themselves in our corporate culture and gain a thorough understanding of our business objectives, strategies and culture. Knowing the business inside out facilitates swift decision-making and agility,” she says.

Hageman also stresses the importance of not just earning a seat at the table, but actively contributing to strategic decision-making. It might not be mandatory for lawyers to be technologists, but familiarity with technology and its strategic application within the legal department is a must.

“Leveraging technology tools enhances operational efficiency and effectiveness,” Hageman says. “Understanding how technology aligns with business goals must be the nonnegotiable objective of any GC to better serve customers and seize opportunities for growth, whether through ventures or strategic acquisitions.”

If there’s anything Hageman’s own eclectic experience has taught her, it’s that these skills are not only fundamental in SAIC’s industry but also across various sectors. “Excelling in the delivery of legal advice that is informed by a deep understanding of the business landscape, industry dynamics and technological advancements, while balancing compliance, risk and ethics, should be the goal of an exceptional general counsel,” she says.

Paying it Forward

Outside of her daily roles and responsibilities, Hageman is passionate about promoting women in technology and in leadership positions. She serves as a board member of The Women’s Center and as SAIC’s executive sponsor to the philanthropic partnership with the center.

The Women’s Center’s mission is to improve community mental health and well-being through counseling, education and support, regardless of ability to pay. It serves 3,000 people annually.

This year, SAIC was the Mission Sponsor at The Women’s Center Leadership Conference in April, SAIC Women’s ERG held a Dunk Tank & BBQ Fundraiser for the center in August, and the company sponsored the Center’s Fall Gala in October.

Ultimately, her passion for the work that she does, the mentorship she’s involved with and technology’s influence on the world stems back to her love of service, her understanding of the people around her and her unique work experiences that led her back to SAIC.

“I am inexpressibly grateful to serve as SAIC’s General Counsel, a role that accords me the opportunity to work with wonderfully talented colleagues in support of our government’s important national security missions while enabling me to partner with organizations such as The Women’s Center that champion personal well-being across our larger community,” Hageman says.