Marni Puente
Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, SAIC
In 2025, Marni Puente advanced SAIC’s enterprise growth strategy across all markets while transforming the marketing department into a more strategic, integrated and AI-enabled function.
Her key accomplishments included: launching a defining Mission Integration brand campaign that exceeded benchmarks and strengthened company relevance with senior defense and federal civilian decision-makers; advancing enterprise growth through cross-functional alignment and customer-centric, deal-based marketing programs; and establishing partner ecosystem initiatives that improved pursuit readiness and contributed to key contract wins.
In terms of aligning with federal needs, Puente said, “SAIC is not only a leading mission integrator, but we are also a mission orchestrator – engaging early through fast acquisition pathways (OTAs, DIU, marketplaces) to rapidly respond to customer needs, accelerate mission impact, and ensure pilot solutions, services and programs transition into enduring capabilities.”
A pillar of SAIC’s business model is evaluating commercially designed tools through rigorous testing to build an innovative suite of offerings that integrate across joint, legacy and classified environments, while managing risk, ensuring security and sustaining lifecycle management as solutions scale and evolve.
“Marni has led the marketing organization with clarity and purpose, empowering them every day to meet the mission of elevating our brand across our customer base and championing the use of AI to work smarter, faster, and more effectively,” said Kathleen McCarthy, SAIC executive vice president and chief human resources officer. “Her vision and execution continue to make a meaningful difference for the entirety of SAIC, and her innovation will drive further results in 2026.”
Why Watch
This past year, Puente established SAIC’s M&C AI Committee and scaled AI-enabled workflows to position the marketing and communications functions as company leaders in enterprise AI innovation. The committee launched “30 Days of AI” to accelerate adoption through a structured enablement roll-out, including peer mentoring, prompt engineering training and office hours. This campaign is now being adopted as an SAIC-wide best practice.
In 2026, the committee will continue to pilot new AI tools to create efficiencies, improve workflows, enhance creativity and augment the team. Additionally, M&C will advise other departments on AI upskilling initiatives, process improvements and leveraging AI for other aspects of business, such as contract bids, increased solution efficiency and customer service for ongoing growth.
“Leadership is about turning strategy into sustained impact — and in 2025, I was proud to build an AI-first marketing function designed for growth and lasting mission value,” Puente said.
Fun fact: In 2025, Puente hosted and keynoted the inaugural North American Marketing Leadership Summit in Phoenix, Arizona, as the only GovCon CMO invited to speak. Sharing the stage with CMOs from McDonald’s, TikTok, Amazon and Microsoft was a career-defining moment, but her biggest win was earning temporary “cool parent” status with her 11-year-old son after meeting someone from TikTok.