Sandeep Shilawat
Cloud CTO Lead, IBM Federal
Sandeep Shilawat is a well-established leader and a prominent and trusted authority for agencies modernizing with AI-driven infrastructure and advanced cloud-based capabilities. In 2025, he played a critical role in guiding agencies to adopt integrated, mission-aligned AI capabilities built on secure hybrid cloud foundations. His leadership helped federal teams mature their approaches to trust, governance, and operational readiness in support of largescale modernization efforts.
This past year, Shilawat shaped IBM Federal’s cloud and AI strategy across several major programs, building the organization’s pipeline and supporting the capture and delivery of federal work. He has been instrumental in helping agencies design and implement architectures aligned to outcome-based procurements, continuous authorization, and operational resilience requirements. His impact is especially visible in programs where AI, AIOps, and hybrid cloud are positioned as core mission capabilities.
Why Watch
Shilawat is recognized for his ability to connect policy, engineering, and economic considerations to help agencies scale technology responsibly. In 2025, his influence was evident across several areas central to the modernization strategies of federal agencies.
He is guiding AI from concept to operational capability by helping agencies adopt AI as mission infrastructure supported by governance, risk management, and measurable performance outcomes. His work is strengthening agency readiness for responsible AI and GenAI deployment and integrating trustworthy AI into hybrid cloud, AIOps, and mission delivery models.
His leadership has been instrumental in aligning programs with NIST AI RMF, cATO frameworks, and Zero Trust requirements — ensuring AI capabilities can scale securely and consistently across environments. His guidance enables large-scale federal programs to deploy AI as a production-grade capability that demonstrably supports agency objectives.
Fun fact: Beyond his technical and delivery work, Shilawat is a regular contributor to Forbes and an industry recognized voice on LinkedIn, where he helps shape the broader conversation around AI enablement —distinguishing real operational value from hype and promoting responsible, mission-aligned adoption across government and industry.