Once a buzzword, now the norm, cloud has become the standard for digital environments everywhere. As government agencies implement, integrate and begin to rely on cloud and hybrid-cloud systems, IT leaders drive the push to adopt and maintain secure, cloud-based enterprises. We’ve identified those in industry and government who are ensuring the nation is equipped with the technology, platforms, software and applications it needs to drive productivity and build a foundation for advanced technologies — even through a pandemic.
WashingtonExec’s Top 20 Cloud Executives to Watch in 2021 highlights leaders constantly on the cutting edge of tech innovation. They’ve been working on cloud adoption throughout their careers and are dedicated to providing customers with the environments they need to safely and efficiently meet mission needs. Plus, they bring the expertise, vision and problem-solving spirit that helped the nation meet IT challenges during a difficult year.
Brandee Daly, CEO, C2S Consulting Group
Brandee Daly built C2S Consulting Group out of need she saw for assistance in secure cloud services.
Now, with more than 25 years of experience leveraging her technological innovation, program improvement and strategy to build successful teams and businesses, she is leading the company from the CEO seat where she has helped dozens of businesses and public sector organizations successfully migrate, manage and optimize their technology and cloud infrastructure.
The 2020 prime customer cloud wins, providing multicloud solutions, have positioned C2SCG with cloud contracts to drive innovation and automation in defense, intelligence and civilian agencies.
Why Watch
One of C2SCG’s primary focus areas for 2021 is to expand the cloud landscape across the government into multicloud efforts that include AWS, Azure, Google, IBM and others. These solutions allow customers to take the best of breed for solutions, innovations and cost savings.
“C2SCG’s portfolio of tools to deliver automated end-to-end cloud solutions in a multicloud environment is critical to agencies’ pressing focus to aggressively adopt cloud solutions to modernize their IT environments,” Daly said. “Our view of ‘Automate Everything’ allows C2SCG to provide innovative solutions to government in a cost-effective way.”
Brian Price, CEO, cloudtamer.io
Brian Price built cloudtamer.io to help bring simplicity and agility to cloud-first organizations on their journey to rapid cloud adoption.
Last year under his leadership, cloudtamer.io more than doubled the customers using its cloud governance software, launched its Cloudunity user and partner community through two virtual events, and released over 50 new versions of its platform including new features like continuous compliance, savings opportunities and support for Google Cloud.
In the shift to remote work, Price championed virtual engagement through weekly updates to the company, team-building events and the establishment of an employee-led diversity and inclusion council.
Why Watch
While the events of 2020 helped drive cloud adoption, a focus of 2021 will be to get the rapid sprawl of cloud accounts under better control for enterprises.
“Being one of the few cloud management solutions that directly supports the air-gapped classified cloud regions and the evolving landscape of the JEDI, C2E and CIMM contracts gives us differentiators to support the federal and systems integrator community in an even larger role this year,” Price said.
In addition, cloudtamer.io aims to expand integrations with other technologies to deliver greater context for organizations to better automate and reduce the financial and security risks within their cloud environments.
Justin Cleveland, Head of Sales, Authentic8
As head of sales since 2020, Justin Cleveland has revamped the company’s go-to-market strategy and overseen three consecutive quarters of record revenue growth. In 2020, Cleveland was promoted from head of public sector to his current role after overseeing more than 600% revenue growth since joining the firm in 2017.
“I’m really proud of the resilience of our team,” he said. “Despite COVID forcing significant changes to the way we do business, we really didn’t miss a beat.”
2020 was the most successful year in company history. Authentic8 inked an agreement with a consortium of government agencies with an estimated value of up to $500 million. And Cleveland said the company’s successes have drawn an influx of new talent.
Why Watch
This year, Cleveland and his team are unlocking new verticals, leveraging key product enhancements and bringing a newly acquired FedRAMP certification to the table while focusing on serving Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Authentic8 projects its platform will be used by over 700 organizations, including most of the Fortune 100 and nearly all key federal cabinet-level agencies.
“I think 2021 is the year that Authentic8 becomes a household name,” Cleveland said. “… I think this is the year Authentic8 makes a leap that very few venture-backed startups are ever able to achieve.”
Michelle Rudnicki, Vice President of U.S. Public Sector, NetApp
Last year, Michelle Rudnicki took the helm of NetApp U.S. Public Sector, leading her team deeper down its more than three-decade journey as a trusted adviser for many government agencies’ storage and data strategies.
She focuses on supporting government’s important and complex missions by empowering clients to access their data, on-premise or in the cloud, with the same tools or interfaces and with the level of security required for that data set.
“During 2020, many federal agencies invested heavily in cloud technologies to rapidly meet the IT challenges of the pandemic,” Rudnicki said. “Our customers who had built out a strong data fabric were in an optimum position to quickly adapt to the new reality.”
Why Watch
Securing data across the data fabric is a top priority for Rudnicki and NetApp. They are investing in areas such as zero trust and building out robust data management and protection solutions.
“Our customers continue to implement more complex solutions such as artificial intelligence,” Rudnicki said. “Having a strong data management strategy will help them securely take advantage of data from within and outside of an agency.”
Kurt Greening, Leader of Public Sector, Prisma Cloud, Palo Alto Networks
As head of the public sector team at Prisma Cloud, a part of Palo Alto Networks, Kurt Greening helps support some of the largest mission-critical programs in the federal government.
He came into his role in 2020, working to leverage cloud and cloud-native architectures to enable digital transformations that support working from home and new digital services. He is especially proud of his team’s work to support DevSecOps initiatives in the Defense Department.
Prisma Cloud Enterprise received FedRAMP authorization in 2021, making it easy for civilian and defense customers to use the software-as-a-service version of its product. And the team has worked hard to ensure Prisma Cloud integrates tightly with public cloud service providers and leading DevOps tools.
Why Watch
Recently, Greening has been speaking and writing about securing the nation’s software supply chain. This has become a hot topic as a result of supply chain challenges because of both COVID-19 and the SolarWinds supply chain attack.
“Software touches almost every part of our life today, and much of that software is either created or run in public clouds,” Greening said. “While there are many benefits to cloud computing, we must always prioritize the security of our assets and environments.”
John Sankovich, President of Cloud Solutions, Smartronix
Since joining Smartronix as president of cloud solutions in 2020, John Sankovich has used his experience starting and growing cloud businesses over the last decade to help expand the Smartronix brand across public and commercial sectors. His mission: to help every organization leverage cloud innovation and value.
The Smartronix team’s recent accomplishments include helping modernize West Virginia’s call center operations to handle the spike in COVID-related volume. The team also received FedRAMP authorization for its Cloud Assured Managed Services platform to provide easier access for customers to secure compliant multicloud solutions.
“I feel very fortunate to work with such a talented group of cloud experts focused every day on helping solve complex customer challenges,” Sankovich said. “It’s really a privilege to be part of such an outstanding team.”
Why Watch
The recent acquisition of Datastrong, a provider of data architecture, design and business analytics solutions, is another sign the year is off to a strong start. Smartronix has also recently launched a cloud center of excellence focused on driving the highest level of cloud expertise for customers along with providing mentoring and education for emerging cloud leaders.
Dan Tucker, Vice President & Digital Platform Capability Team Lead, Booz Allen Hamilton
Dan Tucker has been working to lead digital transformation initiatives across civil government during a time of national need.
This past year, his team worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others, designing cloud-enabled solutions so agencies could serve their stakeholders at speed — whether for distributing stimulus checks, tracking disease transmission rates or ensuring timely delivery of benefits to veterans.
“Looking back at 25 years in the industry, I can think of no more exciting time to work on applying deep technology in support of public service,” Tucker said. “Innovation across cloud, data management and artificial intelligence is accelerating faster than ever before, and it’s incredibly rewarding to see how these solutions are integrating to transform citizen lives and experiences.”
Why Watch
Tucker’s team is focused on building, deploying and open sourcing accelerants to help the government bring innovative capabilities and services to an increasingly digital-first citizenship at commercial-grade velocity.
By using proven development platforms, harnessing multicloud platforms and leveraging contemporary DataOps methods, his team is working to increasingly advance government services through the enablement of AI, automation and data science.
Christian Hoff, Head of Federal Systems Integrators and Solutions, Amazon Web Services
Christian Hoff’s biggest achievement of 2020 was leading his team to support partners and federal customers through quick pivots to remote work, scaling up new programs and keeping critical citizen services running.
Hoff is proud of the team he has built, the relationships it has cultivated with partners and the results delivered to federal agencies.
“As the federal government continues to modernize the way it serves its citizens, AWS is committed to being a part of its critical missions by providing the most innovative, efficient and effective technology solutions,” Hoff said.
Why Watch
In 2021, Hoff and his team are heavily focused on supporting federal customers and partners as government programs transition under a new administration. Cloud services play an important role in scaling up new programs and winding down others, and his team will be working alongside its partners to ensure agencies can support new and existing mission areas.
“I’m excited to see an increase in the rate of cloud adoption among federal agencies, the new opportunities our latest AWS services create and the reinvention of mission delivery that our customers and partners enable every day,” Hoff said.
David Egts, Chief Technologist & Senior Director, Office of the Chief Technologist, North America Public Sector, Red Hat
In 2021, David Egts has engaged with and learned directly from government executives more than he ever has in his career.
“One silver lining of COVID is that video conferencing made us all equidistant,” Egts said. “Instead of formal meetings, more casual ‘virtual coffees’ allowed me to engage on a more personal level to learn from the best in the public and private sectors and share best practices between federal, state and local agencies around the world.”
Egts said he developed numerous meaningful relationships he wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, and he looks forward to meeting up with his new friends in person once things get back to normal.
Why Watch
In 2021, Egts is focused on harnessing the power of open source communities to deliver tailored solutions to government agencies that help them better serve citizens and meet mission outcomes.
“Open source community members don’t usually lie awake at night thinking about government requirements, but my team and I do,” he said. “By understanding the needs of our government customers, we can go back to our engineering organization and steer not just a multibillion-dollar software company, but the open source communities they engage with around the world as well.”
Andrew Schnabel, Vice President of Federal, Zscaler
Andrew Schnabel leads Zscaler’s efforts to ensure government agencies can take advantage of secure modern cloud technology for mission-enabling tools to strengthen remote work, increase capacity, improve performance and upgrade security as employees work from anywhere.
Schnabel was instrumental in Zscaler’s participation in the Defense Department’s zero trust proof-of-concept to help DOD move from a network-centric to a data-centric security model.
He also prioritizes the need to educate the cyber workforce, bringing the DOD SkillBridge, Warriors Ethos and Shift’s Defense Venture Program to Zscaler to support military service members’ transition into the civilian workforce through industry-sponsored positions and training.
“Efforts to support the hybrid workforce and strengthen cyber defenses against our adversaries have to be a team effort,” Schnabel said. “Government agencies, tech companies and the integrator community — all of us need to be working together on solutions to transform legacy networks. We are smarter today than one year ago. The key is modernizing security as we modernize our environments, applications and how we work.”
Why Watch
Schnabel focuses on advocating for zero trust security — an important foundation for cloud modernization — and he is leading Zscaler’s efforts to achieve Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. CMMC is a unifying standard for the implementation of cybersecurity across the defense industrial base, and provides security assurances that DOD agencies’ systems and sensitive data are protected.
Ravi Raghava, Chief Cloud Strategist, Federal Civilian Division, GDIT
In 2020, Ravi Raghava led the expansion of GDIT’s cloud center of excellence team and helped GDIT secure some strategic cloud program wins.
While accelerating the growth of GDIT’s cloud business, Raghava and his team were very focused on helping enterprises establish their cloud strategy, drive digital transformation efforts, plan cloud migration and streamline cloud operations. In one case, his team helped an agency transition to remote operations within just 24 hours because of the pandemic.
“I have enjoyed delivering ‘cloud operational excellence’ by sharing cloud best practices and lessons learned with many federal leaders,” Raghava said. “We successfully delivered a large-scale cloud assessment and application rationalization project recently that spanned 4000-plus servers spread across multiple data centers in the continental U.S., and it was delivered ahead of schedule with a lower cost.”
Last year, Raghava also helped agencies with security assessments that included authorization to operate for cloud environments, a zero trust model and cyber-engineering posture.
Why Watch
GDIT’s focus is on helping customers accelerate cloud migration, leverage multicloud scenarios and adopt more managed cloud services to address cost and IT efficiencies. In addition, the company is seeing momentum for data analytics services, machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics process automation capabilities.
“We will be looking to champion the adoption of such services among our customers,” Raghava said. “While cloud acceleration is taking shape really well, multicloud is the new norm.”
Doug Bourgeois, Managing Director of Federal Technology Strategy & Architecture Practice, Deloitte
In 2020, Doug Bourgeois was proud to provide cloud leadership and advisory services to more than 20 government organizations including federal, state and local clients.
Bourgeois’ team guides these clients as they stand up and operate cloud centers of excellence and brokerages, incorporate cloud into their enterprise architecture programs, implement multicloud management solutions, plan and execute cloud migrations, and adopt advanced analytics using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Bourgeois brings his own perspective, as a former government chief information officer and shared services center director, to clients.
“I want to ensure they consider leading industry trends as well as how to adapt them to work for government organizations,” he said.
Why Watch
In the next year, Bourgeois’ team will be heavily focused on helping government clients take advantage of the agility cloud offers.
“It’s exciting to see clients unlock innovative cloud-based services and incorporate the cloud into enterprise modernization strategies,” Bourgeois said.
John DeVoe, Senior Vice President of Aerospace and Government, Salesforce
John DeVoe joined Salesforce in 2007 to help establish and quickly grow Salesforce’s public sector practice. With many years of government service, 20 years of industry experience and nearly 15 years of cloud experience, DeVoe is now focusing his efforts on helping U.S. aerospace and government contracting companies with their internal transformation efforts.
“Last year definitely accelerated companies’ interest in internal business transformation,” DeVoe said. “The most forward-leaning companies are approaching these challenges with a beginner’s mind.”
That’s where DeVoe and his teams come in.
“U.S. aerospace and government contractors are uniquely positioned to leverage Salesforce’s 22 years of commercial and government success in delivering business outcomes,” he said. “The secret is that all of our solutions are delivered on our Customer 360, Work from Anywhere platform.”
Why Watch
DeVoe is noting the growing interest in government and commercial entities learning from one another and delivering solutions on common platforms. While they have different business drivers, both commercial and government entities are awash with data, want to streamline business processes, improve sharing and collaboration and make it easier for employees to work from anywhere.
“In 2021, we’ll see more industry companies deliver on the needs of their customers, employees, suppliers and partners — and do it all on one Customer 360 platform,” DeVoe said.
Todd Schroeder, Director of Global Public Sector Digital Strategy, Google Cloud
May 2019 marked Google Cloud’s first year of dedicating its cloud capabilities and technology know-how for the public sector. Less than a year later, Todd Schroeder and his team found their focus shifting toward helping customers navigate through the impact of COVID-19, bringing about a series of innovative solutions to meet mission challenges.
Among other successes, Google Cloud partnered with the state of Rhode Island to launch a virtual career center to help connect thousands of job seekers with employment services. Wisconsin will roll out a similar virtual career center for its residents.
Google Cloud also launched the Intelligent Vaccine Impact solution, a set of core technologies to help regional and local governments successfully deliver COVID-19 public health strategies. Arizona, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia are among those that have adopted the solution.
Schroeder’s key responsibilities include overseeing the strategy of solutions, partnerships, sales and programs required to serve the public sector and higher-education industry in an ever-evolving way.
“New partnerships are required to solve for the problems of the future,” Schroeder said. “Challenges that were previously thought of as insurmountable, too risky or expensive, are actually quite the opposite — as long as you have the right partner that is working in your best interest with you.”
Why Watch
In 2021, Google Cloud’s public sector business will look to bring new solutions to decades-old challenges by expanding capabilities in workforce productivity, compliance and artificial intelligence/machine learning. And Google Cloud will continue to champion diversity, equity and inclusion with respect to its employees as well as customers and communities it serves, Schroeder said.
“It’s thrilling and humbling to be a part of such a passionately innovative company and team,” he said. “The best is still ahead.”
Ashley Mahan, Acting Assistant Commissioner of Technology Transformation Services, General Services Administration
In 2020, Ashley Mahan worked with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program community in support of agencies’ cloud technology and FedRAMP needs during the pandemic.
FedRAMP completed 64 authorizations in fiscal year 2020, which is over 40% more than in the previous year. Additionally, with the push to the cloud to accommodate a remote workforce, agencies increased their use of FedRAMP-authorized cloud products by 55% within this same time.
The team also prioritized efforts to listen to customers and incorporate feedback into the program. A few examples include launching the FedRAMP agency liaison program and FedRAMP YouTube channel, re-imagining the FedRAMP website and re-launching, and revised FedRAMP procedural and technical guidance in support of cloud service provider and agency feedback.
Why Watch
GSA has two critical funding components from the American Rescue Plan — $1 billion for the Technology Modernization Fund, and $150 million for the Federal Citizens Services Fund, Mahan said. The funds are expected to drive innovation through interagency projects that enhance the government’s digital operations.
Mahan said she is excited to be in her new role.
“I am supporting an incredible team to design and deliver a digital government with and for the public,” she said. “This work is focused on bringing trusted modern government experiences to the citizen and includes impactful programs and projects within cloud, identity, data and analytics, public experience, artificial intelligence and innovation.”
Harish Nanda, Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, CNSI
Harish Nanda leads the team that designed and implemented the first completely cloud-based Medicaid Management Information System in the U.S.
CNSI was also the first company to migrate a state MMIS to the cloud successfully. In 2020, CNSI’s configurable evoBrixX platform allowed state clients to quickly use new COVID-19 testing codes, getting critical funds to pandemic health care providers.
Nanda’s team also earned the top score in 2020’s National Association of State Procurement Officers ValuePoint technical evaluation for MMIS. His most significant achievements of 2020 were moving the bulk of CNSI’s global infrastructure to a multicloud platform during the pandemic and overseeing significant client implementations.
Why Watch
In 2021 and beyond, Nanda’s team is focused on expanding CNSI’s cloud operations to be managed globally and helping customers modernize their infrastructure with the security and lower costs resulting from moving to the cloud.
CNSI’s product pipeline is crucial for public sector health IT transformation and moving legacy MMIS systems to the cloud, company leaders said. This enables infrastructure modernization, speed and automation of product development while enhancing security and cutting costs.
“I’m proud of the way CNSI leverages the cloud to drive better care, better health and lower costs,” Nanda said.
Sandeep Shilawat, Vice President of Cloud and Edge Computing, ManTech
Government agencies typically operate between five to seven cloud systems from various service providers — but those operations aren’t always seamless.
In 2020, Sandeep Shilawat led ManTech’s efforts at designing infrastructure that helps ensure full interoperability between diverse cloud systems — and end-to-end security. Supported by the development and deployment of a common security baseline for ManTech-managed multicloud solutions, Shilawat’s work has enabled government customers to modernize their applications during cloud migration, and benefit from full app interoperability in a multicloud environment.
As agencies look at their overall digital transformation strategies, one thing is clear — cloud is foundational to any digital transformation and not just an infrastructure consideration, Shilawat said.
“At ManTech, we leverage cloud technology as an enabler and accelerator of high-priority customer initiatives, especially warfighters and national security agencies operating in disconnected, intermittent, limited bandwidth environments,” he added. “We enable them to run complex compute and analytics at the edge, closer to the sensors where we collect and analyze data — what ManTech calls D@tE for Data at the Edge.”
Why Watch
This year, ManTech teams aim to create a fully automated multicloud management platform with continuous Authority to Operate. Under the Federal Information Security Management Act, an IT system is granted ATO for 3 years, based on the premise a system’s cybersecurity posture won’t change in that period, an assumption that in today’s environment of sophisticated vulnerability exploitation may no longer be valid, he said.
With Shilawat’s expertise and know-how, ManTech’s approach is to develop an automation pipeline that will continuously improve security measures for customers in their multicloud environments — and pave the way for innovation.
Sharon Woods, Executive Director of Cloud Computing Program Office, Defense Information Systems Agency
Under Sharon Woods’ leadership, the Cloud Computing Program Office at the Defense Department provisioned over 3.2 million users with Microsoft 365 within 30 days — setting a record in April 2020 for deploying the largest such tenant in the world.
This effort, which was in response to the COVID-19 National Emergency Declaration, was key to preserving military force readiness and enabling a nearly total telework of DOD personnel. It also redefined the department’s expectations for technology implementations, resulting in acceleration of the permanent Microsoft 365 tenants DOD had been planning for years and various other cloud initiatives that allow DOD organizations to access cloud at speed and bring tactical advantages to the warfighter.
Why Watch
A key focus for Woods in 2021 will be the expansion of DevSecOps pipelines. Her team piloted pre-configured, pre-authorized cloud baselines that rapidly deploy secure, standard cloud environments through automation. The pilots demonstrated these baselines, referred to as DOD cloud infrastructure as code, reduce deployment time from 30 weeks to potentially as little as 2 hours in production environments.
Achieving accelerated cloud adoption means DOD mission owners can spend more time focusing on the warfighter mission.
“If the solution solves a conceptual problem, not the warfighter’s problem, then we failed,” Woods said.
Derrick Pledger, Vice President & Director of Digital Modernization, Leidos
Derrick Pledger views the growth of Leidos’ Digital Modernization talent team as the biggest achievement of 2020.
“This exciting growth included a diverse set of engineers, subject-matter experts and solution architects,” Pledger said.
Pledger’s organization contributed to over $25 billion in contract wins across the enterprise in 2020. Additionally, it developed a digital transformation roadmap that guides customers through digital modernization. The process is aimed at eliminating fear, elevated risk and uncertainty as well as supporting legacy systems through shifts that incorporate cloud, artificial intelligence and machine learning and advanced cyber capabilities.
Why Watch
With an eye toward being the leader in system interoperability across tactical, on-premise and cloud operations environments, Pledger and his team are heavily focused on helping customers deploy edge-to-cloud capabilities at scale. Key across the Defense Department, edge-to-cloud supports DOD’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control by breaking down technology silos and allowing real-time access to information so warfighters under pressure can quickly access data to make real-time decisions.
“Our foremost objective is to be at the center of gravity of our customers’ digital transformation journeys,” Pledger said. “We hope to achieve this by providing a common architecture that enables people, processes and technology to interact in a seamless manner — breaking down the traditional silos and technology barriers that pervade heterogeneous IT environments.”
Teresa Carlson, President & Chief Growth Officer, Splunk
Teresa Carlson joined Splunk in April from Amazon Web Services, where she was vice president of worldwide public sector and industries. Now, Carlson leads and works closely with Splunk’s sales, customer success and marketing leaders. She also leads efforts to align and drive the company’s ongoing business transformations across its go-to-market segments.
Carlson started the AWS worldwide public sector business in 2010 and drove the business’ growth, resulting in tens of thousands of active customers and a vast global partner ecosystem.
After she founded the business, Carlson’s role expanded to include financial services, energy services, telecommunications, and aerospace and services industry business units. During her time at AWS, Carlson helped change individual and organizational mindsets, modernized policies of government, and cultivated a 21st-century workforce equipped with the skillset necessary to leverage the full potential of cloud to drive innovation.
Why Watch
Carlson, along with the rest of the executive leadership team, will focus on expanding the company’s cloud-first initiatives, identifying and pursuing new market opportunities and accelerating growth.
When her new position was announced, Carlson said she was motivated by the opportunity to join Splunk’s team to bring exciting cloud and data solutions to customers across all industries.
“Together, we will build on Splunk’s legacy of innovation as one of the fastest growing companies in the history of enterprise software,” Carlson said.
