Rocio Bauer’s profile over at WashingtonExec is worth your time if you’re thinking about what leadership looks like when you’re serving the Army through a technology lens. She’s spent her career at the intersection of mission and modernization, and the through-line is clear: deep technical credibility married to an understanding of how the institution actually works.
I see this combination far less often than you’d think. Plenty of technologists can talk cloud or zero trust, and plenty of program leaders know the Army. The ones who can translate between both worlds — and earn trust on both sides — are the candidates who move fastest when a role opens up. They don’t need onboarding; they need a desk.
If you’re building or leading a team that touches federal modernization, ask yourself whether your bench has people who’ve done the work, not just shaped the strategy deck. That’s the filter that matters when the search gets real.