Naomi Cooper
Baird’s fifth annual Government & Defense Conference hosted government officials and industry representatives from the federal sector to discuss current trends and future business strategies and opportunities in the government contracting industry.
On Thursday, previous Wash100 Award recipients John Mengucci of CACI International, Jonathan Moneymaker of BlueHalo, Byron Bright of KBR and Tony Frazier of Maxar Technologies shared their thoughts and experience in the market during panel discussions moderated by Baird Managing Directors Jean Stack and John Song.
The event’s more than 1,400 attendees also heard from government officials about a range of topics including the economic outcomes of recent sociopolitical events and the U.S. competition with near-peer adversaries China and Russia.
Michael McCord, comptroller and chief financial officer of the Department of Defense, acknowledged that China is modernizing faster but expressed confidence that the U.S. dominates its competitors in terms of capabilities, experience and strength.
McCord, a previous Wash100 awardee, also commented on the importance of the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control initiative to the future battlefield.
Another topic covered in the event is digital transformation within the government sector. In a session I discussion, Mark Lee of ICF and Sean Morris of Deloitte discussed ways to help the government transform and replace its legacy systems with next-generation technologies.
