Charles Lyons-Burt
Linda Asher is a procurement and acquisition aficionado, heading up Booz Allen Hamilton’s contracts division as senior vice president. Her specialties lie in contracting lifecycle services, risk management, client engagement strategies and mergers and acquisitions deals. She savors the “complexity, minutiae and strategy” of contracts work and appreciates every aspect of dealmaking.
Working at Booz Allen for the last 19 years, Asher has watched as the company has positioned itself at the forefront of artificial intelligence investment and innovation. In this Spotlight interview, Asher spoke with ExecutiveBiz about how Booz is harnessing AI and organizing itself to always meet the government’s mission.
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What factors or GovCon industry trends are influencing your growth strategy as you look toward Booz Allen’s future?
As a GovCon community, we are very focused on AI right now — government and industry alike. Our clients need help to deploy AI not just effectively, but also securely, responsibly and ethically. And they must do this across vastly complex, important missions. At Booz Allen, we invested years ahead of the generative AI disruption, resulting in standardized approaches, tech partnerships and solutions to common challenges that constrain AI adoption in government. We are prepared and leading from the front, strategically investing in companies like Latent AI, which supports machine learning at the tactical edge, and Credo AI, which enables AI governance, oversight and accountability.
As the AI market continues to mature, we are focused on integrating innovations from the commercial sector with our deep understanding of AI mission applications to bring trusted solutions to our nation’s highest priorities, quickly and at scale.
How do you set your priorities around limited capture dollars? What goes into the decision-making process of what contracts you want to go after?
Our primary focus area is the core mission needs of our clients. We have decades of experience bringing new technologies to missions of national importance, so we are well positioned to deliver solutions like AI in an evolving tech ecosystem.
What’s the most impactful trend you’re currently seeing in the GovCon market? How are you seeing GovCon organizations respond to that trend?
Again, it’s all about AI. Everyone in the GovCon market is keenly looking at how to leverage it in the interests of the nation, how to use it ethically and responsibly and how to apply it in our day-to-day operations. This is a technology everyone needs to understand: not just coders and data scientists, but supply chain managers and contract and procurement professionals need AI literacy as well.
Along with the rise of AI, I think we’ll continue to see increased adoption of agile procurement methods and outcome-based contracting, which complements greater innovation by bringing agencies and contractors together for shared investment and collaboration. It is a continuation of the evolution of the government acquisition process, and it’s essential to implementing and scaling solutions to keep pace with technological change.
How has GovCon changed since you began your career, and what’s your take on the market now?
The accelerated rate of tech change right now is truly remarkable, as is the interconnectivity of everything driving it. AI, for example, doesn’t operate in a vacuum; its true potential is unleashed when it’s paired with other technologies, like cyber, space solutions, and so forth. So, this increases the need for strategic partnering, cocreating, and co-investing in key capabilities to blend it all together and bring secure AI-enabled solutions to client missions at scale and the speed of relevance.
