Kristen Smith
North Wind has named former Leidos executive John Kovach as vice president of strategy and program execution. Kovach, who has nearly three decades of strategic planning, business management and technology transition experience related to defense acquisition programs, announced the appointment in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday.
John Kovach’s Career Highlights
Kovach most recently served as director of transition strategy for Leidos Innovations Center. His responsibilities included leading strategic planning and integration sessions to identify growth opportunities, collaborating with technical and growth leaders implementing strategic initiatives that bridge research and development capabilities with business unit growth objectives, and analyzing financial data to assess business performance and recommend strategic adjustments, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Before joining Leidos, Kovach spent eight years at 2 Circle Consulting as a management consultant and a senior program analyst responsible for program planning and acquisition strategy development for U.S. Navy acquisition programs.
He also previously served at Deloitte as a specialist master and at Sabre Systems as executive director for program management and acquisition.
North Wind Management Change
Kovach joined North Wind after the company underwent a leadership change with the appointment of Arthur Mabbett as its new CEO.
Cerberus Capital Management formed North Wind in 2024 after acquiring Calspan’s hypersonic and defense test systems business units from TransDigm Group. North Wind was created to deliver hypersonic test infrastructure and services to U.S. government and commercial clients.
