Kristen Smith
Rise8 has named Mike Gehard as director of research and development to advance artificial-intelligence-driven agile software delivery.
In his new role, Gehard will integrate AI into company services, products and processes to enhance delivery speed, ensure quality and drive mission impact for veterans, defense organizations and the broader public sector, Rise8 said Tuesday.
Career Highlights
The new R&D director brings over two decades of related technical and leadership experience, including time spent as a software engineer at Artium AI, a staff engineer at VMware, manager of global education content development at Pivotal and lead software engineer at LivingSocial.
According to Rise8, Gehard’s expertise in modern development practices and agile principles at scale is crucial to the company’s efforts to support AI adoption by government agencies.
Public Sector AI Adoption
His role will focus on building AI-assisted balanced teams, establishing intentional AI use practices, and implementing guardrails to protect quality and security, particularly critical in the federal environment.
“By thoughtfully integrating AI across balanced teams, we can shrink the time between understanding a user’s needs and delivering working software,” said Gehard, adding, “It’s not just about building faster; it’s about building smarter and never losing sight of why we build in the first place: mission impact.”
Commenting on the latest appointment, Bryon Kroger, founder and CEO of Rise8, said Gehard’s leadership will enhance partnerships with agencies “to build the next generation of software factories that are AI-augmented, mission-driven, and relentlessly focused on delivering value to the warfighter, Veterans, and the American public.”
