Summer Myatt
Executive Mosaic is pleased to induct U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth into its Wash100 Award class of 2023 in recognition of her outstanding leadership strategy, modernization efforts and innovation initiatives as she lays the foundation for the Army of the future.
Each year, Executive Mosaic considers thousands of executives and ultimately selects 100 of the most effective and influential leaders across the government contracting sector to receive the prestigious Wash100 Award. This year, the Wash100 Award is celebrating its tenth anniversary, cementing its role in GovCon as a marker of success and promise.
Vote for Christine Wormuth as your favorite GovCon leader as part of the 2023 Wash100 popular vote competition! Voting closes on April 28, so visit Wash100.com to cast your ten votes today.
Wormuth was confirmed by the Senate and appointed as the 25th Army Secretary in May 2021, and throughout her nearly two years in the role thus far, she has spearheaded efforts to transform into the Army of 2030 in response to the intensifying peer and near-peer competition.
“Despite the many other things the Army does, the Army exists to fight and win the nation’s wars. We cannot lose sight of that fundamental purpose,” the Honorable Wormuth said at a 2022 AUSA event.
“And to make sure we remain the dominant land force on the battlefields of 2030, the Army is undergoing a once-in-a-generation transformation that will position the Army to deter and defeat future threats,” she continued.
Wormuth’s plan to modernize and prepare the Army comprises six fundamental focus areas. The first item on Wormuth’s list is to see and sense more, farther and more persistently than the nation’s adversaries.
“We’re looking to advancements in science and technology to enable small, lightweight and low cost intercept technologies for increased magazine depth to improve our deep sensing capabilities,” she said at the 2023 McAleese Defense Programs Conference.
“We’re investing in sensing technologies, data analytics, and target recognition aids to meet the challenges of competitive logistics,” Wormuth added.
Her second and third focus areas center around having rapidly concentrating lethal combat forces from dispersed locations and “winning the fires fight” by delivering long-range fires and striking deep targets, respectively.
The fourth “operational imperative” Wormuth set in place aims to protect U.S. forces from air, missile and drone attacks “using new integrated air missile defense systems with more advanced radars, new command and control software, plus high energy lasers and high powered microwaves,” she explained.
Wormuth noted that the Army is investing in counter-unmanned aerial system technology to execute this focus area.
Under her fifth imperative, Wormuth has charged the Army with rapid and reliable communication and data sharing not only within the Army but with other service branches and coalition partners.
Lastly, Wormuth said the Army must sustain the fight across contested areas for potential short- and long-term conflicts of the future, especially as competition increases and complex global dynamics shift.
“If there’s something that we’ve seen in Ukraine, it’s that the force that’s going to prevail is the one that is the master of logistics, logistics, logistics,” Wormuth urged, “so we’re working hard on all of that.”
While Wormuth is preparing the Army for the future fight, she’s also focusing on deterrence to ultimately avoid conflict when possible.
“I think one of the best ways to avoid fighting a war in the Indo-Pacific is to demonstrate that we could win one,” she said. “The Army really plays a critical role in strengthening deterrence in that theater as we campaign and as we compete.”
Executive Mosaic congratulates the Honorable Christine Wormuth and the U.S. Army on their selection to the 2023 Wash100 list.
