Executive Mosaic is honored to announce Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, for the third consecutive year, as a winner of the Wash100 Award for championing innovation with contractors to support tactical and strategic goals across the Department of Defense.
Hicks was sworn in as the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian official in February 2021 and became the first Senate-confirmed woman to hold the deputy secretary post in DOD history.
In March 2022, DOD submitted to Congress a classified version of the National Defense Strategy that calls for investments to advance and safeguard U.S. national interests.
“In line with our strategy, we have five key focus areas for the industrial base: microelectronics; casting and forging; batteries and energy storage; kinetic capabilities; and strategic and critical minerals. This year’s budget makes historic investments in all of these areas to build more security into our supply chain,” Hicks said.
She signed DOD’s Responsible Artificial Intelligence Strategy and Implementation Pathway in June 2022, a 47-page document outlining six foundational tenets to guide departmentwide AI adoption.
“It directs the Department’s strategic approach for operationalizing the DoD AI Ethical Principles and, more broadly, advancing RAI – all while ensuring operational agility, maintaining speed of capability deployment, providing scalability and prioritizing the efficient allocation of resources,” the three-time Wash100 honoree wrote in her foreword.
Hicks and President Joe Biden met with some defense industry executives in July 2022 to promote a piece of legislation focused on semiconductor research, development and manufacturing incentives.
“The resources provided for the ‘CHIPS for America Defense Fund’ inside the CHIPS-Plus Act funds innovative prototyping; experimentation; it allows us to train the next generation of scientists, engineers, and tech entrepreneurs,” Hicks remarked at the time.
Her engagements with defense companies continued into the month of September when she unveiled DOD’s $1 billion bioindustrial manufacturing investment plan and presented energy innovation to reporters at the Pentagon Energy Expo.
In a Sept. 30 memo, Hicks designated the Director of Administration and Management to spearhead work between the Office of the Secretary of Defense and information technology service providers in efforts to modernize the digital experience within OSD.
She spoke with leaders of eight large primes at a classified November meeting to discuss strategic priorities for the Pentagon and business challenges facing the industry.
“We’re continuing to meet and talk with industry about the issues that affect us all – to include securing our supply chains & working together to solve workforce challenges across the defense ecosystem,” Hicks wrote in a Nov. 9 social media post.
The deputy defense secretary said at the Dec. 8 Aspen Security Forum in Washington that DOD has significantly invested in space and hypersonics to address a pacing challenge.
“We are not about matching dollar-for-dollar or weapon-for-weapon what another country does. What we’re interested in is making sure we have the capabilities to bring to bear that meet the demands of how we plan to fight.”
Executive Mosaic congratulates Kathleen Hicks and the DOD team for their selection to receive the 2023 Wash100 Award. Her efforts to promote defense industrial base engagement are projected to continue driving warfighter innovation and GovCon activity in the year ahead.
Vote your favorite awardees at Wash100.com to show support for the industry and the most influential GovCon voices.
