February 7, 2022 - Delaware—The leaders of the congressional Armed Services Committees announced this week that one of Clarifai’s senior advisors, Ellen M. Lord, the former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, was nominated by Senator Jim Inhofe – Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee – and named to a Congressionally-mandated, 14-member commission created to review the Pentagon’s Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process. The commission aims to examine more efficient alternatives to the process and develop policy recommendations that will enable the Defense Department to rapidly field operational capabilities and outpace America’s near-peer competitors.
“Reform of the PPBE will enable the Department of Defense to scale operational capabilities by adopting new and impactful technologies like Artificial Intelligence with agility and speed,” said Ellen Lord. “This is critical to our country’s continued technological leadership.”
In addition to serving as one of Clarifai’s senior advisors, Ms. Lord currently serves multiple boards and advisories spanning the public, private and non-profit sectors.
As Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, Ellen was accountable to the Secretary of Defense for all matters pertaining to acquisition for the Department of Defense. She drove significant policy changes focused on simplicity and speed of hardware and software procurement. Before this, Ellen was President and CEO of Textron Systems, where she commercialized a broad range of products and services supporting defense, homeland security, aerospace, and infrastructure protection.
Ellen is a former Vice Chairman of the National Defense Industrial Association and a former Director of the U.S. – India Business Council. She has served on the industry steering committee for the Center for New American Security’s (CNAS) task force on “Strategy, Technology and the Global Defense Industry,” as well as CNAS’s DoD-Industry collaborative project “Future Foundry.” She has also served on the Board of Trustees of the U.S. Naval Institute Foundation. MS. Lord earned a BA degree in chemistry from Connecticut College and an MS degree in chemistry from the University of New Hampshire.
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Contact
Kathleen Shouldis
Kathleen.Shouldis@clarifai.com
