The Wash100 Award is the pinnacle of achievement for GovCon executives and leaders in AI. These honorees embody bold leadership, inventive strategies and the innovative thinking required to drive transformational impact. By delivering paradigm-shifting solutions and fostering advancements in AI, they are setting new standards for excellence in government and industry partnerships.
AI is not your average technology sold to government customers. The U.S. has made AI a cornerstone of its national security, economic competitiveness and public sector innovation strategies. Agencies such as the departments of Defense and Homeland Security and those in the intelligence community are rapidly expanding their use of AI for threat detection, cybersecurity, autonomous systems and predictive analytics.
About the AI GovCon Leaders
Wash100 Award winners leading in AI demonstrate they are aligned with these top national goals. Their recognition as Wash100 Award recipients not only underscores their significant impact today, but it also highlights their ability to lead the AI-driven transformations of tomorrow. This accolade celebrates their dedication and visionary approach to leveraging the technology to enhance efficiency, decision-making and technological capability across critical sectors.
Founded in 2014 by Executive Mosaic CEO Jim Garrettson, the Wash100 Award heralds executives who demonstrate excellence in innovation, leadership and providing groundbreaking solutions to important government missions. Let’s learn more about these Wash100 Award winners in the AI field. They qualified by conducting significant work in AI, heading up key initiatives and evolving their companies to accommodate the AI boom. Or they built their organizations on an AI/machine learning foundation from the start.
Be the first to learn about U.S. Navy AI investment priorities at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Navy Summit on August 26! Hear directly from top-ranking U.S. Navy officials and industry leaders at a panel on optimizing Navy decision making with generative AI. Discover partnership opportunities in AI from Navy Chief Information Officer Jane Rathbun. Sign up now for the capital area’s premier GovCon conference for AI leaders!
Mark Serway
Hitachi Vantara Federal
2024
Serway made his Wash100 Award debut in 2024 for his leadership in providing trusted capabilities that filled the federal government’s digital transformation needs and supplemented its defense and security efforts.
Having joined Hitachi Vantara Federal in 2017 as the chief financial officer, Serway propelled company business transformation programs and guided teams specializing in analysis, customer support and financial operations. Under Serway’s guidance, Hitachi Vantara Federal joined the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where it helps create standards for the development and use of trustworthy AI technologies.
Karen Dahut
Google Public Sector
2014, 2018, 2023, 2024
Dahut earned her impressive fourth Wash100 Award in 2024 for pushing the pace of cyber and technology innovation and trailblazing growth through partnerships with other GovCon titans. She guided Google’s teaming with ManTech to open a new Google Workplace Practice that had a goal of sharing best practices for adopting secure workplace productivity and AI among federal contractors. This arrangement, she said at the time, demonstrated the incredible power of collaboration and cloud services for federal agencies.
After being selected to lead Google’s new public sector division in 2022, Dahut led cloud platform innovation efforts within the company and for Google’s federal customers. Under her guidance in 2023, Google and Accenture Federal Services created a new Cybersecurity Center of Excellence that combined Mandiant threat intelligence and Google Cloud’s AI-powered security tools. It also employed Mandiant’s Threat Intelligence platform with Accenture’s cybersecurity work to help government customers improve their responses to cyberattacks and threats.
Toni Townes-Whitley
SAIC
2024, 2025
Townes-Whitley earned a pair of Wash100 Awards for her leadership in providing major top- and bottom-line growth at SAIC. To improve SAIC’s competitive positioning in the market, the global tech leader stated that the company would prioritize investments in six portfolio differentiators: secure multi-cloud; digital engineering; operational AI; secure data analytics; system of systems integration; and on-demand solution delivery.
She secured significant contracts with the FAA and DOD and expanded into cutting-edge sectors including space and AI, including the seven-year, $494 million NASA Safety and Mission Engineering Contract III. Townes-Whitley launched SAIC’s multi-year enterprise growth strategy to speed up organic growth and increase value for stakeholders and customers. SAIC, under her guidance, committed to a phased strategy that focused on enhancing its culture and bolstering its brand through building its portfolio with a go-to-market approach.
The Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Navy Summit on August 26 will continue the conversation on AI in warfare. Learn about Navy startup opportunities in AI during a keynote by NavalX Director Capt. Joel Uzarksi. Meet up with leading AI firms such as Seekr and SAIC. Build strategic relationships with key Navy program managers and fellow GovCon power players shaping the future of maritime dominance. Get your ticket now for this must-attend event for AI professionals.
Susan Wedge
IBM Consulting
2024, 2025
As a back-to-back Wash100 honoree, Wedge has been a vocal advocate for responsible AI use in government systems. Her leadership at IBM Consulting emphasizes ethical, transparent and inclusive adoption of AI, aligning with federal policies targeting safe and efficient utilization of this powerful technology.
Wedge demonstrated her forward-thinking approach to fostering a federal landscape that maximizes AI’s benefits while minimizing risk by supporting the Peters Bill. This has a goal of creating safeguards for the government to make the most of AI’s potential while reducing risks.
Wedge’s work was instrumental in IBM’s $2.6 billion effort to update the Internal Revenue Service’s tech system. This initiative, IRS Enterprise Development Operations Services, upgrades cybersecurity, taxpayer-service platforms, advanced analytics and other IT systems.
Wedge was a key part of IBM’s acquisition of Octo Consulting. This deal, worth $1.2 billion, is the largest deal in IBM’s consulting history.
Julian Setian
SOSi
2019, 2020, 2024, 2025
Setian has achieved an extraordinary four Wash100 Awards by building SOSi into one of the biggest family-owned and operated companies in the aerospace and defense market. His expertise in AI and machine learning technologies that deliver tactical and strategic advantages to federal customers helped SOSi land industry-shaking contracts.
SOSi, under his leadership, landed a task order with the Defense Intelligence Agency to provide the Missile and Space Intelligence Center with data science and AI capabilities to accelerate its military intelligence analysis production. Setian has also positioned SOSi as a leader in intelligence services to federal customers, most notably though securing a spot on DIA’s potential 10-year, $17 billion Intelligence Analysis 3 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract in 2019.
Ram Mattapalli
Zolon Tech, Inc.
2025
Mattapalli joined the prestigious ranks of Wash100 Award winners in 2025 for his longstanding guidance in growing Zolon Tech since its founding in 1998. Mattapalli has transformed it into a dependable IT partner for military and national security agencies by specializing in mobile device management, cloud solutions and cybersecurity.
Zolon Tech leverages AI to support digital modernization while prioritizing security, automation and human-machine collaboration. Its framework supports workflow optimization through AI/machine learning feedback loops and uses AI to automate high-volume, low-value tasks.
