Karen Dahut

Industry Leadership

Settling in with nearly two years under her belt as CEO of Google Public Sector, Karen Dahut is setting the guiding vision to bring more choice into the federal cloud marketplace and translate the innovative mindset that Google is known for around emerging technologies like artificial intelligence to defense use cases. The thing that “gives me such confidence in what we are doing is the passion that our customers bring to us,” Dahut told DefenseScoop recently. “They want to work with us,” she said, referring to partnerships with major customers like the Department of Defense “to purpose-build technology.” She continued: “This isn’t a case where we’re building technology in the back room, and then we come and try to get it accredited. We are working very closely with them to build what they need and accredit it along the way.” Prior to joining Google in 2022, Dahut was president of Booz Allen Hamilton’s global defense portfolio.