Accenture Federal Services CEO John Goodman has been named a recipient of the Wash100 Award for 2022, the fifth consecutive year that he has been selected to Executive Mosaic’s annual list of leaders who continually drive growth and innovation in the government contracting sector.
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The federal arm of Accenture made an expansion effort in 2021 with its acquisition of McLean, Virginia-based analytics company Novetta from global investment firm The Carlyle Group as part of efforts to broaden its artificial intelligence, cloud and cyber capabilities in support of missions of defense, intelligence and law enforcement agency clients.
As a result of the transaction, AFS launched a national security segment and added to its workforce Novetta’s approximately 1,300 data scientists, software developers and other technology professionals.
“Our combined company brings the scale and power of Accenture Federal Services’ digital capabilities together with Novetta’s ability to solve the government’s toughest mission challenges with precision,” Goodman said following the acquisition’s completion.
Goodman talked about the background of the acquisition with ExecutiveBiz during an Executive Spotlight interview. From initial talks with former Novetta CEO and three-time Wash100 inductee Tiffanny Gates, he noted that it was clear to him that the two companies were aligned on strategy, culture and people.
“Novetta has that exact same focus of using new technology to address their clients’ challenges. So, from a strategic perspective, we are an enormously good fit,” he told ExecutiveBiz.
“As important as strategy, we share a common set of values. We have a common focus on our clients’ missions and on bringing innovation to solve their problems in new ways,” he added.
In May 2021, the Atlantic Council’s Commission on the Geopolitical Impacts of New Technologies and Data, also known as the GeoTech Commission, issued a report offering recommendations for the U.S. government and its allies to maintain national security and economic competitiveness in the global economy with the use of technology.
Key recommendations from the GeoTech Commission report include developing a national and economic security technology strategy, strengthening the implementation plan for the National Cyber Strategy, accelerating the operationalization of quantum information science technologies and demonstrating artificial intelligence improvements to the delivery of public and private services.
The report also classified critical technologies into six areas that will shape the “GeoTech Decade,” in which technology and data will have a “disproportionate impact” on global governance, geopolitics and economics.
Goodman, co-chair of the council’s GeoTech Commission, said new technologies and data access present exciting opportunities to address current challenges as well as risks that could undermine national security.
“For the US and its partners to remain economically competitive and protect national security, we must work together to build trust in the digital fabric of the GeoTech decade,” said Goodman.
“We must act now to invest in these new technologies, to develop and expand our skilled workforce, and to establish norms to ensure that technology emerges as a powerful force for good,” he added.
With Goodman at the helm, AFS received several contracts in 2021, including a potential $729 million contract from the U.S. Army to consolidate enterprise resource planning systems into a single model to improve readiness and efficiency, a $112 million task order from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and a $453 million contract from the Department of Veterans Affairs to modernize claims processing under the Digital GI Bill Delivery Program.
Goodman serves on the board of the Atlantic Council and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is the former chair of the Professional Services Council’s executive committee.
Executive Mosaic congratulates John Goodman and the Accenture Federal Services organization on their Wash100 Award selection.
