Executive Mosaic is pleased to include Wes Anderson, vice president of defense at Microsoft, in the 2023 edition of the Wash100 Award in recognition of his efforts to drive the utilization of augmented and virtual reality, cloud and artificial intelligence technologies in support of armed forces.
The award marks the third time Anderson was selected to be one of the Wash100 Award recipients, who are key public and private sector individuals with demonstrated leadership, innovation, vision and means to shape the government contracting landscape in the coming years.
Visit Wash100.com to vote for Anderson and your nine other favorite Wash100 awardees to help them secure top spots in this year’s Popular Vote competition.
“Wes Anderson is the David Goggins of government contracting IT. He’s spent 24 years at Microsoft trying to understand and deliver on our nation’s most important defense initiatives with the biggest technology platform in use by our collective warfighters. His enduring vigilance to remain current on rapidly evolving technology, security and successful evolutionary mission support is Wes’ ultimate triathlon,” said Jim Garrettson, CEO of Executive Mosaic and founder of the Wash100 Award.
One of the focus areas for Anderson and Microsoft is advancing gaming, exercising, modeling and simulation capabilities to assist warfighters in their analysis, experimentation and training efforts.
In an Executive Spotlight interview, the Microsoft Defense VP shared, “By leveraging our extensive gaming experience, Azure cloud capabilities and robust partner ecosystem we are providing the [Department of Defense] with increased scale and higher fidelity outputs from GEMS activities… to enhance the department’s readiness, understanding, decision advantage and confidence.”
Some of Microsoft’s industry partners on GEMS-related efforts are Lockheed Martin, Nvidia and BAE Systems.
According to Anderson, Microsoft GEMS technology and Azure capabilities will be used by Lockheed and its customers for the digital testing of military assets used in joint all-domain operations. The two will also collaborate on the development of capabilities in classified cloud, artificial intelligence or machine learning, 5G.MIL programs and digital transformation.
BAE, on the other hand, will leverage the Azure cloud to enable its Pioneer AI-based wargaming platform to provide military customers with an immersive wargaming environment.
“With tight collaboration with partners like BAE Systems who have a long history of supporting the Department of Defense, we can unlock new opportunities for mission and organization leaders to transform data into action through gaming, exercising, modeling, and simulation,” Anderson commented on the partnership.
Aside from helping Microsoft accelerate GEMS capabilities and foster industry collaborations, Anderson primarily works on partnering with defense customers to underscore the use of company clouds and products to address challenging problems and ensure mission success.
He has been with Microsoft for over two decades now, building his career with the technology giant and tackling a number of responsibilities and focus areas connected to his post as vice president. When he was VP of worldwide public sector services business, the executive was first inducted into the Wash100 roster in 2014 and logged a consecutive win in the following year.
Executive Mosaic looks forward to Anderson’s contributions to the GovCon industry in the year ahead and congratulates the executive and the Microsoft team for their inclusion in the 2023 Wash100 class.
Don’t forget to cast your votes at Wash100.com to show support for your favorite GovCon leaders. The Popular Vote contest runs through April 28.
