- Johnson spent 27 years at GDMS
- Appointment takes effect Nov. 3
- The Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 FedCiv Summit is set for Thursday, Oct. 29
General Dynamics has appointed Amy Johnson as president of its IT business, effective Nov. 3, filling the post permanently three weeks after Amy Gilliland’s departure.
In a Friday announcement, General Dynamics said Johnson will transfer from GDMS to GDIT. Since July 2024, she has served as vice president and general manager of GDMS’s space, cyber and intelligence systems division, building on a nearly 27-year career with the business unit that began in 1999.
CEO Phebe Novakovic, a nine-time Wash100 Award winner, said Johnson has a record of leading teams through complex technical challenges.
“I am confident that her dynamic leadership, operational rigor and deep commitment to our values and culture will deliver value to our customers, employees and shareholders,” Novakovic added.
GDIT’s customers across federal civilian agencies are weighing AI adoption and modernization priorities as they head into fiscal 2027. Those priorities are on the table at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 FedCiv Summit, convening Oct. 29 at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City in Arlington, Virginia. Agency and industry leaders will also cover cloud and data infrastructure and cross-agency initiatives. Save your seat now.
What Is Johnson’s Background at General Dynamics?
At GDMS, Johnson leads a portfolio of more than 2,500 employees delivering space ground command and control systems; satellite mission payloads; positioning, navigation and timing products; and encryption and cybersecurity technologies. The business supports proliferated low Earth orbit architectures, missile defense and space domain awareness work.
Simultaneously, she oversees a generational crypto modernization effort, deploying next-generation encryption architectures to secure multi-domain communications from emerging threats.
Johnson joined GDMS in 1999 as a software engineer and moved through engineering management before taking business leadership roles. She served as vice president of platform security products, then vice president for defense electronics and deputy general manager of land and air systems. The executive also led business development for the nuclear command, control and communications segment of the strategic systems business unit.
Johnson holds a master’s degree in computer systems engineering from Northeastern University and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stonehill College. She is pursuing an executive master’s degree in business administration at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Who Has Been Leading GDIT?
Gilliland, a Wash100 awardee, left GDIT this month after nine years as president and 21 years with the corporation. General Dynamics gave no reason for her exit.
Paul Nedzbala, GDIT’s senior vice president and chief business officer, has been running the segment on an interim basis since Oct. 2. He joined through the 2018 CSRA acquisition and previously led GDIT’s federal civilian division.
