Susan Penfield
EVP & Chief Innovation Officer
Booz Allen Hamilton
Susan Penfield, Booz Allen EVP & Chief Innovation Officer, Named to 2020 Wash100 for Her Innovation and Community Service Initiatives
Executive Mosaic is pleased to present Susan Penfield, executive vice president and chief innovation officer of Booz Allen Hamilton, as an inductee into the 2020 Wash100 Award for leading the firm’s innovation strategy and spearheading philanthropic initiatives.
This marks Penfield’s third Wash100 Award. She secured her second Wash100 in 2017 for developing the company’s analytical and digital services program leadership and serving as a strong advocate of women’s and children’s health and advancement of women in the workplace.
Penfield was named group leader of Booz Allen’s Strategic Innovation Group in 2016 after leading the company’s health business. Throughout her more than 25-year career at Booz Allen, Penfield worked to drive the company’s technology solutions and systems development portfolios while accelerating efforts to promote women in STEM careers.
As chief innovation officer, she helps implement focused innovation on the technologies that will drive next-generation businesses, including artificial intelligence (AI), directed energy, secure operational technology, and digital solutions through the creation of integrated capabilities, breakthrough products and solutions, and alternative business models.
In 2019, under Penfield’s leadership, Booz Allen combined its deep domain and technical expertise in complex AI engagements with leading AI software companies to introduce Modzy™, an enterprise AI platform and marketplace offering scalable, secure and ready-to-deploy AI models.
Modzy provides embedded security, adversarial defense, and governance to operationalize trusted AI for the enterprise, providing access to a growing marketplace of pre-trained AI models from leading machine learning companies, and accelerating the deployment of AI from the lab to the enterprise. Modzy is designed to continually add new models and capabilities through its strategic relationships with recognized AI leaders.
“Modzy will accelerate the deployment of operational AI projects so organizations can finally realize the benefit from AI’s significant business impacts,” said Adelaide O’Brien, IDC Government Insights Research Director.
Modzy is one of a portfolio of investments Penfield’s team is pursuing to drive innovation and spur adoption of emerging technologies in line with the firm’s growth strategy.
In addition to spearheading initiatives to grow Booz Allen’s industry footprint, Penfield supports also worked to drive Booz Allen’s efforts with a variety of philanthropic. Since 2001, Booz Allen has been pledging support to The Children’s Inn, a residential facility under the operation of the National Institutes of Health.
A supporter of The Children’s Inn for nearly 20 years, Booz Allen has become one of The Inn’s most reliable and generous corporate backers, guided by its purpose statement: “Empower People to Change the World.”
“Community service, passionate service, is core to Booz Allen’s DNA,” said Penfield, who is the current Vice Chair and has served as a member of The Inn’s board since 2013.
Penfield leverages the full force of Booz Allen’s technical expertise to support “a 21st Century Inn” – from developing an interactive chatbot to help families more easily navigate the details of their visit to improving the Inn’s knowledge management system and transforming its resident management software. She also taps into Booz Allen’s strong service ethos to enlist volunteers to cook dinners and lead arts and craft activities for the residents.
Penfield is a tireless advocate for the recruitment, retention, and the advancement of women in STEM careers. She is an executive adviser for Booz Allen’s women’s agenda, and in 2017 received a Diamond Award from Girls Inc. DC for her outstanding executive leadership as a woman and for Booz Allen’s service over the past 10 years with programs such as STEM Girls 4 Social Good.
In addition to the Wash100 Award, Penfield has also been recognized by the National Association for Female Executives as a Digital Trailblazer. She is also a member of NAFE and the Washington Women’s Forum and also chairs the Board of the social impact accelerator SEED SPOT.
During the first year of Booz Allen’s partnership with SEED SPOT, 627 Booz Allen mentors, volunteers, participants and advisors donated 1,100+ hours to enable and drive continuous success for social impact-driven entrepreneurs.
As a result of Booz Allen’s grassroots efforts with organizations like SEED SPOT, the innovation community recognized the firm’s Innovation Center for its contribution to entrepreneurship and innovation with Technical.ly’s Corporation Innovation of the Year award in 2019.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Booz Allen and Susan Penfield for her 2020 Wash100 Award selection.
About The Wash100
This year represents our sixth annual Wash100 Award selection. The Wash100 is the premier group of private and public sector leaders selected by Executive Mosaic’s organizational and editorial leadership as the most influential leaders in the GovCon sector. These leaders demonstrate skills in leadership, innovation, achievement, and vision.
Visit the Wash100 site to learn about the other 99 winners of the 2020 Wash100 Award. On the site, you can submit your 10 votes for the GovCon executives of consequence that you believe will have the most significant impact in 2020.