Lockheed’s Maria Demaree Wins 3rd Wash100 Award for Space Innovation Leadership
Executive Mosaic is honored to announce the addition of Maria Demaree, Lockheed Martin’s senior vice president for enterprise business and digital transformation and chief information officer, to the 2025 class of the Wash100 Award, an accolade conferred annually to the 100 most influential and impactful leaders in the government contracting industry.
Pick Maria Demaree as your favorite GovCon industry leader as part of the 2025 Wash100 Popular Vote Competition. Voting closes on April 30.
This marks the third consecutive time that Demaree has been selected to Executive Mosaic’s annual list of the top 100 leaders from the government and GovCon business, recognizing her efforts in advancing space technology development and innovation in support of national security missions.
“Maria is a standout for the Wash100 voting committee — over the past year, we’ve had the pleasure of watching her lead digital transformation at Lockheed Martin, from driving forward AI and machine learning initiatives to positioning the company for success in the space sector,” said Jim Garrettson, CEO of Executive Mosaic and founder of the Wash100 Award.
“Maria is not just a leader but a true visionary. Her insights in an exclusive video interview with us last year were a testament to her ability to think big about the future, while delivering results today. Maria brings a balance of strategic foresight and operational excellence that’s driving Lockheed Martin to new heights. It’s a privilege to see Maria’s continued success, and I have no doubt she’ll keep shaping the future of defense technology for years to come,” added Garrettson.
New Role as Digital Transformation Lead, CIO
In December 2024, the more than 30-year company veteran assumed the position of SVP and CIO. In this capacity, she oversees the development of strategies and implementation of integrated, cross-functional platforms to drive enterprise transformation. She manages 1LMX, Lockheed’s mission-driven transformation program encompassing digital enablement, cybersecurity, data and analytics and classified IT transformation.
Prior to this role, Demaree was VP and GM of Lockheed’s national security space business, where she led a $6.6 billion portfolio and 8,000 employees to bring critical space capabilities, end-to-end missions integration support and high-performance systems to customers.
Addressing Government Customers’ Space Challenges
2024 was a busy year for Demaree’s team at Lockheed’s national security space business with its technology demonstration efforts and internal research and development initiatives.
In an Executive Mosaic video interview, she discussed how Lockheed sees the space domain and how it partners with customers in the public sector to better meet their requirements.
“It’s really about the urgency and customer mission,” the Lockheed executive said. “We look at what does our customer need in the near-term? And what are going to be gamechanging technologies in five years or 10 years from now?”
The three-time Wash100 awardee also talked about Lockheed’s role as a systems integrator, leveraging new technologies and capabilities to provide customers the best possible platforms.
“As a system integrator, [we] even recommend to them possible options for them to consider that would accelerate their technology readiness,” she said. “That doesn’t matter if it’s capability that’s produced by Lockheed Martin, if it’s a commercial provider or if it’s an external company that we need to partner with to get that best-of-breed capability onto our platform.”
Pony Express and Other Tech Demos
During the interview, the newly appointed CIO discussed Lockheed’s Pony Express technology demonstration mission.
The demonstration involves the use of two small satellites designed to perform radio frequency collection and characterization.
“It is something that we’re really looking at how we can leverage it in JADC2, which is our customer’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control capabilities as well as airspace integration so this is a really important capability for us to have on our platforms for our customers,” she said of Pony Express. “And we’re getting really great results with that demonstration.”
Demaree also talked about the company’s upcoming tech demonstration efforts, including TacSat. TacSat is the company’s 5G.MIL payload designed to demonstrate network voice and data satellite communications for military satellites and cross-domain connectivity.
Another tech demo the Pennsylvania State University graduate discussed is the LM 400 satellite bus, which she said can serve military, civilian and commercial applications.
“We’re really looking at how we can use this in remote sensing, communication, imaging and radar capabilities. It also has … our software-defined satellite capabilities,” the VP said of LM 400.
Demaree on Lockheed’s Work in Space
In an Executive Spotlight interview, she said the company is proud of the work it does in the space domain to protect citizens, keep people connected and support warfighters and astronauts.
“And, nothing excites me more than knowing we are executing these missions with a growth mindset, rapidly infusing digital transformation into our organizational DNA in order to innovate at increased scale and meet our customers’ future demands with greater anticipation,” Demaree stated.
“I think what makes our approach to space unique is our simultaneous efforts to advance human exploration as we vigorously work to protect the domain to help assure its overall sustainability and access for global posterity,” she added.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Maria Demaree and the whole Lockheed team for this remarkable achievement. Don’t miss the chance to show support for Demaree at Wash100.com.