Lockheed Martin’s Maria Demaree Wins 2026 Wash100 Award for Driving Enterprise Digital Transformation and AI Integration
Maria Demaree, senior vice president for enterprise business and digital transformation and chief information officer at Lockheed Martin, has secured a place in the 2026 Wash100 class, earning the prestigious recognition for the fourth year in a row.
Demaree is being recognized for leading Lockheed Martin’s 1LMX transformation effort, advancing the company’s enterprise-wide digital modernization strategy and helping accelerate the integration of artificial intelligence, digital engineering and data-driven operations across national security missions.
“Maria’s Wash100 Award for 2026 is a standout moment in her illustrious career. After being promoted to Lockheed Martin SVP for enterprise business and digital transformation and the company’s chief information officer in 2024, she quickly delivered results with the 1LMX program that uses digital tools and technologies to accelerate service delivery to customers,” said Jim Garrettson, CEO of Executive Mosaic and founder of the Wash100 Award.
“She’s further transformed Lockheed Martin, an already technology-focused company, by spearheading the integration of AI into its digital capabilities. Maria has positioned Lockheed Martin as a leader in quantum technologies while also prioritizing the ethical use of quantum and other emerging technologies,” Garrettson continued. “Maria has seen and done it all during her remarkable 35 years at Lockheed Martin, featuring executive positions including vice president and general manager of space, mission solutions, ground systems and solutions and special programs. This breadth of experience and success provides Maria with an unparalleled vision and foresight to lead Lockheed Martin into a future of national security waged with digital technologies.”
The Wash100 Award recognizes executives whose leadership, strategic direction and execution are shaping the GovCon landscape and helping define the future of federal mission delivery.
Support Maria Demaree in the 2026 Wash100 Popular Vote Competition at Wash100.com.
Why Is Maria Demaree Winning the 2026 Wash100 Award?
Demaree’s latest Wash100 recognition reflects her growing influence as one of Lockheed Martin’s top technology and transformation leaders.
Since stepping into the role of senior vice president for enterprise business and digital transformation and CIO in December 2024, she has led the company’s 1LMX mission-driven transformation program, which spans digital enablement, IT delivery and operations, data and analytics, cybersecurity and classified IT transformation. Her organization includes more than 5,000 professionals worldwide and touches technology, culture and processes across the company.
In discussing 1LMX in 2025, Demaree said the transformation is designed to modernize the processes and tools Lockheed Martin uses across engineering and production to shorten delivery timelines and improve efficiency for customers.
She also emphasized the urgency of staying ahead of adversaries by using digital tools, new processes and AI-enabled capabilities to accelerate delivery and mission execution.
That transformation vision has been paired with a visible push to operationalize AI across the company and its customer-facing technology portfolio.
In March 2025, Lockheed Martin and Google Public Sector announced a partnership to integrate Google Cloud generative AI into Lockheed’s AI Factory ecosystem to help train and deliver secure, trustworthy AI models for critical national security applications.
Later in October, Lockheed and Google Public Sector expanded that effort, integrating Google’s generative AI technologies into Lockheed Martin’s unclassified on-premises environment to give the workforce secure access to advanced AI tools for data analysis, research, logistics and innovation.
Lockheed’s broader AI push accelerated further in late 2025. In November, the company launched STAR.OS, a platform designed to enable multiple AI systems to work together through a unified framework. In December, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary introduced Astris AI for Government, a secure AI offering for high-assurance missions that combines cloud, AI models, MLOps and generative AI capabilities. That same month, Lockheed Martin demonstrated AI-driven mission-contingency management on autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles, showing how AI could dynamically reassign tasks when an unexpected issue arises during a mission.
Demaree has also spoken publicly about how AI is reshaping her role as CIO. In a January 2026 interview with The Wall Street Journal, she said AI must come from a central place within the enterprise and that the CIO is the natural leader for that responsibility. She described her role as resting on three pillars: establishing common processes and tools, building a model-based enterprise powered by digital twins and advanced simulations, and applying AI to optimize both.
Her technology leadership also aligns with several major Lockheed Martin modernization efforts. These include the company’s use of digital twins and digital engineering in the Next Generation Interceptor production program, cloud-based tactical communications demonstrations with AWS and delivery of a next-generation command-and-control prototype for the Army’s digital mission command modernization effort.
Make your voice heard in the 2026 Wash100 Popular Vote Competition — vote for Maria Demaree at Wash100.com.
Who Is Maria Demaree?
Demaree is a more than 35-year veteran of Lockheed Martin. Before assuming her current role, she was vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s national security space business, where she led a $6.6 billion portfolio and a workforce of about 8,000 employees delivering end-to-end missions integration, high-performance systems, critical space architectures and other capabilities. Earlier, she held senior leadership roles overseeing special programs and mission solutions within Lockheed Martin Space.
She was also appointed to leadership positions spanning enterprise IT, engineering, applications, homeland security, biometrics, strategic planning and mission systems, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Demaree holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in systems engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
The executive was recently appointed to the Xcel Energy board of directors, providing expertise in technology delivery, information security and digital innovation.
Enabling Enterprise-Wide Execution at Scale
Demaree’s leadership stands out in how she is operationalizing transformation across one of the defense sector’s largest enterprises.
Through 1LMX, she is driving the standardization of processes and systems across Lockheed Martin’s business units — an effort aimed at eliminating fragmentation and enabling faster, more consistent execution across programs.
Her approach reflects a shift in the CIO role itself — from delivering IT services to shaping how the business operates. By centralizing AI adoption and aligning it with enterprise processes, Demaree is helping position Lockheed Martin to scale innovation while maintaining mission assurance across complex, classified environments.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Maria Demaree on her 2026 Wash100 recognition and looks forward to her continued leadership at Lockheed Martin.
Cast your vote for Maria Demaree in the 2026 Wash100 Popular Vote Competition at Wash100.com.