Profile
Mr. Sean Brady is the Director for Software Acquisition and the DoD Software Cadre and Deputy Director for Joint Interoperability within the Acquisition Integration and Interoperability office within Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Sustainment). He championed DoD’s first API Strategy to transform software interoperability and leads initiatives to improve business conditions for new entrants. He is responsible for accelerating priority combatant command operational prototypes into scalable acquisitions of kill chain capabilities. As the Joint Fires Network (JFN) Transition and Acquisition Manager he accelerated the INDOPACOM commander’s priority prototype into an enduring joint acquisition by 3-5 years, earning DSD recognition as “DoD’s exemplar for joint acquisition.”
As the Director for Software Acquisition and DoD Software Cadre, Mr. Brady leads all defense software acquisition modernization, programs, policy, and congressional initiatives to ensure the US dominates in digital warfighting capability delivery. Mr. Brady led the development, and implementation of the DoD’s Software Acquisition Pathway policy (“Lean Startup for DoD”) as well as the Secretary of Defense’s Modern Software Acquisition directive. His efforts to reshape DoD Software Acquisition have resulted in Congress and the Secretary of Defense recognizing the policy as a model to extend to all DoD acquisition. He leads DoD software acquisition program acceleration and process reform; and founded the Digital Talent Management Forum governing DoD’s software workforce (150K+). Under his leadership, he engaged 100s of programs/commands to accelerate 82 programs into the Software Pathway, a ~400% growth.
Mr. Brady was the Defense Innovation Board’s Software Workforce co-lead and served as the Learning Director for Software Acquisition at DAU. He led strategy to transform DoD’s practices, competencies, training, and workforce – to accelerate the adoption of modern, commercial SW development practices across DoD and DAU’s curriculum, including launching DAU’s DevSecOps practice.
He served as the Director for Software Engineering in USD (Research and Engineering) within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) where he drove board room and congressional decisions on a portfolio of 170+ major programs ($1.7T). He drove the Defense Science Board study on Software Acquisition resulting in recommendations that drive DoD’s SW Modernization strategy, and led software engineering oversight on DoD's most complex, highest-visibility programs (RD+E $480M; procurement > $2.79 billion). Mr. Brady is an expert in software parametric statistical analysis and assessing large-scale Agile SW development efforts, advising DoD's senior-decision makers, CEOs, and Congress on software engineering across all military branches. He also championed OSD's performance measurement practices across DoD and industry.
Prior to the Pentagon, he served in the Army's Armament Software Engineering Center as Special Projects Program Manager and as a PM Close Combat Systems Project Officer (PO) executing experimental and rapid fielding programs in support of special operations and frontline Warfighters. He was a member of the Army's Acquisition Corps and has served as a US Delegate to NATO.
Mr. Brady holds a BS in Computer & Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University; an MS in Quantitative Software Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology; an MBA from the University of Virginia; a graduate certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Stanford University; and a Senior Executive Fellowship at Harvard University.
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