National Security Tech Innovation: Who is Delivering It?

 Fiona Murray is the Associate Dean of Innovation and Inclusion at the MIT School of Management and the William Porter (1967) Professor of Entrepreneurship. She is the codirector of MIT’s Innovation Initiative and Faculty Director of the MIT Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship and Development. Fiona is an associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Fiona serves on the British Prime Minister’s Council on Science and Technology and was awarded a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for her services to innovation and entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom. She is also a member of the Ministry of Defence Innovation Advisory Panel and the European Innovation Council Joint Expert Group and sits on numerous private and public boards. 

Murray is an international policy expert on the transformation of investments in science and technology into deep-tech start-up ventures that solve significant global challenges and create national advantage – from defence and security to health, food and water security. Her work includes understanding new funding approaches for innovations that arise from scientific research, and educating the next generation of technical leaders to build effective ventures. She has focused on the particular issues faced by ventures who have dual-use (commercial and government) solutions and work in contexts characterized by complex global power competition. She also works with large public and private sector organizations to effectively drive their strategic goals by linking to external innovation ecosystems especially universities, start-ups, and risk capital. 

In her recent scholarship, Murray has emphasized the ways in which women and under-represented minorities are engaged in or excluded from innovation using large-scale data analysis, building metrics and indices of inclusion and using experimental approach.  Most recently, Fiona developed a new course joint with the MIT School of Engineering to educate the next generation of scientists and engineer to become chief technology officers taking ideas from inception to impact.   Her work is widely published in Science, Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, American Journal of Sociology, Research Policy, Organization Science, and the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

 She received her BA ’89 and MA ‘90 from the University of Oxford in chemistry. She subsequently moved to the United States and earned an AM ’92 and PhD ’96 from Harvard University in applied sciences. 

 Nand Mulchandani is the first ever Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the Central Intelligence Agency. Nand is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for public service. He loves small, fast-moving teams focused on disrupting big markets. Prior to this he was the CTO & Acting Director of the US Department of Defense's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC).

Prior to pivoting to Government service Nand was co-founder and CEO of multiple successful startups – Oblix (acquired by Oracle), Determina (acquired by VMware), OpenDNS (acquired by Cisco), and ScaleXtreme (acquired by Citrix). Nand was a senior executive at VMware and Citrix, and started his career as a compiler engineer at Sun Microsystems.

Nand has a degree in Computer Science and Math from Cornell, a Master of Science in Management from Stanford Business School, and a Master in Public Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

 Jesse Klempner is a leader in McKinsey’s Aerospace & Defense, Private Equity & Principal Investors, and Automotive & Assembly Practices. He has led numerous strategic engagements for A&D primes and subcontractors as well as industrial companies, studies across the full M&A lifecycle (such as M&A strategy, industry and target scans, diligences, and postmerger management), and more than 50 transaction diligences.

Examples of his recent client work include the following:

• Conducting the strategic portfolio review, including valuation of available business and strategic options, levers to increase value, and new business models to pursue, at a major prime contractor
• Leading a product-lineup transformation for a leading powersports OEM
• Developing the strategy on the future of space industry, with a focus on national security, space, and commercial convergence
• Developing the acquisition-strategy formulation and subsequent acquisition screen for a major A&D prime contractor, with tasks that included identifying, scoring, and prioritizing targets against multiple themes and capability needs

Prior to joining McKinsey, Jesse worked for a boutique management-consulting firm that focused on due diligence and strategy engagements in A&D. He has also spent time at two large law firms focused on private-equity transactions and at a private-equity firm focused on 

A&D opportunities.

Jesse began his career in the US House of Representatives, where he focused on the defense budget, defense policy, and foreign relations. His final position in the House was as the chief of staff to the chairman of the House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

 Michael Brown is a Venture Partner at Shield Capital, investing in company founders building frontier technologies that matter. Shield’s portfolio includes companies solving problems in the artificial intelligence, space, cybersecurity, and autonomy spaces. 

Previously he served as Director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) at the U.S. Department of Defense. Michael served two years (2016-2018) as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow at DoD. He is the co-author of a Pentagon study on China’s participation in the U.S. venture ecosystem, a catalyst for the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), which expanded the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).Additionally, he led the initiative for a new Defense Department-sponsored investment vehicle, National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC) to fund dual-use hardware technology companies. 

Through August of 2016, Michael was the CEO of Symantec Corporation, the global leader in cybersecurity and the world’s 10th largest software company with revenues of $4 billion and more than 10,000 employees worldwide. Michael served as a member of Symantec’s Board since its merger with Veritas in 2005. During his tenure as CEO (2014-2016), Michael led a turnaround developing a strategy focusing on its security business, sold its Veritas storage software business, hired a new executive leadership team and improved operating margins 300 basis points. Additionally, he led the articulation of a new company culture fostering innovation. Michael is the former Chairman & CEO of Quantum Corporation (1995-2003), a leader in the computer storage industry. As CEO of Quantum, the company achieved record revenues of $6 billion as the world’s leader in disk drives for personal computers and the world’s largest tape drive business. He joined Quantum in 1984 and served on its Board from 1995 until 2014. After leaving Quantum, Michael served as Chairman of EqualLogic, a storage array company. Dell acquired EqualLogic in 2008 for $1.4 billion, the largest all-cash deal for a venture-backed company up to that time. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Berklee College of Music in Boston since 2013 and previously served on the President’s Advisory Council.

Michael received his BA degree in economics from Harvard University in 1980 and his MBA degree from Stanford University in 1984.