Mike Brown
Golden Gov: Executive of the Year
As director of the Defense Innovation Unit, Mike Brown is responsible for helping the Department of Defense reach nontraditional innovators outside the Beltway. Now five years into its existence, DIU is looking to evolve: “What we discovered pretty early on is that we need to be more than a tech-scouting function — we actually need to do projects,” Brown said at FedTalks recently, adding that DIU has introduced 65 first-time vendors to the DOD. “We’re very happy with the evolution, but we feel like we’re just scratching the surface on what can be done,” he said.
