Jane Rathbun, US Navy CIO, to Keynote 2025 Navy Summit
The Potomac Officers Club is thrilled to announce Jane Rathbun, U.S. Navy chief information officer and two-time Wash100 Award winner, as a keynote speaker for the 2025 Navy Summit. Scheduled for August 26 at the Hilton McLean in northern Virginia, this highly-anticipated event will gather top voices from government and industry sectors to discuss critical challenges, including the future of Navy IT modernization, cyber defense and innovation in naval acquisition. Learn more about Rathbun and secure your spot at this prestigious GovCon conference.
Who Is Jane Rathbun?
Rathbun is a trailblazer in modernizing the Navy’s digital infrastructure. With a career spanning nearly 30 years, she has driven advancements in cybersecurity, cloud adoption and emerging technologies.
Prior to her current position, Rathbun held several senior roles, including a dual-hatted position of deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for information warfare and enterprise services and chief technology officer. She managed a $9 billion portfolio of information-centric programs, championed cyber acquisition reforms and led major infrastructure modernization efforts. Earlier in her career, she served in various capacities across the DOD and NASA, contributing to institutional reform, capability management and IT investment oversight.
Who Is the Current CIO of the Navy?
As the Navy’s CIO since 2023, Rathbun oversees a $12 billion IT portfolio and leads modernization initiatives including zero trust security and cloud integration. She ensures IT investments align with the Navy secretary’s priorities and advances the service’s Information Superiority Vision, which emphasizes modernization, innovation, and cybersecurity.
Rathbun’s leadership includes key focus areas such as cyber readiness, cloud migration and enterprise service delivery. Rathbun is a strong advocate for data and IT workforce development.
Rathbun’s Impact on Navy IT Modernization
Rathbun’s leadership has revolutionized the Navy’s approach to IT. She signed a memo directing the Navy and Marine Corps to streamline legacy and independent IT networks into an overarching enterprise information system as part of a broad modernization campaign, DefenseScoop reported. This has a goal of shrinking the cyber attack surface, making IT systems easier to use and improving technology investments.
Rathbun’s focus on partnerships with commercial vendors has streamlined IT deployments, reduced costs and accelerated adoption of cutting-edge solutions. She also champions a culture of innovation and data-driven strategy, empowering the Navy workforce with modern tools.
2025 Navy Summit Keynote Focus
Attendees of Rathbun’s keynote at the 2025 Navy Summit can expect her to touch on critical topics facing IT GovCons. These include:
- Modernizing the IT hiring process. Rathbun has promoted the return of civil service tests, which were more popular in the past when fewer people graduated from college. She has also promoted the DOD using rapid hiring processes as she believes taking 80 days, on average, to fill a position is “way too long.”
- Advancing cyber-secure innovation. Rathbun has suggested that the Navy make zero trust principles fundamental in every aspect of capability development. Operators, acquirers and industry teammates need to be involved from the beginning of developing and delivering secure capabilities..
- Accelerating mission-driven and user-focused software. Rathbun has signed a memo directing the creation of an Echelon I organization to help speed up the development and deployment of software to operators. This Software Modernization and Innovation Organization, or SMIO, will team with the Navy’s software developers and mission owners to advance enterprise DevSecOps platforms.
Why Attend the 2025 Navy Summit?
The 2025 Navy Summit is the leading GovCon event for defense contracting professionals, bringing together military leaders and GovCon experts to address the Navy’s most pressing challenges. This year’s conference will focus on digital transformation, AI, unmanned systems and strategic partnerships.
The agenda includes:
- Opening keynotes by Vice Adm. Karl Thomas, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, N2N6, and director of naval intelligence, and Capt. Joel Uzarski, NavalX director
- Panels on paradigm-shifting technologies
- Dive deep into generative AI at “Optimizing Navy Decision-Making With GenAI”
- Get up to speed on emerging cybersecurity requirements at “Zero Trust and Beyond”
- Bolster your knowledge of Naval unmanned systems at “Opportunities and Challenges in Delivering UXV to the Navy”
- Offerings from sponsoring leaders of the GovCon industry, including SAIC, Oracle Cloud, Carahsoft, SAP NS2 and others
Use this rare opportunity to hear first-hand from Navy leaders like Rathbun at the 2025 Navy Summit. Mark a spot on your calendar for August 26 and make your FY 2026 one of boosted revenues and sales. Sign up now for this must-attend GovCon conference for defense contracting and IT professionals.
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