Townes-Whitley says SAIC was the first in its market to have an employee-owned operating model.
“It was a first in its market to have an employee-owned operating model to really to operate in the world of STEM before STEM was cool.”
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Toni Townes-Whitley
1 episodes · 22 quoted claims
Townes-Whitley says SAIC's growth had gone somewhat flat and its portfolio needed more differentiation when she became CEO.
“relative to SAIC having gone a bit flat in its growth cycle, uh SAIC having to more differentiate its portfolio”
SAIC sequenced its four pivots, starting with portfolio, then go-to-market and culture, and finally brand.
“We also sequenced uh the four pivots. So we started with portfolio, leaned in heavily on the portfolio”
Townes-Whitley says SAIC's research found the company was well known but had an outdated, backward-looking brand.
“SAIC has a phenomenal brand. Our study and research indicated that we were very well known, but it had an anachronistic brand.”
Townes-Whitley tracks about fourteen metrics monthly, out of roughly seventy used across SAIC.
“through metrics that we use about fourteen that I track every month, but seventy that are arrayed across the company at different levels”
Townes-Whitley says SAIC's differentiated strengths include digital engineering, secure data analysis and operational AI.
“clear differentiation in areas of what we would call sort of digital engineering, um, secure data analysis and and uh operational AI.”
Townes-Whitley says SAIC trains every air traffic controller in the US for the Department of Transportation.
“SAIC contr- uh trains every air traffic controller in this country within the Department of Transportation.”
Townes-Whitley says SAIC runs technology used to secure the southern US border for Customs and Border Protection.
“AI at the border, at the southern border within the customs and border patrol, we run that capability, the technology that secures our southern border.”
Townes-Whitley says SAIC takes part in AI standard setting with NIST, a standards body in the US Department of Commerce.
“We are part of standard setting with NIST, which is the standards body within the Department of Commerce.”
SAIC runs a trustworthy AI initiative together with George Washington University.
“We have our own trustworthy initiative we do with George Washington University.”
Townes-Whitley says more than 4,000 volunteers have taken part in SAIC's facial recognition testing.
“we have over 4,000 volunteers that have come through to give us accurate testing on facial recognition.”
Townes-Whitley says SAIC tests facial recognition bias at its biometric center for the Department of Homeland Security.
“we do this for the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that we understand what bias is introduced in facial capture.”
Townes-Whitley says continuing resolutions, which are temporary budget extensions, have become the norm in US federal budgeting.
“continuing resolutions have become a norm, unfortunately, in terms of how the budget uh sort of uh locks happen”
Townes-Whitley says SAIC's largest civilian business is in the VA, Homeland Security, Transportation and State Departments.
“Think of the VA, the Veterans Administration, uh, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, the State Department.”
Townes-Whitley says SAIC had been a low single-digit growth company for five years and needed to return to mid single-digit growth.
“We have been at low single-digit for the last five years.”
Townes-Whitley says SAIC had been submitting fewer proposals for new business over time.
“We had been declining in the number of proposals we've been submitting.”
Townes-Whitley says civilian work is about a quarter of SAIC's business and the company aims to raise it to about a third.
“We're rebalancing the business to be more towards a third of right now, a fourth of our business is civilian.”
Townes-Whitley says about a third of SAIC's employees are military veterans.
“a third of our folks are military, former military.”
SAIC historically measured hiring by days to fill a requisition and is shifting toward building talent internally.
“We use metrics like days to fill a requisition, but we needed to shift to building more talent in the organization.”
SAIC has run three upskilling pilots and is investing more in the program.
“we've run three pilots now across the company, and now we're investing more and more in upskilling.”
SAIC runs an AI council with representatives from functions across the company, including IT, HR, legal, finance and client-facing teams.
“we run an AI council. We bring all of the disciplines of AI from our internal IT operation to our external innovation factory.”
Townes-Whitley left Arthur Andersen as its consulting business was closing after the Enron scandal and moved to Unisys.
“leaving, uh, Arthur Anderson as it was closing as a consulting business after Enron and coming to a, uh, a business and infrastructure technology company like Unisys”