Sharothi Pikar

Sharothi Pikar, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Acquisition Executive and the Deputy CDAO, Acquisition in the Office of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO). She is the Senior Procurement Executive and is responsible for acquisition and procurement of all CDAO data, analytics, and AI-related capabilities. She serves as the milestone decision and approval authority for all CDAO research, development, and acquisition activities with an annual budget of approximately $685M.   

Prior to her current position, Ms. Pikar served as the inaugural Command Acquisition Executive and the Director of Acquisition and Technology Directorate (J9) of U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). In this role, she oversaw and guided the development and integration of critical cyber capabilities as part of the Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture portfolio exceeding $4B. As the inaugural CAE, Ms. Pikar reformed the CYBERCOM acquisition and resource management process resulting in Command-wide improvement of accountability and performance.

Previously, Ms. Pikar served as the Acting Assistant Director for Cyber Portfolio and the Associate Director for Cyber Strategies in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)). Prior to that, Ms. Pikar served as a Senior Civilian Fellow and Strategic Planner in the Chief of Staff of the Army’s (CSA) Strategic Studies Group (SSG), where she was responsible for creation of the Army Civilian Fellowship positions and played a key role in the Department’s early adoption of predictive people analytics. Ms. Pikar has served in various other leadership positions in the Army including Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA(ALT)) and the Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM), now part of the Army Futures Command (AFC).