Tonya Wilkerson, deputy director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), was named to the list of prestigious 2022 Wash100 Award recipients, the most coveted award in all of government contracting (GovCon) for her leadership as the new deputy director of the NGA and driving critical GEOINT strategy and expansion to assist with U.S. national security efforts.
Executive Mosaic is pleased to recognize Wilkerson as a first-time Wash100 winner for the first time. Visit Wash100.com to cast a vote for Tonya Wilkerson as one of your TEN votes to advocate for your favorite leaders in the federal and government sectors.
Tonya Wilkerson was appointed and announced to serve as the new deputy director for the NGA in Nov. 2021. She succeeded Dr. Stacey Dixon, a three-time Wash100 winner, as the ninth NGA deputy director in the agency’s history.
“Wilkerson is an accomplished intelligence professional with over three decades of experience in the intelligence community,” said NGA Director Vice Adm. Robert Sharp and two-time Wash100 Award winner. “Her vast experience and perspective will be of tremendous value to us during these rapidly evolving times.”
Wilkerson brings more than three decades of experience across the intelligence community and federal landscape. She has joined the NGA from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where she serves as an associate director for Science and Technology strategy for the agency.
In addition, Wilkerson has also served in a variety of roles with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) associated with research, development, operations and acquisition functions.
More recently, the NGA recently released the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG) Enterprise Commercial GEOINT Strategy 2021-2025, calling on the larger GEOINT community to leverage more commercial technologies and methods to help the enterprise move faster and grow stronger.
Vice Adm. Sharp mentioned that commercial GEOINT is a critical element of our national strategy, and the NSG will be the primary driver for national security use cases.
The NGA broke down the four key strategic goals to give analysts discoverable and shareable content on all domains. The four goals are to drive unity of effort to increase transparency, commonality, and coordinated purpose.
“New sources breed new methods. New methods breed new doctrine and policy. The way forward must include shareable intelligence produced at a pace that wins both the physical and communications battle for hearts and minds,” NGA Director Vice Adm. Robert Sharp stated in an introductory letter in the strategy.
In addition, the agency aims to diversify sources and build capacity through partnerships to ensure that NSG members can continue their mission if their usual source is unavailable, and increase the capacity at the enterprise level.
The NGA will also work to improve data security and develop processes to mitigate risks and strengthen commercial GEOINT, and influence and foster commercial capabilities to continue work with industry to support rapid innovation, ensuring continuous progress in improving commercial utility solutions against challenges.
In addition, the NGA announced on Feb. 25th that the agency is building a commercial buying guide for its partners across the defense, intelligence and federal community, as the agency increasingly turns to commercial sources for imagery analysis and other geospatial intelligence.
NGA is leading a shift toward turning to commercial sources of GEOINT as “primary sources” of intelligence, as opposed to internal, often highly classified capabilities. The shift is spelled out in NGA’s latest commercial GEOINT strategy released in the fall.
Executive Mosaic is proud to recognize Tonya Wilkerson for being named a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient. As a first time winner of the most coveted award in GovCon, Wilkerson has demonstrated a level of success and recognition that can only be recognized by the Wash100 Award and the GovCon community.
Visit Wash100.com to vote for Tonya Wilkerson and who you believe deserves the recognition as the most significant leader to the GovCon community and federal landscape.
