John Heneghan Named 2026 Wash100 Awardee for Advancing AI-Led Transformation Across Federal Missions
John Heneghan, consulting transformation officer at ASGN and former president of ECS, has been named a 2026 Wash100 Award recipient, marking his fifth consecutive recognition on Executive Mosaic’s annual list of the most influential leaders.
“John’s 2026 Wash100 Award, his fifth straight, is a celebratory moment,” Executive Mosaic CEO Jim Garrettson said. “His more than 10 years of leadership experience at CGI Federal and ECS gives him an expert understanding of emerging technology services such as data and artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and machine learning for federal customers.”
“John’s five Wash100 awards reflect his respect and success helping government customers achieve their essential missions. We’re excited for his plans for the upcoming year,” added Garrettson, the founder of the Wash100 Award.
Vote for John Heneghan as one of your favorite GovCon leaders in the 2026 Wash100 popular vote competition at Wash100.com.
What Is the Wash100 Award?
The Wash100 Award recognizes the most impactful leaders across government, industry and the GovCon ecosystem. Each year, the award highlights executives who are driving innovation, shaping acquisition and technology priorities, and delivering mission-critical capabilities that support national security and federal operations.
Why Did John Heneghan Win the 2026 Wash100?
Heneghan’s 2026 Wash100 recognition is primarily rooted in his leadership at ECS in 2025. As president of ECS, he oversaw a year in which the company expanded its footprint across several of the federal market’s most active priorities: artificial intelligence, cyber defense, cloud-based mission environments, enterprise modernization, and modeling and simulation.
Advancing AI and Data-Driven Mission Capabilities
A major part of that story was ECS’ continued role in government AI programs. In September 2025, Heneghan highlighted the company’s long-running support for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Maven program, where ECS has served as the AI Interoperability Integrator since 2017. He described Maven as more than a program, calling it “a philosophy and a promise” centered on bringing frontier AI capabilities to pressing national security problems. ECS said it had delivered 1,500 government-off-the-shelf and commercial-off-the-shelf models, validated 2,000 models, built the Maven Data Center and contributed to the Joint Warfighter Toolbox in support of the initiative.
“Under John’s guidance, ECS has distinguished itself as a key partner on the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Maven program, one of the most prominent and technologically-advanced initiatives in the national security space,” Garrettson said.
That work fed directly into another significant win. In December 2025, NGA awarded ECS the potential $104.3 million Canyonlands contract to continue developing and demonstrating artificial intelligence capabilities. The award carried forward work initiated under Project Runway, the Army Research Laboratory-administered effort established to address challenges in operationalizing Department of War AI across cloud-based and on-premises environments. Canyonlands reinforced ECS’ standing in AI mobility, interoperability and GEOINT-focused mission support.
Expanding Cybersecurity, Contracts and Mission Platforms
Heneghan’s leadership also showed up in ECS’ expanding cyber portfolio. In March 2025, 1CyberForce, a joint venture between ECS and Yakshna Solutions, secured a position on the Treasury Department’s $20 billion PROTECTS blanket purchase agreement. At the time, Heneghan called the award a significant milestone that demonstrated the joint venture’s depth in cybersecurity and AI-enabled cyber capabilities.
“By helping an ECS joint venture land a spot on the Department of Treasury’s $20 billion Providing Treasury Enterprise Cybersecurity Technology Services blanket purchase agreement, John helped advance ECS’ commitment to safeguarding critical federal infrastructure and taxpayer information,” said Garrettson.
Later in the year, ECS partnered with Elastic on a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency security information and event management-as-a-service effort. The contract carried a base value of $26 million and options that could bring it to $130 million. The work is intended to unify cybersecurity telemetry into a shared cloud-hosted platform to improve real-time threat detection and incident response across federal civilian executive branch agencies.
The company also continued broadening its contract access and modernization role. In February 2025, ECS won a position on GSA’s 10-year OASIS+ contract vehicle for consulting and enterprise transformation services. Heneghan said the award aligned with growing government emphasis on improving business systems and processes to boost efficiency and operational excellence.
ECS’s work was not limited to AI and cybersecurity. In August 2025, ECS Riptide Ventures won a $127 million Army contract for continued support of the One Semi-Automated Forces, or OneSAF, program, a key part of the Army’s modeling and simulation enterprise. OneSAF supports force modernization, acquisition, experimentation, intelligence, training and evaluation, and it also ties into the Army’s move toward cloud- and web-based software. The award added another dimension to ECS’ 2025 profile by underscoring its role in software-intensive modernization beyond cyber and analytics.
Another milestone came in August, when ECS’ cloud-based mission partner environment, Blue Dawn, received an “awardable” designation from the DOW and debuted on the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office’s Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace. ECS described Blue Dawn as a secure platform for AI development and data interoperability supporting mission collaboration across logistics, training and operational decision-making. Heneghan said the milestone reflected ECS’ commitment to secure, interoperable and future-ready platforms for defense priorities.
ECS also pushed into health-related AI use cases. In January 2025, the company announced a collaboration with SAS to deliver AI-powered health offerings to government, covering areas such as public safety and health monitoring, operational efficiency, policy and compliance oversight, risk and resource management, clinician burnout reduction, supply chain improvement and contact center automation. According to Heneghan, the collaboration would bring flexible, high-impact, data-driven solutions to federal customers with a focus on human-centric design, accountability and transparency.
The company’s internal cyber maturity also advanced. ECS announced that its G5 enclave achieved CMMC Level 2 certification, creating a secure environment for processing and storing controlled unclassified information and demonstrating progress toward the company’s cyber-readiness road map.
Make your voice heard in the 2026 Wash100 popular vote competition — vote for John Heneghan at Wash100.com.
What Is ECS?
ECS is a wholly owned subsidiary of ASGN and serves as the company’s federal IT services segment. It delivers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise transformation solutions to federal civilian, defense and intelligence customers.
Who Is John Heneghan?
Heneghan transitioned to his new role as consulting transformation officer at ASGN in February 2026, helping accelerate the company’s pivot to an AI-led global digital engineering market leader.
Before becoming president at ECS in January 2022, Heneghan was chief operating officer of the company, overseeing customer delivery, business operations and business development. Earlier, as senior vice president, he led enterprise solutions delivery for federal civilian and defense customers, including the U.S. Postal Service, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Defense Information Systems Agency, and the U.S. Army.
Prior to ECS, Heneghan spent more than six years at CGI Federal as a vice president overseeing a portfolio that included DHS, U.S. Coast Guard and the Office of Personnel Management. He grew CGI’s DHS account by more than 25 percent year over year and helped diversify the portfolio across citizen services, engineering services, cloud and managed services, software development, and cybersecurity, including work connected to DHS’ Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program.
Earlier, he served as executive vice president at SPS Consulting, where he led service operations for federal, state and local; nonprofit; and commercial customers. He oversaw nearly 20 contracts across 17 customers, among them the Department of Justice, DHS, NASA, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Smithsonian Institution.
Before that, Heneghan held a progression of roles at Stanley Associates, including program manager, proposal director and director of corporate development. During that period, he supported federal customers, achieved a 70 percent win rate on proposal efforts valued at more than $1 billion and helped grow the organization from $400 million to $950 million.
Heneghan earned a bachelor’s degree in speech and English education from the University of Maryland.
How Did Heneghan Position ECS for Broader Growth?
One of the more notable aspects of Heneghan’s 2025 record is its breadth. ECS was active in AI for intelligence workflows, cyber operations for civilian agencies, secure mission partner environments for defense users, simulation programs for the Army and data-driven health offerings for government customers.
That mix matters because it shows ECS was not simply chasing isolated awards. Under Heneghan, the company was aligning itself with recurring federal needs: production-ready AI, secure cloud environments, interoperable data platforms, operational cyber resilience and modernization of legacy mission systems.
His public comments during the year reinforced that positioning. Whether discussing Maven, Blue Dawn, Treasury cyber work or the SAS collaboration, Heneghan consistently framed ECS’ role around practical delivery, interoperability, mission speed and measurable impact rather than technology for its own sake.
Executive Mosaic congratulates John Heneghan and the ASGN and ECS teams for this achievement. As he takes on a new role at the parent company level, his leadership in scaling AI, cybersecurity and enterprise transformation capabilities continues to shape how federal agencies adopt and operationalize emerging technologies.
Visit Wash100.com to cast your vote for John Heneghan as your favorite GovCon leader and learn more about the 2026 Wash100 Award recipients.