Apple VP Doug Beck named next DIU director, will report directly to Austin

WASHINGTON — Doug Beck, a vice president at Apple, will be the next director of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), and will now report directly up to the secretary of defense in an organizational reshuffle, the Defense Department announced today. 

Beck, a captain in the Navy Reserve, currently works as the vice president of worldwide education, health and government at Apple, a position he has held for almost four years, according to his LinkedIn profile. Historically, the position of DIU director has reported directly to the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, but in a memo released today by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the innovation hub “will be under the authority, direction, and control” of his office. 

“The DIU director shall serve as a leader inside the Department to catalyze engagement with and investment into private sector communities where commercial technology can be adapted and applied to meet our warfighters requirements,” Lloyd said in the memo [PDF]. “The DIU director will also serve as a focal point for new and emerging commercial technology sectors to help identify dual-use technologies and as an advisor to me and to the Deputy Secretary ohf Defense on their potential strategic impact.”

Beck will have 90 days after he’s appointed to provide Austin with an assessment of DIU’s capabilities, an action plan and what milestones the innovation hub plans to hit, the memo says. 

Beck has previously worked with DIU, starting in 2015 when he founded and led the innovation hub’s joint reserve component until 2019, according to a DoD press release. He has served on the secretary of state’s foreign affairs policy board and as an “Executive Advisor to three Chiefs of Naval Operations and to Special Operations Community leadership, and an adjunct lecturer on strategy and innovation for Flag and General Officers at the Naval Postgraduate School,” the release says. Beck joined Apple in 2009, and before that, from 2006 to 2007, he served in his Navy capaity in Iraq and Afghanistan with a joint special operations task force.

DIU was most recently led by Mike Brown, a former CEO of cybersecurity firm Symantec, who was not shy about his frustration over what he said was a lack of support from DoD leadership.

“I just don’t feel that we’re making the kind of progress that I’d like to see made,” Brown said in a May 10 interview with Breaking Defense. “So I’m frustrated that we’re not achieving more, we’re not supported more. There’s not the agreement by leadership that this is a priority. And so if that is the case, then you can’t accomplish what you believe should be accomplished. It’s really that simple.”