An 82nd Airborne 3rd Brigade Combat Team soldier trains with the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) as a part of Project Convergence 2022. (TRADOC via Twitter)
WASHINGTON — President of Microsoft Federal Rick Wagner has exited the company, marking the third senior level executive with ties to defense programs to leave within a year, Breaking Defense has learned.
“Rick Wagner, President, Microsoft Federal, has decided to leave the company to pursue new opportunities. We are deeply grateful for his leadership and contributions to the company and wish him all the best in the future,” a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Breaking Defense today.
Wagner has led Microsoft Federal since July 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. Prior to Microsoft, he was the president of ManTech’s mission, cyber and intelligence solutions group and held other positions in the company. Microsoft’s statement today does not say where Wagner is planning to go next.
Microsoft Federal works with the government on a variety of tech projects across the defense, intelligence and civilian sectors. When it comes to defense, the company is working on several projects, including the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). The company is one of four vendors to win spots on the Pentagon’s $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract to build out the Defense Department’s military cloud computing backbone.
And Microsoft is also running the Army’s troubled Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) built around the HoloLens 2 augmented reality headset that uses Microsoft’s Azure cloud services. Though not directly responsible for the IVAS program, Wagner wrote in a May 12 Microsoft blog post the company was excited about the Army’s partnership to move IVAS from prototyping to production and fielding.
Wagner’s departure marks the third senior executive from Microsoft with ties to defense programs to exit over the last year.
Thirteen months ago, Alex Kipman — the vice president leading mixed reality teams developing the HoloLens — resigned after allegations of verbal abuse and sexual harassment surfaced in Business Insider. Around that same time, Microsoft cloud vice president Tom Keane also left the company in the wake of reports of verbal abuse. Although not as senior, Microsoft’s program manager for IVAS, David Marra, in January announced he was leaving the company for a job at Palantir working on mixed reality.
Defense Department launches Fulcrum Strategy to transform cyber and IT capabilities
“Fulcrum really represents the department’s shift towards leveraging technology and information technology as a strategic enabler,” Leslie Beavers, principal deputy CIO at the DoD said.
