Some of Washington’s biggest players in technology have had a particularly busy year putting their stamp on the future of the industry. Take the Department of Justice’s landmark antitrust case against Google. It came after years of cajoling by one of this year’s Tech Titans, Y Combinator’s Luther Lowe, and was led by another, DOJ anti­trust chief Jonathan Kanter, with a third, the Chamber of Progress’s Adam Kovacevich, helping to rally opposition. The suit’s outcome—a judge decided against the company this summer—will shape the internet for years to come. Then there are the policy debates around artificial intelligence. Arati Prabhakar, the applied physicist and engineer who SubHead1s the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, has been a key voice in conversations about both addressing the technology’s risks and fulfilling its potential, while Hugh Gamble, Salesforce’s vice president for federal-­government affairs and policy, has worked to make sure the capital doesn’t forget the key role AI is playing in business-to-­business tools such as the one his California company makes. When it comes to social media, Carl Szabo of the advocacy group NetChoice helped propel to the Supreme Court a pair of cases that shape the work of policy chiefs like TikTok’s Michael Beckerman and Snap’s Jennifer Park Stout. In the realm of cryptocurrency, SEC chair Gary Gensler has been the public face of the government’s skeptical handling of Bitcoin, while the Blockchain Association’s Kristin Smith remains a strong advocate for the technology. There are plenty of other entrepreneurs, dealmakers, and major CEOs hard at work in Washington. Tari Cash’s CitySwing is using virtual reality in an innovative way to make the game of golf more accessible. Venture capitalist Nasir Qadree of Zeal Capital Partners is making deals aimed at tackling disparities in healthcare. Amy Gilliland leads the contracting giant General Dynamics Information Technology as it aims to stay on the cutting edge of quantum computing. As Amena Ali, the CEO of Optoro—a District company addressing retail waste through easier returns—told us, “DC is home to people who are not afraid to tackle some of the nation’s thorniest problems.” Here are this year’s 217 Tech Titans. The Starters Entrepreneurs, Founders, and Early-Stage CEOs Reggie Aggarwal, David Quattrone, and Chuck Ghoorah Cvent CEO and Founder (Aggarwal), Cofounder and CTO (Quattrone), and Cofounder and President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing (Ghoorah) Since Aggarwal set up shop in 1999, Cvent has turned itself into a multibillion-dollar player in the events space—its software powers everything from Salesforce’s internal gatherings to Puerto Rico’s post–Hurricane Maria tourism push. This year, the Tysons-based firm grew through acquisitions, including the meetings tool Jifflenow.   Amena Ali Optoro CEO Optoro has ridden the post-Covid online-shopping wave, with its returns platform used by the likes of Best Buy, Plow & Hearth, and Tuckernuck. Of late, it’s thrown itself into making it even easier to say, “Nah, send it back.” Its Express Returns now has an option to simply leave unwanted orders on your doorstep.   Randy Altschuler Xometry CEO When NASA contractor Intuitive Machines quickly needed new titanium spool fittings for this past winter’s landing of the lunar module Odysseus, it turned to Altschuler’s North Bethesda manufacturing platform. With a market cap of more than $850 million, Xometry has continued expanding its reach on Earth, too, launching in the Czech Republic and acquiring Turkey’s Tridi.   Josh Araujo Forterra CEO What was once Clarksburg’s Robotic Research Autonomous Industries had a year of big change. Araujo stepped in as CEO in January, and the company rebranded as Forterra, the name (“forte,” or Latin for “strong,” layered with “for the ground”) a nod to its role as a top provider of autonomous-vehicle systems for defense customers like the Defense Department.   Jim Bankoff Vox Media Cofounder, Chairman, and CEO Bankoff continues to push to find creative ways for Vox to buck the digital-media space’s lemming-like trends, including investing big on new podcasts with novel hosts. Soccer star Megan Rapinoe and WNBA legend Sue Bird relaunched their Vox-backed A Touch More: The Podcast in August.   Ashwin Bharath Revature Cofounder and Executive Chairman Bharath has spent nearly 20 years at Revature and now leads the Reston firm as it connects tech-skilled workers with employers eager to fill jobs. The company reports partnering with seven of the US’s ten biggest banks while sourcing talent from Howard University, Boise State, and beyond.   Jennifer Bisceglie Interos Founder and Executive Vice Chair of the Board Bisceglie and her billion-dollar Interos help clients manage their supply chains, monitoring risks ranging from cyberattacks to government fines. In August, Interos rolled out Resilience Watchtower, software aimed at telling customers in an instant which suppliers are vulnerable.   Matt Calkins Appian Founder and CEO With a market cap of some $2 billion, Calkins’s Appian is a giant in “low code” software programming. He’s been using that profile to push the AI industry to adopt responsible-use guidelines—as he put it in a Fast Company op-ed, to grow the technology, “we must have trust.”   Tari Cash CitySwing Founder and CEO Cash, who put in time at Under Armour, is now out to redefine the art of golf using virtual technology to make the game more accessible—as the website puts it, “golf but not so golfy”—especially for women and people of color. Founded in 2017, CitySwing has locations in DC and, as of May, Reston.   Michael Chasen Class Technologies Cofounder and CEO Class Technologies bloomed during the 2020 Zoom-boom, and in the years since, the DC firm has grown enormously. The team (which now also supports Microsoft Teams) is up to 175 people—led by Chasen, onetime president and CEO at the education-software company Blackboard—working to advance the state of the art in online learning.   Timothy Chi The Knot Worldwide CEO Even after nearly 30 years, the Chi-led network of wedding sites remain go-to spots for people getting hitched: Last year, the Chevy Chase company reports, more than 4 million couples signed up for support in planning their nuptials. Says Chi: “It’s extremely rewarding to represent a corner of the internet dedicated to love and joy.”   Matthew Desch Iridium Communications CEO Desch’s McLean firm is a huge force in satellite­communications, worth more than $3 billion, and has thrown its resources into conquering one of the industry’s stickiest wickets: how to get space equipment to last. It’s up to satellite life spans of nearly 18 years.   David Felsenthal EAB CEO Established in 2007, EAB (once the Education Advisory Board) has attracted just about every higher-ed institution to its mission of making the nuts and bolts of education work better—its Enroll360 offering, for ex­ample, helps schools manage admissions—and is growing in part by working with Fortune 500 firms to build bonds with college-age applicants.   Andy Florance CoStar Group Founder and CEO CoStar’s sheer massiveness—it has 6,200 employees and a $32 billion market cap—induced Virginia to put up $5 million this year to get it to move the home base from downtown DC to Arlington. Florance, meanwhile, is focused on expanding the real-estate-intelligence firm’s Homes.com portal, including via Super Bowl commercials featuring Dan Levy (Schitt’s Creek) and rapper Lil Wayne.   Fonta Gilliam Wellthi Founder and CEO Gilliam, a State Department vet, runs Wellthi, aimed at using social tools to attract those who might balk at online financial services—and miss out on their potential for wealth building. This summer, the company began teaming up with the African-American Credit Union Coalition on a push to bring in under-45 would-be banking customers.   Jeff Grass Hungry Marketplace Chairman and CEO A serial entrepreneur, Grass founded Hungry in 2017 to meet the evolving needs of people ordering food. A current focus: in-office meals for those sporadically in-office—including equipping team leaders to pick up the tab for employee-selected eats, no matter if they’re hungry for salad or shawarma.   Alix Guerrier DonorsChoose CEO Led by Guerrier, a former schoolteacher, DonorsChoose exists to fill a gap in American education, between teachers hungry for resources and contributors eager to make it easier to be a teacher. The requests are small—$404, say, for space-themed books at Brookland’s Noyes Elementary—but the platform has helped move more than $1.6 billion into schools.   Michael Huppe SoundExchange President and CEO Huppe has put in 18 years at SoundExchange, the last 14 as president and CEO, where he’s helped to put the DC digital-music-rights nonprofit at the center of debates over who profits from music—and collecting more than $11 billion dollars in royalties for creators.   Tim Hwang FiscalNote Chairman, CEO, and Cofounder Founded in 2013, Hwang’s digital-intelligence company has grown to include offices from Belgium to Australia but keeps its SubHead1quarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. The operation now includes properties ranging from CQ Roll Call to the British risk-analysis firm Oxford Analytica.   E. Wayne Jackson III Sonatype CEO Jackson leads the private software supply-chain management platform Sonatype, which since its founding in 2008 has made its name helping customers make sure the open-source tools they use are safe. The pitch? As the Fulton, Maryland, company’s website puts it: “Stop vulnerabilities from stopping you.”   Reid Jackson Unison CEO and President Jackson, a former Booz Allen Hamilton exec, steers the McLean company—whose tagline is “We power the business of government”—as it works with just about every acronym in the federal apparatus (EPA, GSA, NSF) to buy goods and services while coloring inside the lines of the country’s procurement codes.   Cary Lawrence Decile CEO This customer-analytics firm works with brands such as Ursa Major, Rifle Paper Co., and Wildfang to leverage the heaps of data produced by online commerce to better understand—and market to—consumers. This year, Decile sharpened its integration with a key trendsetting channel: TikTok.   TJ Leonard Storyblocks CEO Storyblocks is a prime player in the digital-content space, matching off-the-shelf video with creators who use it to boost their output. Founded in 2009, the Arlington company is working to stay atop how generative AI is changing the content landscape while, per its website, holding to the idea that “stock footage won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.”   Charles Miller and Daniel P. Dooley III Lynk Cofounder and Chairman of the Board (Miller) and CEO (Dooley) Lynk connects satellites to cell phones, and it’s a service that customers such as the departments of Defense and Homeland Security have signed up to use. Another big-name connection: baseball’s Alex Rodriguez, whose special-purpose acquisition company, Slam Corp., signed an agreement in February to take the Falls Church company public.   Haroon Mokhtarzada Rocket Money CEO, Cofounder, and Chairman Mokhtarzada founded Rocket Companies as TrueBill in 2015 and stayed atop the firm after Rocket Mortgage acquired it in 2021 in a $1.2 billion deal. He’s helped expand the service beyond its roots in stopping unwanted subscriptions—putting it in position this year to grab customers after the shutdown of personal-finance competitor Mint.   Obi Omile Jr. theCut Cofounder and CEO Omile’s platform got its start connecting barbers and would-be clients, and this year it added tools to help cutters manage their shops. The app, reports Arlington’s Omile, has facilitated $2 billion worth of haircuts without a sales team—the barbers, he says, serve as the tool’s “evangelists.”   Ellen Patterson Everfi from Blackbaud President and General Manager Patterson helps lead Everfi, now owned by Blackbaud, which continues to carve out a niche in the financial-education space. Everfi marked the year with a Super Bowl spot; the company’s own ads promoted its “Character Playbook” anti-bullying program.   Vijay Ravindran Floreo Founder and CEO Ravindran—a Washington Post alum—SubHead1s up Floreo, a suite of virtual-reality tools aimed at strengthening the offline skill sets of neurodiverse kids. Launched in 2016, the Chevy Chase firm gained traction this year in its push to establish VR as a broadly available therapy for autism. In the fall, its platform won FDA designation as a “breakthrough device,” easing its path to market.   Abir Ray Expression CEO and CTO For the past 27 years, Expression has worked with federal agencies to help them make the most of the electromagnetic spectrum. One focus of late: working with the Defense Department to sharpen battlefield radio-wave awareness and achieve what the US military calls “spectrum superiority.”   Rick Rudman Curbio CEO Curbio has raised $126 million to meet its mission of helping home sellers fix up their places before sale so they can get a better price. Despite a tough real-estate market—and a lawsuit from the DC attorney general that Curbio calls “without merit”—the Potomac company reports it’s doing well, with revenues last year up 45 percent.   Thomas Sanchez Social Driver CEO Sanchez, onetime chair of the DC government’s Innovation and Technology Inclusion Council, started his digital marketing and communications agency back in 2011 and this summer took on a new role as board chair of the national LGBTQ+ group the Trevor Project.   John Serafini HawkEye 360 CEO Serafini, a former US Army officer, helped this Herndon company raise another $58 million as it goes about what its website calls “transforming the invisible,” or analyzing the planet’s radio-frequencies using satellites. One key area of growth: using machine learning and AI to help streamline the process.   Doug Smith Ligado Networks President and CEO Ligado has for years been at the center of sometimes fierce debates over the wisdom of tapping satellites to communicate, which the Defense Department warns could interfere with the military’s use of radio spectrum. The company led by Smith—a Sprint and Nextel vet—is suing federal agencies for what it says, in a press release, is a “multiyear misinformation campaign” exaggerating the risks, but the Reston firm rolls on.   Jen Sovada SandboxAQ President, Global Public Sector Sovada, a retired Air Force officer, helps lead SandboxAQ as it capitalizes on advances in both AI and quantum computing. A current area of focus for the firm—which spun off from Google’s parent, Alphabet, in 2022—is its AQNav product, tools that allow for navigation even when GPS isn’t available.   Eric Stradley Caribou President Stradley, a veteran of Uber, helps lead Caribou as it aims to let users compare car-loan refinancing offers with the ease of an online shopping experience. Launched in 2016, the DC firm is backed by the likes of QED and Goldman Sachs.   Steve Trundle Alarm.com CEO Trundle, once the CTO at Micro-strategy, has led Alarm.com for nearly 22 years as it has used the latest tech to keep homes and other buildings safe. For example, the Tysons firm is currently offering AI-powered filters that monitor video feeds to spot threats.   Susan Tynan Framebridge Founder and CEO Tynan, formerly a managing director at the VC shop Revolution, started Framebridge more than a decade ago when she spotted an opening in what investors deemed a $5 billion custom-framing market. Blending an online/offline model, the Tysons company has two dozen stores—including eight on track for this area—and Tynan has built it into a relative juggernaut.   Trenor Williams Socially Determined Cofounder and CEO Williams, a physician by training, founded his analytics-focused company in 2017 with the notion that tapping data on social determinants—such as food insecurity—could lead to better health. This year, the Navy Yard firm teamed with Uber Health in a collaboration aimed at, among other things, figuring out which patients could use a lift.   Alex Wirth Quorum Cofounder and CEO Founded in 2014, Quorum provides clients with a software platform to manage public-affairs operations, including by offering data on legislative proposals in statehouses across the country. Users range from the US Air Force and SEC to Uber and the Sierra Club. Official DC Appointees, Electeds, and Government Officials Robin Carnahan Administrator General Services Administration Carnahan, once Missouri’s secretary of state, leads the federal agency charged with helping the executive branch run well. Under her leadership, that has come to include a major focus on what she calls “fixing the damn websites”—a prime way Americans interact with their government.   Rohit Chopra Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Chopra has pushed his financial-services oversight agency to stay ready to regulate as technology changes the way money works in the US. This year, CFPB has upped its scrutiny of financial products offered by the likes of Apple, Venmo, and CashApp—which has the tech industry pushing back.   Alan Davidson Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information/Administrator of National Telecommunications and Information Administration Davidson has had a busy third year running Commerce’s telecom agency. In addition to overseeing the high-stakes rollout of some $42 billion in broadband funding, he has kept the agency engaged in global debates over how the internet should be governed.   Jen Easterly Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director A former Morgan Stanley cybersecurity exec, Easterly SubHead1s the agency that coordinates the defense of the US’s digital infrastructure. That includes voting systems, but Easterly told a hackers conference this summer that “election infrastructure has never been more secure.”   Kelly Fletcher State Department Chief Information Officer Fletcher, who cut her teeth at the Defense Department, serves as State’s CIO, a high-impact portfolio that includes overseeing $2.5 billion of expenditures. One program, Tech for Life, now lets Foreign Service officers keep their devices as they travel from post to post.   Gary Gensler Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gensler has established himself as perhaps the chief skeptic in the country’s debates over cryptocurrencies: In a statement to Congress this spring, he bemoaned what he called “the crypto industry’s record of failures, frauds, and bankruptcies.” The SEC chair has lately been hauling companies like Coinbase into court.   General Timothy Haugh National Security Agency Commander, US Cyber Command, and Director, National Security Agency/Chief, Central Security Service This year, Haugh, an Air Force general, took over as SubHead1 of both the NSA and USCYBERCOM—the military command focused on cybersecurity. He explained his approach to Congress this spring, saying that advantage goes to those who “act on fleeting opportunities with speed, scale, agility, and precision.”   Victor Hoskins Fairfax County Economic Development Authority President and CEO Hoskins has spent the past five years trying to turn Fairfax County into one of the country’s tech hubs, and he can point to successes like Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin setting up an engineering center in Reston. This year, amid the AI rush, Hoskins has helped firms repurpose old office parks into high-tech data centers.   Mina Hsiang US Digital Service Administrator Hsiang SubHead1s the government digital-services shop—spawned from the collapse of the Obama-era rollout of HealthCare.gov—as it works to become a permanent part of the federal apparatus. Hsiang told FedScoop that 2024 was a “year of launching things” like the alert platform Notify.gov.   Eric Hysen Department of Homeland Security Chief Information Officer and Chief AI Officer Hysen, once a software engineer and program manager at Google who later helped found the US Digital Service, leads DHS’s IT work. Last fall, he was named the agency’s chief AI officer, too. According to a road map released in March, DHS seeks to tap the tech while “steadfastly protecting privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.”   Jonathan Kanter Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division As SubHead1 of DOJ’s antitrust division, Kanter has been pushing to, as he told the New York Times,ensure that the country’s antitrust laws “work for workers, work for consumers, work for entrepreneurs and work to protect our democratic values.” He scored a big victory on that front this year: His division sued Google as an illegal monopoly and won.   Elizabeth Kelly US Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Director Kelly, who has worked for both the White House National Economic Council and Capital One, is the first-ever director of the US Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute. Launched in 2023 and housed within the National Institute of Standards and Technology, it aims to use testing and other techniques to mitigate AI’s risks.   Lina Khan Federal Trade Commission Chair Khan has taken big swings this year on tech-industry topics, from litigating an antitrust case against Amazon to largely banning non-compete agreements. “To stay aSubHead1 globally, we don’t need to protect our monopolies from innovation,” said Khan at an event in March. “We need to protect innovation from monopolies.”   Karen Kornbluh White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Principal Deputy US Chief Technology Officer Kornbluh, the former policy director for then-senator Barack Obama, was recently tapped to join the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy—a key role, given the absence of a US CTO. She SubHead1s a team that, as the White House website puts it, “works to advance technology and data to benefit all Americans.”   Dave Luber National Security Agency Director, Cybersecurity This past spring, Luber stepped from the deputy role in the NSA’s cybersecurity wing into its top spot, taking on a portfolio aimed at, per the NSA website, “prevent[ing] and eradicat[ing] threats to U.S. national security systems.” In recent years, that has come to include warning of what the agency sees as the security threats posed by TikTok.   Clare Martorana White House Federal Chief Information Officer, Office of Management and Budget Martorana is charged with helping make sure the federal government spends its IT budget—by some counts, $75 billion—well and wisely, and this year that has had much to do with artificial intelligence. Martorana told a trade publication in March that the field’s quick pace is requiring federal actors to be “much more nimble.”   Erin Horne McKinney DC Innovation & Technology Inclusion Council Chair In May, McKinney took over the chairmanship of the group charged with advising DC’s mayor as she aims to build a vibrant and representative tech economy. McKinney also serves as national executive director of the Howard University and PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship.   Erie Meyer Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Chief Technologist and Senior Adviser to the Director Meyer has built a career help­ing grow the government’s technological expertise, most recently at the CFPB as it tackles everything from fintech to loan-decision algorithms. She’s look­ing beyond her own agency, too: In May she spearSubHead1ed the launch of “pooled hiring” to help place CFPB-vetted technologists in other agencies.   Rick Muller Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity Director Muller, who once SubHead1ed the Department of Energy’s Quantum Systems Accelerator, took over the intelligence community’s research-and-development shop in April. In announcing the pick, director of national intelligence Avril Haines said Muller’s “impressive credentials are rooted in science, academia, and leadership.”   Anne Neuberger White House Deputy National Security Adviser, Cyber and Emerging Technology Neuberger, a longtime NSA official, runs point on cyber­security in the Biden White House. After an outage involving the company Crowdstrike brought the country to a near halt this summer, Neuberger told Aspen Security Forum attendees that it highlighted the need for more “resilience.”   Stephanie Nguyen Federal Trade Commission Chief Technology Officer Nguyen, a onetime research scientist at MIT, leads an office that, Chair Lina Khan said upon its creation, exists to ensure “we have the in-house skills needed to fully grasp evolving technologies and market trends.”   Arati Prabhakar White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Prabhakar, an applied physicist and an engineer, leads the office tasked with navigating everything from cancer research to climate tech. This year, she emerged as an optimistic voice in the debates over artificial intelligence. As she said at a White House conference in June, “AI can help us achieve our country’s great ambitions.”   Gina Raimondo Department of Commerce Secretary Other Biden officials might get more SubHead1lines on tech, but Raimondo has quietly become a major force—including by leading the rollout of funds for tech hubs throughout the US.   Buddy Rizer Loudoun County Department of Economic Development Executive Director Rizer has long pushed to make his Virginia county one of the world’s hot spots for data-center technology. But with the benefits come challenges: He has also tackled the huge power demands of AI amid residents’ complaints about noise, electricity rates, and more.   Jessica Rosenworcel Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Rosenworcel SubHead1s the agency charged with tackling communications policy, and in her third year she’s taken on some of the field’s biggest topics—reviving, for example, the longstanding debate over net neutrality. She’s also established her shop as a go-to regulator on space, from orbital debris to internet satellites.   Catherine Szpindor US House of Representatives Chief Administrative Officer Szpindor works to modernize the House, no easy feat in a 235-year-old institution. Sometimes that means letting those who work there know what not to do—this year, her office directed staffers to stay away from tools like Microsoft’s Co-Pilot because of security worries.   Elham Tabassi National Institute of Standards and Technology Chief AI Adviser Tabassi is a key voice in federal policymaking around artificial intelligence, working to, as she puts it via email, “harness the benefit of AI for all.” This year, she made it official, shifting from a role as chief of staff in NIST’s IT lab to its official chief AI adviser, where she promotes frameworks for how the technology should be governed.   Stefanie Tompkins Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Director Tompkins, a former geologist, leads the federal defense R&D shop as it pushes to up the country’s tech capabilities on everything from microelectronics to AI. It’s particularly high-stakes: “If we make a bad recommendation on a battlefield,” Tompkins warned at a Washington Post event in March, “the consequences are tragic.”   Merici Vinton Internal Revenue Service Senior Adviser for Digital Delivery Vinton, a veteran of the government tech space—she helped stand up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010—joined the IRS last year to help it let taxpayers do their annual paperwork online without a third party and for free. Direct File was a success and is now slated to become a permanent IRS offering.   Charles Worthington Department of Veterans Affairs Chief Technology Officer Worthington has rather improbably made the VA, once considered backward technologically, into a success story in government IT. He SubHead1s efforts to use the most effective and accessible tech to provide services to 19 million military veterans. Money Folks VC’S, Investors, and Bankers The investment firm Devin Talbott founded, Enlightenment Capital, focuses on aerospace, defense, and government technology. Jenny Abramson Rethink Impact Founder and Managing Partner Abramson has seen her fund grow into the country’s biggest to back female and nonbinary C-suite leaders exclusively. That includes those behind Bold, a “healthy aging” app, and the special-education support platform Parallel Learning.   Mike Avon, Jennifer Krusius, and Bion Ludwig ABS Capital Managing Partner (Avon) and Partners (Krusius and Ludwig) This firm keeps up its dealmaking: It scored a major win late last year with the sale of GuidePoint Security to a private-equity firm. It has added to its book of business, too, as with Cariloop, a caregiver platform for which ABS led a $20 million funding round.   John Backus, Thanasis Delistathis, John Burke, Bryan Ciambella, and Jennifer Schretter PROOF Cofounders and Managing Partners (Backus and Delistathis), Cofounder and Venture Partner (Burke), and General Partners (Ciambella and Schretter) Reston’s PROOF—short for pro-rata opportunity fund—is up to something that sets it apart: It gives other VCs funds to go deeper on investments that have proven successful. That has included MasterClass as well as the online mattress purveyor Casper.   Dan Barker Halcyon President and CEO In January, Barker—a veteran of Mastercard and BlackRock—took the helm at ten-year-old Halcyon. The early-stage incubator supports what it calls “impact-driven businesses”—or those focused on social change—in hopes of developing a more equitable economic landscape.   Omi Bell Black Girl Ventures Founder and CEO This firm’s goal is impacting 100,000 underrepresented founders by 2030, and it got a big boost in March with a $2 million grant from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.   Joe Benevento, Tom Weisman, and Jennifer O’Daniel Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation President and CEO (Benevento), Chief Investment Officer (Weisman), and Senior Investment Director (O’Daniel) The trio helps lead a state-backed accelerator that exists to beef up an already robust tech sector. This year, that has come to include—via Virginia Venture Partners, one of VIPC’s programs—an investment in Bricklayer AI, a McLean company that pairs human security analysts with AI-powered specialists.   Jason Booma, Evan DeCorte, Jim Fleming, Patrick Hendy, Monish Kundra, and John Siegel Columbia Capital Partners Cofounded in 1989 by now-senator Mark Warner, at the time a mobile entrepreneur, Alexandria’s Columbia Capital is a well-known investor in communications, media, and enterprise tech. Of late, that has included two new funds totaling nearly $1 billion.   Melissa Bradley 1863 Ventures Founder and Managing Partner Bradley’s firm—named for the year of the Emancipation Proclamation—focuses on what it calls the “new majority” of Black and Brown entrepreneurs, helping them get needed access to capital.   Phil Bronner and Phil Herget Ardent Venture Partners Cofounders and General Partners The two Phils’ firm has specialized in fintech since its founding in 2020 but has come to expand its aperture to include “AI-native” applications, or tools that tap that technology to handle user interactions.   Steve Case, Ted Leonsis, Tige Savage, Kristin Gunther, and David Hall Revolution Chairman and CEO (Case), Cofounder and Partner, Revolution Growth (Leonsis), Managing Partner, Revolution Ventures (Savage), Partner, Revolution Growth (Gunther), and Managing Partner, Rise of the Rest Seed Fund (Hall) One of the area’s highest-profile VC firms, Revolution had a big IPO this year—the Chicago precision-medicine company Tempus, valued at $7.37 billion—as it continues its decade-old “Rise of the Rest” push to help cultivate tech ecosystems between the country’s two coasts.   Michael Clarke, Scott Frederick, Michael Graninger, and Barron Martin Jr. Sands Capital Managing Partners The Arlington firm is all about making big investments in companies with huge growth potential and patiently holding on, often for years. In May, it closed a $555 million fund focused on life science.   McKeever (Mac) Conwell RareBreed Ventures Founder and Managing Partner Conwell’s calling card is helping expand the entrepreneurial landscape to include tech founders who might not otherwise have exposure to the investment-backed startup world. Among its recent investees is Chicago’s EarlyBird, aimed at collective savings for kids just starting out.   Lawson DeVries, Steve Fredrick, and Julia Taxin Grotech Ventures Managing General Partner (DeVries) and General Partners (Taxin and Fredrick) The three SubHead1 up Grotech as the Owings Mills firm bets big on companies working in AI, enterprise cloud, and beyond. Late last year, the growth-minded Grotech co-led a $9.1 million funding round for the threat-data platform Base Operations.   Mark Frantz and Kevin Robbins Blue Delta Capital Partners Cofounders and General Partners Blue Delta exists to grow companies that equip the government with better technologies. Last fall, one of its portfolio companies, Arlington’s Definitive Logic, was purchased by the Carlyle Group’s ManTech.   Brett Gibson NextGen Venture Partners Cofounder and Managing Partner Gibson helps lead NextGen, an invitation-only investment club for what it describes as “part-time venture capitalists.” The network, which claims more than 1,800 members, has put funds into companies such as the online certification firm Aceable and the online prescription service Walrus.   Dahna Goldstein and Kate Goodall Halcyon Venture Partners Managing Partners Goodall and Goldstein, both longtime investors, launched this new firm focused on help-ing startups tackling climate, health, and equity (think inclusive fintech). With $15 million under their control, in May they bet on TadHealth, a platform for streamlining mental-health services in schools.   David Grain and Ted Manvitz Grain Management CEO and Founder (Grain) and Managing Director (Manvitz) Grain and Manvitz both have deep experience in their firm’s area of expertise: telecom. It’s a background they’ve used in portfolio-building—the company, for example, announced in February it had completed the acquisition of Quintillion, a fiber company providing connectivity in Alaska and the Arctic.   Dayna Grayson and Rachel Holt Construct Capital Cofounders and General Partners Since Construct’s 2020 founding, Grayson and Holt have carved a niche investing in companies out to reinvigorate what they call “foundational industries.” One example in their now $450 million portfolio: the New York autonomous supply-chain company Didero.   Carter Griffin and Jon Seeber Updata Partners General Partners Updata Partners operates below the radar, but the firm is a quiet powerhouse in the business-to-business software world. This year, for instance, saw it pour $95 million into Arlington’s PerformYard, an online performance-management platform.   Ron Gula and Cyndi Gula Gula Tech Adventures President (Ron) and Managing Partner (Cyndi) The Gulas, who made their names at cybersecurity behemoth Tenable, have—as self-funded investors (to the tune of more than $100 million)—added to their repertoire a sharp focus on educating others in the field. Ron stars in a YouTube series sharing an insider’s take on cyber and the startup life.   Matthew Hanson Pax Momentum Cofounder and Managing Director Hanson’s expertise is in scaling up sales, and his Pax Momentum has set itself apart by focusing on equipping founders with not just cash but also, as he puts it, real-world training “designed to turn tech founders into sales leaders.” Says Hanson: “VCs throw money; PAX builds winners.”   Jim Hunt, Daniel Hanks, and Steve Smoot Lavrock Ventures General Partner (Hunt) and Managing Partners (Hanks and Smoot) Hunt started his national-security-focused firm in 2015 and has turned it into a powerhouse. This year, for example, a weapons company for which it co-ran a $14.2 million funding round, Castelion, completed the first test of its hypersonic missile. Hanks and Smoot recently stepped into leadership roles to help steer Lavrock.   Jack Kerrigan, Richard Moxley, Steve Pann, Mark Spoto, and Peggy Styer Razor’s Edge Ventures Cofounders and Managing Partners This Reston firm keeps its focus on upping the technological capacity of the federal government and has backed companies such as Baltimore’s autonomous-naval-vehicle shop BlackSea. Spoto says its portfolio companies are “making a big difference in the conflict regions around the world.”   Troy A. LeMaile-Stovall, Jack Miner, and Terry Rauh TEDCO CEO (LeMaile-Stovall), Chief Investment Officer (Miner), and Chief Finance and Operations Officer (Rauh) Maryland’s legislature created the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, a.k.a. TEDCO, in 1998 to increase the state’s tech sector, and a prime focus these days is making sure it’s reflective of all Marylanders. In the past three years, more than half of its hundred-odd investments have gone to firms led by people of color or women.   Mike Lincoln Cooley Vice Chair Lincoln cofounded his Palo Alto law firm’s DC office 25 years ago and has helped expand it to more than 500 people. He limits his counsel to East Coast tech companies looking to disrupt markets and grow big—including since-IPO’d Alarm.com, Tenable, and Xometry.   Nigel Morris, Frank Rotman, Laura Bock, Matt Risley, and Fernando Gonzalez QED Investors Cofounder and Managing Partner (Morris), Cofounder, Partner, and Chief Investment Officer (Rotman), Partners (Bock and Risley), and Partner and CEO in Residence (Gonzalez) QED started as a small family office. Seventeen years later, the Alexandria company has team members from California to Singapore and more than $4 billion of assets under management, heavily concentrated in the fintech space that Morris and Rotman conquered while scaling up Capital One.   Jim Pastoriza TDF Ventures Managing Partner Pastoriza, an AT&T vet, came to TDF two decades ago and helped turn it into a prominent backer of businesses focused on serving other businesses. TDF pitches itself as “empowering entrepreneurs to create what didn’t exist before,” such as those behind a recent investee, the autonomous-mobility company Beep.   Nasir Qadree Zeal Capital Partners Founder and Managing Partner Qadree launched Zeal in 2020 to find and foster underrepresented entrepreneurs, and it has built a portfolio of more than two dozen companies that includes fellow Tech Titan Fonta Gilliam’s Wellthi. This year, Zeal is focused on growing in the healthcare space—such as firms focused on tackling disparities.   Michael Steed, Mark Maloney, and Edward Albrigo Paladin Capital Group Founder and Managing Partner (Steed), Cofounder, Managing Director, and Chief Compliance Officer (Maloney), and COO (Albrigo) Paladin’s bailiwick is digital security, and that has come to include a focus on AI. The firm has spelled out its investment principles in that space: “Investors must consider . . . the investment’s impact on free and open societies and should seek to uphold the democratic values and principles that undergird them.”   Sean Stone Silicon Valley Bank SubHead1 of Investor Coverage and Business Development Stone stuck around at Silicon Valley Bank after its 2023 post-bankruptcy acquisition by First Citizens, and he now helps as it rebuilds its reputation and customer base, meeting often with investors. “We are still the leader in providing debt to the innovation economy,” Stone says.   Devin Talbott Enlightenment Capital Founder and Managing Partner Talbott’s defense-and-government­tech-focused investment firm had a busy year with big impact in the region: Of 13 new deals, 11 took place in the Washington area. It’s on track to keep growing, raising its fifth fund, on pace for $600 million.   Don Vieira Sequoia Capital Partner and Global SubHead1 of Public Policy Vieira helps firms that Sequoia invests in tackle any public-policy implications of their business, in everything from anti­trust to immigration. This year, he also had a new challenge: managing a high-profile House select committee’s investigation into Sequoia’s investments in China.   Rachel Moore Weller Investor Weller, a self-funded investor, has targeted companies working to make the most of machine learning and AI, cutting checks to early-stage companies in the $100,000-to-million-dollar range. Recent deals have focused on blockchain and its applications in fintech.   Tien Wong Opus8/The Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Forum Chairman and CEO/Founder and Host Wong is a longtime force in the local tech-convening space, with his CONNECT­preneur serving as a gathering point for inventors and investors. In the past year alone, claims Wong, the operation has helped about a hundred startups get the funding needed to survive.   Policy People Advocates, Lobbyists, and Nonprofit Leaders The head of HP’s public-policy operation, Brittany Masalosalo previously served as a national-security adviser at the White House and is a US Army veteran. Dmitri Alperovitch and Maureen Hinman Silverado Policy Accelerator Cofounders and Chairmen Alperovitch cofounded CrowdStrike, and Hinman is an environmental-policy expert with experience in the US Trade Representative’s shop. Together, their think tank uplifts new thinking on high-stakes topics such as cybersecurity. This year, the group hosted its second annual summit, “World on the Brink.”   Doug Anderson, Rachel Koretsky, and Kevin Morgan DCA Live, DC Startup Week, and DC Tech and Venture Coalition Founder and President, DCA Live (Anderson), Co-Chair and Director, DC Startup Week (Koretsky), and Founder and Executive Director, DC Tech and Venture Coalition (Morgan) Koretsky, Anderson, and Morgan are focused on growing the human-to-human side of the DC tech scene, partly through in-person events. Koretsky says DC Startup Week is on track to bring in more than 7,000 attendees this fall.   Meredith Attwell Baker CTIA President and CEO Baker oversees the high-profile wireless-communication trade group at a time of enormous growth in the space, with nearly 40 percent more traffic last year on cell networks. A core focus is trying to resolve a yearlong national-security dispute in Congress that has seen the FCC precluded from offering new spectrum.   Michael Beckerman TikTok Vice President and SubHead1 of Public Policy, Americas Beckerman, a longtime Hill aide, is charged with leading TikTok through the debates over whether its ties to China make it too dangerous to operate in the US. In May, the social network sued the US government over a possible ban of the app.   Karan Bhatia, Mark Isakowitz, and Joshua Marcuse Google Vice President, Government Affairs and Public Policy (Bhatia), Vice President, Government Affairs and Public Policy, US and Canada (Isakowitz), and Director of Strategic Initiatives for Google Public Sector (Marcuse) The trio are on the front lines of Google’s government operations, and they’ve had much on their plate. This summer, the Justice Department’s case arguing that the firm built an illegal digital-ad monopoly concluded against it. The company has also been working to establish its Gemini AI tools, the kind of digital transformation Marcuse pushes governments to adopt.   Jerry Brito, Kristin Smith, and Kara Calvert Coin Center, Blockchain Association, and Coinbase Executive Director, Coin Center (Brito), CEO, Blockchain Association (Smith), and SubHead1 of US Policy, Coinbase (Calvert) As crypto policy takes center stage—with the Biden administration’s skeptical handling of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies becoming a rallying point for crypto fans in the 2024 election—Brito, Smith, and Calvert are working to convince the political class that, as the Blockchain Association puts it in its marketing, cryptocurrencies are “here for good.”   Jay Carney Airbnb Global SubHead1 of Policy and Communications Carney—a reporter turned political press secretary turned Amazon exec—steers policy and communications operations at Airbnb, which has expanded beyond home-renting. One example: its Icon program, which Carney has helped launch, whereby customers can book a night in the Musée d’Orsay and other experiences.   Melika Carroll Cohere SubHead1 of Global Government Affairs and Public Policy As Cohere—SubHead1quartered in San Francisco and Toronto—makes a bid to grab chatbot market share from the likes of Open­AI and Anthropic, it has brought on Carroll—an alum of the US Senate and the now-defunct DC trade group the Internet Association—to build its relationships with policymakers.   Cameron Chehreh Intel Vice President and General Manager, Public Sector Chehreh, a veteran of Dell’s public-sector shop, leads the chip maker’s work with local, state, and federal governments in an era of serious semiconductor shortages. Among his projects: working with the Defense Department, according to Washington Exec, on its “Cloud One” cloud-computing initiative.   Victoria Espinel BSA, The Software Alliance CEO Espinel spent years preparing for her enterprise-software trade association to eventually play big in the then-emerging debate over governing AI, and it’s worked. Asked twice to testify before Congress last fall, she told senators and representatives that the time to act is now: “The window to lead conversations about AI regulation is rapidly closing.”   Hugh Gamble Salesforce Vice President, Federal Government Affairs and Public Policy Gamble, a Senate veteran, has been a force in convincing policy­makers—amid the excitement of consumer-facing tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude—not to forget about how any new rules for AI will impact business-to-business tools such as its hugely popular Salesforce platform.   Alexandra Reeve Givens Center for Democracy and Technology President and CEO Givens, a onetime Senate staffer, took over CDT in 2020 and has amplified the tech advocacy group’s voice in tech policy discussions in DC, Brussels, and beyond. Arguing for responsible AI development, Givens serves on DHS’s high-profile AI safety-and-security advisory board.   Fred Humphries Microsoft Corporate Vice President, US Government Affairs Humphries has long been the policy chief for Microsoft—his team’s work, he says, “bridges the two Washingtons,” as in DC and Redmond. This year, that’s meant helping two camps understand each other’s thinking on emerging tech, with Humphries advancing the company’s push for what it calls responsible AI.   Brian Huseman and Steve Hartell Amazon Vice President, Public Policy (Huseman), and Vice President, US Public Policy (Hartell) The pair help represent Amazon’s policy interests in DC, which have become even more sweeping as the company ups its ambitions—such as Project Kuiper, its $10 billion bid to use satellites for internet connectivity. Says Huseman: “It’s rewarding to work on a service that will have a major impact on people around the world.”   Joel Kaplan, Kevin Martin, and Brian Rice Meta Vice President, Global Public Policy (Kaplan), SubHead1 of US Public Policy (Martin), and Vice President, Public Policy (Rice) The trio have for years led Meta’s policy operations, and a measure of their success is that in 2024 the Facebook parent company has become slightly less of a target for policymakers’ ire—despite fraught decisions on everything from its handling of campaign ads to whether to allow former President Donald Trump to post.   Adam Kovacevich Chamber of Progress Founder and CEO Launching the Chamber of Progress in 2021, Kovacevich—a veteran of both Google and the Senate—opted for something unusual for an industry group: picking a partisan lane. His nonprofit has gotten traction working just with Democrats to make the industry’s case in tech policy, including debates over antitrust and privacy.   Travis LeBlanc Cooley Partner LeBlanc, once a senior aide to then–California attorney general Kamala Harris, has hung his hat at the law firm Cooley, where, among other things, he has challenged the constitutionality of banning TikTok. He still keeps a public-service role, too: He’s a Senate-confirmed member of the US Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.   Luther Lowe Y Combinator SubHead1 of Public Policy Lowe spent nearly 16 years at Yelp making the case that for small tech companies to thrive, the government needs to hold Big Tech in check. In 2023, he joined the tech incubator Y Combinator to push the same agenda. This summer, a federal judge found his chief target, Google, to be an illegal monopoly.   Brittany Masalosalo HP Chief Public Policy Officer Masalosalo, who SubHead1s the computing giant’s public-policy operation, brings experience picked up at stops across Washington, including the White House’s vice-presidential office—where she served as a national-security and foreign-policy staffer to both Joe Biden and Mike Pence.   Travis Moore TechCongress Founder and Executive Director Moore, a former Hill staffer, founded TechCongress in 2015 to boost Congress’s technological capacity by pairing people who have tech chops with offices on Capitol Hill. With all of Washington focused on AI of late, TechCongress met the moment—placing 29 fellows between the House and Senate in the past 12 months.   Chandler Morse Workday Vice President of Public Policy At this cloud-based human-resources operation, Morse, a longtime Senate aide, has led the charge this year to get its views on how AI should work reflected in bills in states across the country.   Richard Nash PayPal Vice President and SubHead1 of Global Government Relations Nash helps make the fintech platform’s policy case around the world, including advocating this year for its dollar-pegged stablecoin PayPal USD in a Washington that still isn’t sure what to make of cryptocurrencies.   Alondra Nelson Center for American Progress Distinguished Senior Fellow While at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy—which she ran—Nelson helped set the agenda for Washington’s approach to artificial intelligence. This year, the sociologist has continued to drive the country’s thinking on the topic, including as a Biden appointee to the UN’s high-level advisory body on AI.   Jennifer Pahlka Recoding America Author The once California-based Pahlka has returned to the city where she previously served as deputy US chief technology officer, and she has become a key voice in the push to increase the country’s state capacity—or ability to solve big problems. Her book, Recoding America, has become a go-to text for those looking to pull off successful tech projects.   Chan Park OpenAI SubHead1 of US and Canada Policy and Partnerships Few companies were the subject of as much debate this year as OpenAI. Late last year, Park—a former Microsoft lobbyist—came aboard to SubHead1 its policy operations in the US and Canada. The move seems to be working: OpenAI, despite its hard-charging nature, stays (mostly) on Washington’s good side.   Leah Perry Box Vice President of Legal, Chief Privacy Officer, and Global SubHead1 of Public Policy Perry, a longtime House staffer, now SubHead1s the policy operations of Box. Her slate of issues includes privacy, a hot topic for the cloud-storage company entrusted with huge caches of customer data.   Tim Powderly Apple Senior Director, Government Affairs for the Americas Once a Hill staffer, the below-the-radar Powderly has put in more than 13 years at Apple, helping the $3.39 trillion tech company fight its policy battles. That has come to include, per lobbying disclosures, everything from online privacy to “educating policymakers about Apple’s employee base in their states.”   Eric Schmidt Innovation Endeavors Founding Partner Schmidt stepped down as Google CEO in 2011 (and as the company’s chairman four years later) but remains a dominant voice in the capital’s conversations over defense tech in particular. Forbes reported this summer that Schmidt is at work on an AI-powered military drone startup called White Stork.   Gary Shapiro, Kinsey Fabrizio, and Tiffany Moore Consumer Technology Association CEO (Shapiro), President (Fabrizio), and Senior Vice President, Political and Industry Affairs (Moore) Even after a century—it began as the Radio Manufacturers Association—the CTA remains a force, in no small part thanks to the energies of Shapiro, Fabrizio, and Moore. The organization has spent much time this year doing what Shapiro in an email calls “fighting to make sure Congress does not hurt U.S. innovation.”   Jennifer Park Stout Snap Vice President, Global Public Policy Stout, once a high-level State Department staffer, now represents the policy interests of the Snapchat maker. It’s a job that included prepping its CEO, Evan Spiegel, for testimony at a January Senate hearing on child exploitation, when he expressed sorrow that a service designed to bring joy “has been abused to cause harm.”   Kara Swisher Vox Media New York Magazine Editor-at-Large and Podcast Host Swisher is part of Vox’s powerful podcast network. On With Kara Swisher features interviews with key figures in tech, politics, media, and more, including OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.   Carl Szabo NetChoice Vice President and General Counsel Szabo has made a name in tech advocacy by speaking plainly when others try not to offend. “The lawsuits are coming,” said Szabo, according to Bloomberg Law, when his group sued Florida and Texas over the handling of social media. In July, the Supreme Court ruled in NetChoice’s favor.   Jennifer Taylor Northern Virginia Technology Council President and CEO This trade group’s mission is to unite and advance the Northern Virginia tech world and to advocate for the policy stances of its hundreds of members. In February, NVTC joined other groups calling on state lawmakers to reject what critics call a “tech tax” on business-to-business transactions, including cloud storage.   Nate Tibbits Qualcomm Senior Vice President, Global Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility Tibbits, who worked at the White House’s National Security Council earlier in his career, has spent the past ten years handling the semiconductor company’s government affairs—including navigating devastating chip shortages.   Kate Tummarello Engine Executive Director Tummarello, a onetime Politico reporter, leads this advocacy group as it represents the political interests of startups. This spring, she delivered showstopping congressional testimony defending website owners’ limited legal liability, saying she was helped through the tragic end of a pregnancy thanks to groups found on an open internet.   Miriam Vogel EqualAI President and CEO Vogel, a former associate deputy US attorney general, SubHead1s EqualAI as it aims to ensure that artificial intelligence does not, as the nonprofit’s website puts it, “perpetuate and mass produce historical and new forms of bias and discrimination.” Vogel, who chairs the National AI Advisory Committee, has emerged as a go-to resource for Congress.   Big Business Movers and Shakers Thomas Bell Leidos CEO Bell leads Reston’s massive 48,000-employee Leidos, a powerhouse in the government IT-and-defense-contractor space. The firm’s many clients include the Marines, and Bell said at a company conference this summer that he sees part of his job as “help[ing] our nation be the smartest government on the face of the earth.”   Amy Gilliland General Dynamics Information Technology President Gilliland, a Naval Academy grad, leads Falls Church’s GDIT as it continues to rack up big con- ­tracts, such as a $4.5 billion Air Force bid it won last fall. One current area of focus: quantum computing, which, says Gilliand, “means greater capacity to solve complex problems exponentially faster.”   David Levy and Clint Crosier Amazon Web Services Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector (Levy), and Director, Aerospace and Satellite Solutions (Crosier) Levy, an Apple vet, and Crosier, a retired major general, handle some of AWS’s most challenging projects. Last year, Levy took the reins of its government-serving wing. Crosier leads the division tasked with helping clients use cloud services in space missions.   Phebe N. Novakovic General Dynamics Chairman and CEO The massive Reston contractor, with 100,000-plus employees, serves the country’s biggest defense-industry clients. One obstacle of late had been the global chip shortage, but as Novakovic, a former CIA officer, put it at an investor conference in February, “that is behind us now.”   Michael J. Saylor MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Saylor has battled with DC over whether, for tax purposes, he lives in the District or Florida—a $40 million lawsuit settled in the city’s favor this summer—but either way, he’s still a brash pro-Bitcoin voice in a town wrestling with whether and how to regulate it. “Fix the Money,” Saylor posted on X this summer, “Fix the World.”   James Taiclet Lockheed Martin Chairman, President, and CEO Taiclet, a former Air Force pilot, SubHead1s the $135 billion company, the go-to contractor for the US government. Lately, the Bethesda company has been deep into the push for what the Defense Department calls “integrated deterrence,” or marshaling all available resources to convince adversaries not to bother.   Kathy Warden Northrop Grumman Chairman, President, and CEO Warden, a veteran of General Dynamics, leads the $76 billion contractor (with her $23 million–­plus salary making her one of the top five highest-paid female CEOs in the US) as it looks to get its share of the defense-and-aerospace contracting space. One big push this year: winning the chance to build a new line of Navy fighter jets.   Cyber World Inventors, Agitators, and Defenders Bryson Bort Scythe Founder and CEO Bort, a former Army officer, has built Scythe into a high-profile player in the DC cybersecurity landscape. This spring, the company held its seventh policy conference on critical infrastructure, an event called Hack the Capitol.   Thomas Bossert Trinity Cyber President Bossert, a onetime homeland security adviser to two Presidents, leads this Bowie firm as it sells what it calls its full content-inspection technology—decrypting and analyzing network traffic in context. The pitch: that it “tips the scales in favor of the defender,” and clients including the Air Force have signed up.   Ken Carnesi DNSFilter Cofounder and CEO Carnesi’s firm specializes in the often-ignored art of stopping problematic content at the domain-name-system layer. As Carnesi said in a column for Forbes this spring, “Most breaches and attacks use DNS because it’s used everywhere and for a long time, nobody was watching.” It’s a tool set that’s been adopted by clients like the fitness chain Equinox.   Michael Daniel Cyber Threat Alliance President and CEO A former National Security Council cybersecurity coordinator, Daniel today leads Arlington’s Cyber Threat Alliance and its members’ sharing of the digital threats they’re seeing. This year, that meant assessments around the Paris Olympics.   Robert Johnston Adlumin Cofounder and CEO Johnston, a former Marine Corps officer, leads this major cyber­security player. Since he founded it in 2016, it has grown to 200 employees and is valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But, says Johnston, he likes keeping his hands on the tech, too: “I’m still a cyber-analyst at heart.”   Lisa Kaplan Alethea Founder and CEO Kaplan, whose expertise is addressing political disinformation, now leads Alethea, an information-security company that closed a $20 million funding round this spring. Part of what it’s selling: Artemis, an AI-powered product that detects online risks, including less traditional ones such as coordinated brand boycotts.   Robert M. Lee Dragos CEO Lee SubHead1s the Hanover, Maryland, cybersecurity giant that’s made its name on—and raised about $440 million for—defending industrial systems. Its clients include nine of the ten biggest electric utilities in the US.   Dave Merkel Expel Cofounder and CEO Known as “Merk” in the biz, he has helped turn Expel into a unicorn—a startup valued at more than a billion dollars—in part through its focus on strong customer service. This year, Merkel says, that includes keeping tabs on AI “while also remembering to look in the rear-view” at long-term threats that haven’t faded.   Cass Panciocco Intellibridge President and CEO Panciocco, who got his start as an NSA analyst, leads this McLean firm as it works with law-enforcement and defense clients. This year, the company had a big win when it nailed down a five-year contract with the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division worth some $23 million.   Grant Schneider Venable Senior Director, Cybersecurity Services Schneider, a former US chief information-security officer, SubHead1s up his law firm’s efforts to equip clients to navigate online perils. One recent focus: grappling with how even a low-level threat can use AI to, as Schneider said at a Center for Strategic & International Studies event, turn itself into a “10x adversary.”   Amit Yoran Tenable Chairman and CEO Yoran—who once directed DHS’s cybersecurity division—has led Tenable since 2017, and it remains a giant, with a market cap of more than $4.7 billion. This year, the Columbia firm is embracing generative AI; its ExposureAI, according to the company’s website, aims to empower clients to stay “one step aSubHead1 of attackers.” This article appears in the October 2024 issue of Washingtonian. The post Meet DC’s 2024 Tech Titans first appeared on Washingtonian.