Lauren Knausenberger has spent her career tackling some of the hardest problems in national security.
Her path has included serving as Chief Information Officer for the Department of the Air Force, working as an innovation executive, building companies, investing, advising organizations, and—during the early days of her career—doing what she jokingly calls “spooky stuff.”
Now, she’s bringing that experience to Defense Unicorns as our Chief Business Officer.
In a recent conversation, Lauren shared what drew her to the defense technology industry, why she joined Defense Unicorns, and how she hopes to expand the company’s mission impact.
Watch the full interview to learn more about Lauren, her background and her work at Defense Unicorns.
A Career Built Around Hard Problems
Lauren’s career may be difficult to summarize at a dinner party, but there’s a clear thread running through it: a desire to solve complex problems in service of an important mission.
“I have always been attracted to really, really hard problems,” Lauren said. “I think there is nothing more virtuous than doing great things for our warfighters.”
The national security environment offers no shortage of difficult challenges. They extend far beyond technology and require organizations to navigate operational realities, acquisition processes, security requirements, and evolving mission needs.
That combination of complexity and purpose is what has kept Lauren engaged throughout her career.
Why Defense Unicorns?
Before becoming Defense Unicorns’ Chief Business Officer, Lauren worked with the company as an advisor. The more time she spent with the team, the more she found herself talking about its people, technology, and mission.
As she put it, Defense Unicorns became her “favorite child.”
Her decision to join the company came down to three things:
- Working alongside people she already knew, trusted, and enjoyed
- Helping deliver capabilities she wished she had while serving as Department of the Air Force CIO
- Enabling today’s mission operators with software delivered at the speed their missions demand
For Lauren, joining Defense Unicorns was an opportunity to move from advising the mission to helping lead it.
Driving Growth and Mission Impact
As Chief Business Officer, Lauren will help shape Defense Unicorns’ growth strategy while keeping mission outcomes at the center of that growth.
Her focus includes:
- Identifying new opportunities to support defense and national security missions
- Expanding the impact of Defense Unicorns’ technology across the Department of War
- Helping the company scale as it continues to grow and mature
- Bringing modern software and AI capabilities to more operational environments
- Extending mission impact across allied environments
The goal isn’t growth for growth’s sake. It’s expanding access to technology that helps mission operators deploy, update, manage, and sustain critical software wherever the mission takes them.
Making Software and AI Easier to Deploy
When asked what success would look like in the years ahead, Lauren pointed to a challenge she experienced firsthand in government: deploying software and AI across the wide range of systems supporting national security missions.
Defense Unicorns technology already supports software delivery across environments that include:
- Fighters and heavy aircraft
- Ships and submarines
- Army platforms and equipment
- Other complex and operationally constrained systems
Lauren sees an opportunity to build on that foundation and make it easier to deliver software across even more missions, platforms, and allied environments.
Success means giving operators better access to the capabilities they need while making it easier to operate, make decisions, and drive mission outcomes.
Less Problem Admiration. More Mission Impact.
Of course, no defense technology conversation would be complete without a little buzzword bingo.
The phrase Lauren would most like to retire?
“We’ve got to stop admiring the problem.”
It’s an ironic favorite, she explained, because it’s often preceded by a lengthy explanation of everything that’s wrong. After hearing the phrase for a decade, it may be time to move on.
Lauren’s focus at Defense Unicorns is firmly on what comes next: solving hard problems, scaling what works, and putting critical software and AI capabilities into the hands of the people who need them.
Learn more about UDS and the mission problems it helps solve here.
