UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
NICOLAS M CHAILLAN TITLE : CHIEF SOFTWARE OFFICER INDUSTRY : MILITARY LOCATION : WASHINGTON
Nic Chaillan started young . He created his first computer game aged 12 and made some money from it , enabling him to start his first company aged 16 . He would go on to found 12 companies over the next 20 years , selling 185 IP products to Fortune 500 companies . So what led him to the US Air Force , a far cry from the start-up culture he was used to ?
“ I wanted to make a difference ,” says Chaillan . Terrorism was stalking the world , and the attacks had felt close to home when the capital of Chaillan ’ s native France , Paris , was one of the victims . He joined the Department of Homeland Security in 2016 as Chief Architect . The move would lead him to senior postings in the Department of
Defense and , eventually , to his current role in the US Air Force where he is the first Chief Software Officer , not just in that branch of the military , but in government at large .
EXECUTIVE BIO all the bricks to interlock with each other . It ’ s an approach that has served software developers well , according to Colt Whittall , the US Air Force ’ s Chief Experience Officer ( another new role for the organization ). “ Design systems are the reason that when you ’ re interacting with Google or Microsoft or Shopify or Amazon , it all kind of looks the same even though you might be interacting with multiple different systems and sites on the back end . They ’ re applying a design system which has all the branding and style artefacts and standards and how those things interact and how things move etc . All of that is combined in the design system .” Whittall ’ s approach isn ’ t new , but its arrival in the big thinking of the US Air Force is . It allows partners and in-house to build software that fits together . Like Lego .
The many threads of change weaving through the US Air Force are combining into a single tapestry . And it ' s the consolidation of agile working ideas shipped in from the commercial sector and built to common standards that allows for a future where innovation speed is maximised without compromising security , and new ideas flourish in an environment designed to propagate them .
40 May 2021