In April, SAIC added Paul Eremenko and retired Navy Admiral Michael Rogers to its board of directors, expanding the board from 11 to 13 members and placing both new directors on the Audit and Technology Committees. Eremenko is CEO and co-founder of P-1 AI, a company building agentic AI for complex systems engineering. Before that, he was CTO of United Technologies, where he led a 30,000-person engineering function, and CTO of Airbus, where he founded the company's Silicon Valley innovation center.
Eremenko's background is the detail that stands out. He has personally built and shipped AI systems, bringing engineering experience that remains uncommon on aerospace and defense boards.
Key Takeaways
- AI-native directors have built, deployed, or scaled AI systems themselves, a different credential than sponsoring or overseeing AI initiatives from a governance seat.
- Boards now face governance questions on capital allocation, engineering risk, cyber resilience, and procurement strategy, the kind that benefit from a director who has personally delivered a complex AI system.
- AI-focused defense technology companies like Anduril and Helsing are drawing valuations that traditional primes are starting to notice, adding market pressure to the governance case.
- Board search for AI-native directors draws from a wider candidate pool than traditional defense networks, including candidates identified through technology and CTO Executive Search.
A broader shift across the sector
SAIC's move fits a pattern playing out across the aerospace and defense sector. AI is no longer confined to pilot programs and innovation labs. Deloitte's 2026 aerospace and defense outlook points to "speed to field" as the unifying metric across defense portfolios this year, with AI-enabled systems and collaborative combat aircraft accelerating from experimentation into fielded capability. BCG's research on AI-first aerospace and defense companies found that a small set of leaders are already scaling AI across engineering and manufacturing, while most competitors remain stuck in isolated pilots.
As AI moves into weapons systems, engineering, manufacturing, logistics, and cyber operations, boards are reconsidering what expertise needs to sit around the table. Reviewing a slide about AI strategy is a different exercise than evaluating whether an AI-enabled targeting system, a software-defined supply chain, or an autonomous logistics platform is sound, resourced correctly, and safe to field. That distinction is shaping a new kind of board executive search, one that builds AI-native criteria into the process from the outset.
AI-native directors versus AI-adapted directors
The same distinction that has reshaped C-suite hiring is now reaching the boardroom. In this context, AI-native refers to leaders who have built, deployed, or scaled AI systems as part of their operating responsibilities, distinct from overseeing AI primarily from a governance or strategy seat. An AI-native director has built or deployed AI systems, led engineering organizations responsible for production AI, or founded AI companies. Someone who has sponsored an AI initiative from a strategy seat or sat through quarterly briefings on it brings a different kind of value, useful, but not the same credential. That gap defines what artificial intelligence leadership looks like once it reaches the board level.
Eremenko is the clearer version of the first category. He built the engineering organizations that shipped AI, first at Airbus and United Technologies, then as founder of his own agentic AI company. That experience changes the questions a director asks and the assumptions they're willing to challenge on technical risk and engineering timelines.
Why boards need this expertise now
The case for AI-native directors rests on governance. A handful of questions now regularly reach the board level in aerospace and defense, and they require judgment that a purely financial or operational background does not supply on its own.
Capital allocation decisions on AI-enabled systems, autonomy programs, and software-defined platforms often lack an internal benchmark for good execution, which makes evaluating them harder than a standard investment case. A board weighing a new autonomous platform, for instance, needs more than a projected return. Directors may need to challenge assumptions around training data quality, deployment timelines, supplier dependencies, and certification pathways: questions that benefit from someone who has personally delivered a complex AI system. Cyber resilience carries more weight too, since AI-enabled systems widen the attack surface across contractors and their supply chains. The Department of War's AI acceleration strategy is pushing contractors toward faster, more modular development cycles, which reshapes how acquisition strategy and procurement get discussed at the board level. The gap between AI leaders and laggards in this industry has also grown wide enough to show up in valuation, making the pace of technology adoption a board-level concern in its own right.
These are governance questions that benefit from AI operating experience. A board without a director who has built and deployed AI in production is making these calls without anyone who has done the work themselves. That gap is one reason AI executive search now reaches into the boardroom.
The market is already pricing this gap
The pressure is visible outside the boardroom too. In May, Anduril raised $5 billion in a single funding round, one of the largest private investments in defense history, and total private investment in defense technology more than doubled in 2025 to $10.63 billion. Anduril, Shield AI, and Germany's Helsing are frequently cited together as the companies proving that software and AI, not just hardware, now drive competitive advantage in defense. Traditional aerospace and defense companies feel this pressure directly, competing with those AI-native players for contracts, talent, and investor attention alike. Adding AI-native governance expertise is one way boards are responding to that pressure before it shows up in a competitive loss.
What this means for board executive search
As boards seek directors with real experience building AI-enabled businesses, board member executive search extends beyond the traditional defense leadership networks that have supplied candidates for decades. Retired flag officers and career program executives still bring essential expertise in procurement and mission-critical culture. Many boards are also turning to candidates identified through technology executive search who understand what it means to have built and scaled an AI organization.
Identifying directors with both deep defense experience and hands-on AI operating backgrounds requires looking well beyond traditional board candidate pools. Executive search firms specializing in AI and technology leadership are seeing these requirements reflected in board mandates alongside more familiar governance criteria. A director with Eremenko's kind of background, someone whose technical credentials would be equally compelling in a CTO executive search or a board search, is still rare enough that finding one takes a process built around AI-native criteria from the outset.
Christian & Timbers' aerospace and defense practice
That broader candidate pool is also changing how specialist search firms approach aerospace and defense board mandates. Candidates come from AI companies, advanced engineering organizations, and software businesses alongside established aerospace and defense organizations.
Christian & Timbers evaluates board candidates through the same AI-native lens it applies to executive leadership searches, distinguishing between leaders who have built AI systems and those who have primarily overseen AI initiatives. That same perspective carries into board work.
The firm's aerospace and defense practice has placed more than 150 leaders across the sector, spanning aircraft and avionics, space systems, unmanned and autonomous vehicles, and cybersecurity, and typically fills CEO, CTO, program leadership, and senior engineering mandates alongside board searches. That coverage extends to VP of AI, VP of Engineering, Head of AI, and Chief Robotics Officer searches as well, giving clients a consistent read on AI-native credentials whether the open seat is in the boardroom or the C-suite.
For aerospace and defense boards specifically, that means sourcing candidates who pair the sector fluency of a traditional defense search with operating experience building AI systems, a combination that many traditional board search processes were not originally designed to evaluate.
Conclusion
As aerospace and defense boards continue evaluating the expertise they need for the AI era, the distinction between directors who understand AI and those who have built AI systems is likely to become more important.
AI is changing what aerospace and defense organizations build, how quickly they deliver it, and how they compete. Boards are beginning to reflect that shift. The question is no longer whether AI should be part of board discussions. It's whether someone around the table has enough experience building AI systems to challenge assumptions, recognize execution risk, and guide decisions before they become expensive mistakes.
That evolution mirrors the broader leadership changes taking place across the sector. As AI reshapes engineering, manufacturing, autonomy, and defense software, organizations are rethinking the expertise they expect from directors as well as executives. The boardroom is simply the latest place where AI-native leadership is becoming a competitive advantage.
FAQ
- Why are aerospace and defense boards adding AI-native directors now?
AI is becoming part of core aerospace and defense operations, from engineering and manufacturing to autonomous systems and cyber capabilities. That shift is bringing more technical decisions into the boardroom, increasing demand for directors with hands-on experience building and deploying AI systems alongside traditional governance expertise.
- How does board search for AI-native directors differ from traditional board search?
It draws from a different candidate pool. Traditional board search networks tend to source from retired military leadership and career program executives. AI-native board search also looks to candidates identified through technology executive recruiters and CTO Executive Search processes, people with direct AI-building backgrounds rather than oversight experience alone.
- Should every aerospace and defense board include an AI expert?
Not necessarily. The right mix depends on the company's products, strategy, and stage of AI adoption. Companies building autonomous systems, AI-enabled software, or digital engineering capabilities often benefit most from directors with hands-on AI operating experience. Others may prioritize cyber, manufacturing, or government procurement expertise alongside AI knowledge.
- Where do companies find AI-native board candidates?
They rarely come through traditional board networks alone. Many have built AI businesses, led engineering organizations, or held senior technology roles before joining boards. As a result, board searches extend beyond former CEOs and retired military leaders into the broader AI and technology ecosystem.
- Does Christian & Timbers only work on AI-native board searches?
Christian & Timbers' board practice covers governance and succession searches across aerospace, defense, and physical AI leadership more broadly, with AI-native criteria applied where a board's mandate calls for it.