Commissioner Bio
Ellen Lord
Vice-Chair, Appointed by Ranking Member Jim Inhofe, Senate Armed Services Committee
Hon. Ellen Lord is the founder of EML Enterprises, LLC, providing advisory services that leverage her decades of industry and government experience. Lord serves on the Board of Directors for AAR Corporation, the Naval Institute, Parsons Corporation, GEOST and Voyager Space, and is a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
Most recently, Lord served as the first Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, leading the Department of Defense’s personnel, policy and processes for acquisition of products and services, lifecycle sustainment and the security and resiliency of the defense industrial base. Lord is credited with driving significant acquisition policy reform focused on simplicity and speed, driving policy change to address cyber vulnerabilities and incorporating an aggressive cybersecurity posture into acquisition policy.
Prior to her role the Department of Defense, Lord served for more than 30 years in the automotive and defense industries, including as President and Chief Executive Officer of Textron Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of Textron Inc. from 2012-2017. In this role, she led a multi-billion dollar business with a broad range of products and services supporting defense, homeland security, aerospace, and infrastructure protection, for customers around the world.
Lord holds a Master of Science in chemistry from the University of New Hampshire and a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from Connecticut College.