Former CIA Data Science Chief Barbara Stevens Named Exovera CEO

Exovera, an SOS International subsidiary based in Reston, Virginia, has named Dr. Barbara Stevens as CEO in a bid to enhance its big data services for the public sector market. 

Established in 2012, the IT service organization develops software solutions that advance the collection, exploitation, and analysis of data to drive government decision-making, the company said Wednesday. 

Julian Setian, SOSi president and CEO, said Stevens has over 30 years of experience developing and directing complex data science programs for the nation’s intelligence community. 

“Her expertise and insights will help us optimize the big data solutions we are developing to accelerate their adoption and ease their integration into government analytic workflows and agency operations,” he said.

According to John Avalos, company chief operating officer, Exovera is considered a vital discriminator in the government technology solutions market. 

“Dr. Stevens will help us leverage SOSi’s experience in delivering mission-enabling software, intelligence analysis, and language services to develop new deep learning software and tools that address emerging customer needs,” he said. 

Stevens is a recipient of various awards, including the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, for her service during her CIA tenure. She also served as an industry consultant, assisting agencies and contractors in change management, big data analytics, cloud migration and corporate diversity programs.

Her appointment is part of SOSi’s strategy to expand its service portfolio with artificial intelligence and machine learning-enabled services.

The defense contractor recently purchased NorthStar Systems, a Denmark-based advanced analytics software maker and made a strategic partnership with UiPath, a robotic process automation company to support the customers’ digital modernization efforts. 

In addition, Setian took on a strategic role at AppTek, a language technologies developer, to improve its automatic speech recognition, machine translation and natural language understanding services. 

Exovera’s data scientists and engineers have been collaborating to combine the acquired companies’ tools to develop various proprietary open-source and automated language solutions for defense, intelligence and law enforcement customers.