David Egts

Chief Technologist, North America Public Sector

Red Hat

David Egts is the Chief Technologist of Red Hat’s North America Public Sector organization where he directs a global team of technical experts and field product management to help Red Hat help government clients improve service delivery the open source way. He guides his cross-functional team with a relentless focus on ensuring Red Hat’s products and services address government needs for security, compliance, standards, efficiency, and technological improvements. David and his team work with public sector decision-makers to increase their understanding of open source as an engine of technological innovation to meet their specific needs. David takes great pleasure in showing to customers the release notes for Red Hat products and highlighting features they requested to address the needs of their missions. This personal touch and positioning in the enterprise demonstrate to stakeholders how Red Hat is an ideal partner to help them achieve their goals. The government readiness work performed by his team has positively impacted public and private sector organizations in the US and internationally with a particular focus on Australia, Canada, Japan, and the UK.

The Office of Chief Technologist, which he leads, exists to interface Red Hat product teams and open source communities with government agencies and partners. The team adds value to flagship Red Hat technologies such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenShift, and Linux containers by ensuring current and future government requirements are factored into existing products and R&D efforts. His team’s technical expertise has positively impacted Red Hat’s customer value proposition with the development of open source ATO automation culminating in vendor and government-authoritative guidance hosted on the NIST National Checklist Program, enhanced OVAL feeds, and enhanced details on Red Hat and NVD CVSS scores. His team contributed to accessibility requirements through Section 508 efforts and certifications like Common Criteria and FIPS 140-2.

David’s key outward-facing roles center around building coalitions and maintaining stakeholder relations. David builds coalitions of high-level government change agents and collaborative open source peer communities nationally and internationally. Through these coalitions, he validates and shares best practices for consuming, contributing to, and commercializing open source. He mentors agency leaders to use open organization principles to more effectively lead teams.

From deep technical dives to C-suite policy discussions, David is known industry-wide for his ability to explain Red Hat’s technologies and business model, and the principles of open source development to a broad and growing network of agency executives, OMB policymakers, Red Hat partners, and on Capitol Hill. His communication abilities enhance Red Hat’s technical reputation and positioning nationally and internationally.

Within Red Hat, David is instrumental in building and sustaining Red Hat’s supportive leadership culture using open organization principles. He excels at crafting a culture where transparent decisions are made, organizational direction is catalyzed, and individual contributors understand how their role fits into the greater organizational mission. He championed the adoption of the Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) in Red Hat’s North America Public Sector and collaborates across the company to encourage the adoption of OKRs globally and cross-functionally. David has been a formal mentor in Red Hat’s mentoring program since its inception and is very active in the program. In recognition of his efforts, David received Red Hat's highest employee honor as a Red Hat Chairman's Award recipient.

David is a trusted Red Hat media spokesperson. He received industry-wide recognition as a FedScoop 50 Industry Leadership awardee and as a finalist for WashingtonExec’s Chief Officer Awards for his technical expertise and influencer status as a keynote speaker, technical panelist, moderator, and author.

David volunteers his time and expertise to organizations to broaden the knowledge of open source technology. Outside of Red Hat, David is a past Co-Chair on the Board of Directors for the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) Software & Services Division (SSD) and is an active member of the Agile Government Leadership Association and the AFCEA DC Emerging Technologies Working Group.

David has achieved Red Hat’s highest level of technical certification as a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA). He has a BS and MS in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh, and an Executive MBA from the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.

Prior to joining Red Hat, David began his career at Concurrent Technologies Corporation where he introduced virtual reality technologies and built a line of virtual reality capabilities into new service offerings for which he won the President’s Award Employee of the Year honors. He then leveraged his expertise in virtual reality into a position with Silicon Graphics where he specialized in visual simulation, virtual reality, human-computer interfaces, and scientific visualization. He was awarded SGI’s prestigious Systems Engineer of the Year three years in a row.

In a world that is incredibly fast-paced, David works to make it easier for government agencies and its leaders to keep up by listening with empathy and curiosity to his customers and co-workers to understand “the why” behind their needs. His philosophy is to assume noble intent and to, “Listen. Be curious. Be present. Be patient. Be mindful. Be humble. Be helpful. Be thankful.”

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