Lewis Shepherd is an executive with Broadcom, a global infrastructure technology leader built on 60 years of innovation, collaboration, and engineering excellence. As Federal Chief Technology Officer he joined Broadcom on its acquisition of VMware, the pioneering Silicon Valley virtualization technology company and the world’s leading private-cloud-computing provider. Shepherd helps develop and execute the vision and roadmap for solutions to meet the challenges and novel opportunities of national-security and government at all levels.
He also currently serves as a senior advisor to the Director of U.S. defense agency DARPA on AI/Autonomy and other projects, advises the ODNI National Intelligence Council and other government agencies, and has served two terms on the Federal Communications Commission’s Tech
Advisory Council for Emerging Technologies. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) and Chair of its Intelligence Committee, leading AFCEA’s conferences and collaboration with US and allied agencies.
Shepherd’s first federal leadership role was after the 9/11 attacks, when he moved to DC from Silicon
Valley to help lead Intelligence Community innovation as Senior Technology Officer at the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA). In his role as the SES flag-rank head of Requirements and Research, his DIA team of technologists built multiple IC-wide capabilities, including the original versions of well-known systems Intellipedia, the IC Data Layer, and A-Space (TIME Magazine “Best Invention of 2008”). Shepherd’s organization deployed innovative technologies used at the individual, theater, and strategic levels, enabled wartime intelligence operations at U.S. Combatant Commands, and supported 70,000 users in 500+ global locations with real-time data, applications, video, and satellite communications on 30+ secure networks.
He then spent seven years at Microsoft as Director & CTO of the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments, and five years at VMware as Senior Director for Research & Emerging Technologies, at both companies leading work providing innovations for enterprise-scale mission problems. His teams led or teamed on diverse projects in AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and AR/VR, working directly with U.S. Government and defense agencies, and with allied governments in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America to apply advanced technical approaches to public policy challenges.
From 1984-2002 Shepherd was active in Silicon Valley in government, technology, and research,
including helping create and grow two startups. He served as speechwriter and top adviser for the
Mayors of San Francisco and San Jose, and his private consulting clients more recently have
included SpaceX, Goldman Sachs, and several hedge funds.
Shepherd has taught Ph.D. data-science courses as Adjunct Professor, George Mason University’s Graduate School of Engineering, has traveled internationally for the U.S. State Department as a technology envoy, and has served on the Defense Science Board’s study on information operations and hybrid warfare and the Army Science Board’s study on AI/ML security. He has degrees from Stanford University (where he was a Rockefeller Graduate Fellow), the University of Virginia, and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). He has been a guest-lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the UVA McIntire School of Commerce, Princeton University, Georgetown University, and many international universities.
