Deputy at Pentagon’s data and AI office to depart for Palantir

Greg Little, the Pentagon’s deputy CDAO for enterprise platforms and business optimization, will be headed for the private sector after 14 years with the DOD.

Greg Little, the Pentagon’s deputy CDAO for enterprise platforms and business optimization, will be headed for the private sector after 14 years with the DOD. Monica King / U.S. Army

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Greg Little, the Pentagon’s inaugural deputy chief digital and artificial intelligence officer for enterprise platforms and business optimization, is leaving his position at the end of July.

One of the senior leaders of the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office — or CDAO — is departing his post at the end of the month for a job with Palantir, a Defense Department spokesperson confirmed to Nextgov/FCW on Tuesday.

Greg Little, deputy CDAO for enterprise platforms and business optimization, was one of the first officials DOD named to the office before it reached its full operating capability in June 2022. DOD stood up the office last February to help align its AI-focused efforts across its sprawling component agencies. 

As deputy CDAO, Little oversees the office’s business analytics and strategic insights; enterprise platform and capabilities; and strategy operations and customer success divisions. Little did not respond to a request for comment about his upcoming departure from the office. 

Little began working for DOD in 2009 as a program analyst with the Pentagon’s now-defunct Business Transformation Agency. Over the course of his career with the department, Little has served as director of the Chief Financial Officer Data Transformation Office, as a team lead of DOD’s Business Integration Office and as a solution architect for the Defense Agencies Initiative.

A representative from Palantir did not respond to a request for comment about Little’s new role. The software and data analytics company has a long history of working with the Pentagon and federal defense agencies, including receiving a multi-year contract from U.S. Special Operations Command last month “to deliver technology solutions to support enterprise capabilities,” according to a press release

Little’s impending departure comes after the chair and ranking member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation sent a letter to Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer Craig Martell last month expressing concern about the office receiving the lowest workforce score of any component agency across the Pentagon.

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