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On August 18, BigBear.ai, a specialized defense and security technology company providing mission-ready AI, announced the appointment of retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey to its board of directors, effective August 13, 2026. Gainey joins the board after a 36-year Army career in which he helped define the Joint Force’s modern counter-drone approach and later commanded JTF-Gold, Golden Dome’s operational arm.
“General Gainey’s experience, expertise and operational insights make him a very valuable addition to the BigBear.ai board,” said Peter Cannito, chair of the board of directors of BigBear.ai. “Few leaders have his firsthand understanding of how a complex defense architecture becomes a fielded, trusted capability. His perspective will strengthen our Board and the direction we set for BigBear.ai.”
Gainey became the first director of the department’s Joint C-sUAS Office in 2020, when the services had roughly 40 separate C-sUAS systems without a common joint architecture. Over the next four years, he led the office as it delivered the department’s first C-sUAS strategy and advanced the operational concepts, joint doctrine, training standards, and open command-and-control architecture needed to connect sensors and defensive systems across services. During his tenure, the Joint C-sUAS University opened at Fort Sill to establish a common training foundation for operators across the force.
In his final Army assignment, Gainey served as commanding general of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense. In January 2026, he also assumed command of JTF-Gold. U.S. Northern Command established the task force to integrate and synchronize the homeland’s air and missile defense enterprise and serve as the operational arm for future layered defense systems provided by Golden Dome.
“General Gainey has spent his career at the leading edge of some of the most urgent threats facing warfighters, from counter-drone and integrated missile defense to joint force integration across combatant commands at the center of national security missions,” said Kevin McAleenan, chief executive officer of BigBear.ai. “As the threat from unmanned systems and advanced missile technology continues to accelerate, his firsthand operational understanding of what our men and women in uniform need from AI-enabled decision support is exactly the perspective our Board and our company need. We are honored to welcome him.”
Gainey’s record maps directly to one of the objectives at the center of BigBear.ai’s work and growth strategy: giving operators a common way to connect and coordinate sensors, mission software, and manned and autonomous platforms from different vendors. ConductorOS addresses that challenge through an open, vendor-neutral architecture that allows systems to share data, models, and inferences. In recent military exercises, the platform enabled a single soldier to command multiple drones from different vendors and connected a sensor with a missile system that had not previously been able to communicate.
“There is no doubt that the speed and complexity of today’s threats are outpacing our ability to process information manually,” said Gainey. “BigBear.ai’s technology directly addresses that challenge. The company has deep customer trust across the defense community, leading-edge technology, capital and a strategic focus that the United States and its allies can benefit hugely from. I look forward to helping the Board and leadership team deliver technological and decision advantage to the men and women who defend our nation.”
Source: BigBear.ai
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