Distinguished business leader, venture capitalist, and investor David Motley becomes the new chair. Steven H. Walker, Lockheed Martin CTO and former DARPA director, joins.
SRI, the world-renowned source of world-changing technologies, announced today that David Motley, an SRI board member since 2020 and a distinguished business leader, venture capitalist, and technology investor, became the new chair of the Board of Directors, effective January 1.
SRI, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley, also announced today the addition to its board of Steven H. Walker, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of the Lockheed Martin Corporation and former Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Motley is co-founder and Managing Partner of BTN Ventures, a pre-seed and seed stage venture fund investing nationally in industry-creating or -disrupting technologies. Backed by some of the most prominent institutional investors in the country, BTN Ventures focuses on software enabled companies in the arenas of fin-tech, health-tech, clean-tech and ed-tech. BTN Ventures has a particular focus on providing access to venture capital for Black and diverse founders at the helm of companies positioned to deliver outsized returns to investors.
Motley also has extensive experience in corporate governance serving on private, public, and venture-backed company boards for entities that have navigated transformational growth. His current board service includes: First National Bank (NYSE: FNB); Koppers (NYSE: KOP); Coherent (NYSE: COHR); and Armada Supply Chain Solutions ($5 billion privately held company).
In the corporate career that preceded this, he led strategy formulation for more than 50 businesses with revenues ranging from zero to $2 billion. Motley’s last three corporate roles were vice president and general manager positions with Respironics (acquired by Philips) and Covidien (acquired by Medtronic), followed by a Senior Managing Director role with Headwaters (acquired by EY).
A Distinguished Alumnus awardee of the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, and an MBA alumni of the Harvard Business School, Motley co-founded the African American Directors Forum (AADF), which seeks to increase representation for African Americans in the board rooms, C-Suites, and supplier bases of publicly traded companies across the nation. Motley also has the privilege of leading the multi-year offering for the Navy War College directed at three-star admirals entitled, “World Class Performance: The Role of Leadership, Process, and Talent.”
Before taking his role at DARPA and then Lockheed Martin, Walker served in a variety of increasingly responsible positions as DARPA’s Deputy Director and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology, and Engineering. In the latter role, he was responsible for developing the technology investment strategy for the Air Force’s annual $2 billion science and technology program and for providing functional management of more than 14,000 military and civilian scientists and engineers.
At DARPA, Walker was responsible for developing breakthrough technologies and capabilities for national security. At Lockheed Martin, he is responsible for mission concept development and integrated operations analysis, the corporation’s technology strategy, internal research and development investments and corporate as well as international laboratories. As the primary liaison to the U.S. and international science and technology community, he manages strategic partnerships with government, industry, and academia to ensure the maturation and deployment of cutting-edge technologies.
Walker is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; he received the AIAA Hap Arnold Award for Excellence in Aeronautical Management in 2014 and the AIAA Hypersonics Systems and Technology Award in 2021. He has also been awarded the Presidential Rank Award, the Air Force Meritorious Civilian Service medal, and the DoD Exceptional, Meritorious, and Distinguished Civilian Service medals. In February 2020, he was elected as a Member of the National Academy of Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. and B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame, and an M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Dayton.
