WASHINGTON, DC -- The U.S. Department of War announced the appointment of Mr. Owen West, former Assistant Secretary of War for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, as the new Director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). The Department also announced DIU’s establishment as a new Department of War Field Activity.
This designation positions DIU as a key-enabling component of the Department’s ongoing overhaul of its innovation ecosystem outlined in the recent Secretary of War Pete Hegseth memo Transforming the Defense Innovation Ecosystem to Accelerate Warfighting Advantage. The new innovation model is focused on creating an ecosystem that is more agile, accountable, and capable of delivering the tools warfighters need, precisely when they need them. The overhaul calls for an integrated ecosystem and institutionalizes DIU’s core strengths of speed, focus, and commercial tempo and ensures the authorities for its mission.
Stated in the memo, “A DoW Field Activity designation locks in that model -clear missions, streamlined governance, durable authorities - while establishing commercial product innovation and operational capability innovation as core enterprise functions.
In this new arrangement, DIU and SCO, together with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO), the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC), and the Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), will comprise the Department of War (DoW) innovation ecosystem led by the CTO.”
As the Department continues to implement strategic goals focused on a new approach to defense acquisition that prioritizes award speed, innovation, and a "commercial-first" mindset, DIU’s core mission remains unchanged: accelerating the adoption of commercial and dual-use technology to solve operational challenges at speed and scale.
DIU will remain the Department’s main interface with the nontraditional and commercial ecosystem for rapid product adoption and transition, delivering commercial-tempo execution as a Department-wide accelerator for tech scouting, rapid contracting, and product transition.
West is set to swear in this spring, while Hon. Emil Michael, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, will remain as the acting director alongside Hon. Michael “Mike” Dodd, who serves as both the Assistant Secretary of War for Critical Technologies and as the Acting Deputy Director of DIU.