This post originally appeared on my substack, The Talent Code.
This has been an incredible year, so before I take a short pause at the end of the year to spend time with family and reset, I want to reflect a little on what happened and say thank you.
Thank you for reading along with all my updates — whether you engage publicly or quietly reflect and carry the ideas back into your own work. Thank you to those who’ve shared posts with colleagues, replied with thoughtful notes, challenged ideas respectfully, or stopped me at conferences to say, “I read your content!” Those moments matter more than you probably realize.
Writing—here, on other social platforms, for formal publications, and my book—has sharpened my thinking in ways I didn’t fully expect. It’s forced me to slow down, question my assumptions, and put clearer language around ideas I’ve been living with for years. It’s also connected me to a community of leaders and practitioners who care deeply about how we design work—for efficiency, for optimization, but most importantly, for people.
I’ll be taking a week or two to rest, reflect, and recharge before the new year kicks off. I believe thinking requires space, and I’m grateful for the chance to take it and I encourage you to take some as well. In the meantime, I have a few highlights to share from this year! Enjoy!
2025 Wrapped
A year of building, seeing, and leading.
When people talk about transformation, they usually point to the visible moments — launches, announcements, awards, speeches. But anyone who’s done this work knows real progress happens quietly, over time, through decisions that don’t make headlines.
There was more than enough that made headlines in 2025.
Still, a lot of the disruption that blew through here and knocked down walls actually opened avenues for us to get things done that were quieter, more behind the scenes, but critical to shifting how we think about people, data, AI, and leadership.
Before I take a short pause at the end of the year, I wanted to give a wrap-up of what we actually accomplished in the Army people space and in my own professional work, to take stock and set the stage for next year.
What We Still Managed to Accomplish in 2025
To say that this was a year of turmoil and disruption is an understatement—especially when you work in the Federal Government. As much as I hate that whole agencies were wiped out and friends were either removed or left their senior executive positions leading data transformation, let me talk about this year as a change leader.
To understand how we operate, let me remind you of one very important thing:
Disruptors love disruption.
Disruption creates chaos, and for us, chaos is opportunity.
Amidst all the chaos at the beginning of the year, my team and I looked around and realized that walls we’d been trying to break through for years were coming down. And what we had was an opportunity to run through the gaps and strike out after goals we hadn’t been able to realize. We had to be ready with a plan for everything we wanted to accomplish, ready to run through the walls we needed taken out and to shore up the ones that were actually load bearing.
We did. Even though in the process, my organization was disbanded and rolled into other organizations. Still, when a team knows how to collaborate and communicate across spaces, it really doesn’t matter what offices you stick them in. They’ll still get things done. And we certainly did. I just want to share a few highlights.
In the Army People Enterprise…
AskArmy. We launched an ambitious plan to transform the Army’s people enterprise with agentic AI through this call for an agentic orchestration platform that will sit over all of our enterprise programs and allow Soldiers to interact with their data and personnel actions through chat rather than filling out forms or clicking their way through convoluted workflows.
This is every bit as much a culture victory as it is a technology victory in the HR space. We’ve historically under-resourced technology and modernization in the people enterprise while focusing on integrating AI in primary warfighter functions instead. This time, we successfully made the argument that our Soldiers get far more time on mission to improve those warfighter functions when they’re not waiting in line at the personnel office or trying to fill out paperwork.
I’m beyond excited to see this program come to fruition next year—hopefully before I turn into a pumpkin and depart service in July.
Direct Commissioning. We have, with the exception of our medical and legal professionals, long been a single-entry-point career. You come in, start at the bottom as a lieutenant, and work your way up, learning Army tradecraft on the way. However, recognizing that we have requirements for skills prevalent throughout the civilian workforce (and often better developed), we expanded and transformed the process for direct commissioning.
It was an absolute privilege to advise this team to look hard at why we develop people in certain ways and why we put emphasis on certain experiences, and where we could integrate technology to get rid of paperwork requirements (are you seeing a trend here? My AI targets are always the largest stacks of paper).
For more information, check out our new portal at army.mil/dcp
Detachment 201. It started out as the brainchild of good friend and Department of War Chief Talent Management Officer Brynt Parmeter as the Executive Innovation Corps, later somewhat muted but not at all watered down as Detachment 201, but the whole idea was to bring in leaders in industry to help advise our leadership on how to get after enterprise level problems. Which meant we needed senior executives with experience solving problems at scale.
Our first cohort included chief technology officers from Meta, OpenAI, and Palantir, so I think we got that senior executive level with enterprise experience!
Of course, there was pushback. And a large amount came from technologists inside the Army. They could code and build solutions, they argued. However, something even our technologists need to recognize is that there’s a big difference between knowing how to build an app and knowing how to integrate an AI solution across a base of 1.1 million people and into the business processes that manage them. Kind of the difference between leading a platoon and commanding a division. But these have been excellent discussions to have.
But why would the CTOs want to do this? Shyam Sankar offers his viewpoint, and it’s really inspiring.
Army Junior Officer Counsel. This is one of my favorite programs that I’ve supported. This was the idea of enterprising CPT now MAJ Chris Slininger, who was looking for ways to harness the brainpower and motivation of junior officers to both solve Army problems and learn how the Army runs.
After reading one of Chris’s articles, I realized that not only would the Army Junior Officer Counsel give junior officers a voice, but it would be a way to get enterprise leadership experience throughout the force so that I could cut down on the number of senior leaders we have whose first experience in the Pentagon is when they have stars on their shoulders (this does not set them up for success).
It’s been exciting to see how Chris has grown this program and I’m feeling more than optimistic about the future of the junior officers involved.
Data 101 and Army Data Literacy. I took a briefing only a few day ago from a friend who has been working on Army data doctrine for the Combined Arms Command, our command that directs all professional military education. Data literacy makes up the foundation for our capability and it has formally been instantiated throughout the Army, with a heavy demand signal for more.
Data 101 was a true start-up program in the Army, brought to life by a volunteer force who developed and taught the class in their (ha) spare time. Now data permeates our culture, the lexicon we developed for Data 101 is in formal Army doctrine, and we continue to grow and expand our offerings. Still in our spare time.
The Army Creative Reserve. Even though the program is paused as we try to figure out how we work around the monetization side of things, we had a tremendous experience piloting communication for the Army’s 250th birthday with our Army content creators.
We saw great returns on their participation, and we’ve seen their content reach into markets we can’t buy our way into. Add to it that the Army definitely has its own language, culture, norms, and other markers, there is an authenticity to their content that can’t be duplicated by external marketing campaigns.
I’m hopeful that the Army will continue to pursue how we partner with our own internal content creators and exploring how we tell our Army story.
Personal Work and Growth
This was a growth year for me in terms of finding my own voice and refining my personal brand in preparation for my transition out of the Army next summer. It was the first year I took on sponsored talks, and I was able to travel and give several large opening keynotes for conferences.
I’m especially excited to have given keynotes at the Association for Talent Development’s Government Workforce Symposium and ClearanceJobs Connect West in San Diego and later at ClearanceJobs Connect, helping set the stage for creating adaptive talent in an AI-rich world in both of those.
I appeared on a number of podcasts and webinars, but I think my favorite discussions were with Cole Napper on his award-winning Directionally Correct podcast and with Corrie and Herb Thompson on their new Not Special podcast for Liberty Speaks, their amazing veteran speakers bureau.
I was also privileged to speak at Uplift, the same event that hosted amazing talks from Adam Grant, Brene Brown, and more! It’s always amazing to get to listen to speakers who are at the top of their game. Not only do I learn things every time and get challenged to think, I find new ways to improve my own work.
On the writing front, I became a ReWorked contributing author and continued to see success for Data-Driven Talent Management. My book showed up at SHRM (pinch me!), was named a Distinguished Favorite in the 2025 NYC Big Book Awards, and was shortlisted in the learning and development category for the getAbstract Awards!
And I have to share another great review here for Data-Driven Talent Management!
As my friend Johnny might say, buy the book, you silly goose 🤣
Gratitude
I’m deeply grateful to my teams who did the work, to my leaders who trusted experimentation
- to the leaders who trusted experimentation
- to partners who pushed us to be better
- to mentors and colleagues who challenged my thinking
- and to the readers of The Talent Code who made this feel like a community, not a broadcast
Your attention, trust, and engagement are not taken lightly!
I’m also grateful to the COMMIT Foundation and the Deloitte University CORE Leadership Lab for allowing me to take part in their transformational workshops as I plan my post-Army career. The sponsorship of these amazing organizations means a lot, and I learned a ton at both of their events.
I’m grateful for another couple of great organizations supporting veterans that I will continue to be involved with after service—Oath & Oak, a storytelling-driven organization that seeks to help veterans find success and connection within their communities, and Liberty Speaks, which helps veteran speakers connect with organizations looking for dynamic and meaningful storytelling.
I’m looking forward to supporting more great organizations that support our Soldiers and veterans, but I’ll hold that news since the partnerships are still nascent!
Looking Ahead
I’ll be taking a short pause at the end of the year — a chance to rest, reflect, and recharge. The work of building better talent systems doesn’t stop. But it does benefit from perspective.
In the new year, I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation—refining what we’ve started, scaling what works, and staying grounded in the belief that talent management is, at its core, human work.
Thank you for being part of this year.
Thank you for the questions, the dialogue, and the shared commitment to doing this work well.
Happy holidays and happy 2026!
-Kris
