Cogs of War: Moving at the Speed of War with Horacio Rozanski of Booz Allen

War on the Rocks

News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The future fight won't be won by those with the biggest budgets, most polished strategies, or largest armies. It will be won by those who can translate breakthrough technology into usable capability at speed and scale. Ryan was joined by Horacio Rozanski, the CEO of Booz Allen, to talk about the role his company is playing in this race. Having reoriented Booz Allen into a technology integrator, he shares the cultural and organizational challenges of turning Booz Allen into a company of builders, the bets being made on emerging technologies, and how his personal journey — from immigrant to Booz Allen intern to CEO — shapes how he sees change.

This is a special cross-posted episode of Cogs of War, our show on defense tech and industry. Click here to subscribe using your podcast app of choice: https://pod.link/1818133762

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on Strategy, Defense, and Foreign Affairs.
0:13.4	My name is Ryan Evans. I'm the founder of War on the Rocks. This is a special episode because we are cross-posting an episode of Cogs of War, our podcast on defense technology
0:22.1	and industrial issues brought to you by us at War on the Rocks and our partners at Booz Allen.
0:27.7	It's a special episode because it features my wide-ranging conversation with Horacio
0:31.8	Rosanski, the CEO of Booz Allen.
0:34.1	In this conversation, we traced his remarkable journey from immigrant to intern to CEO of one of the most influential firms in defense and technology.
0:42.5	We talk about how he is reshaping Booz Allen into a true technology integrator and how he thinks about the future of talent, strategy, defense technology, and innovation, and artificial intelligence.
0:53.6	It was a really fascinating conversation,
0:55.7	and I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. I haven't met many CEOs with your
1:03.1	background. I think you're the first CEO I met that, personally at least, that grew up in a
1:08.3	dictatorship. What was it like growing up in Argentina during a military dictatorship?
1:13.1	The thing that's interesting is, especially when you're a kid, you know what you know.
1:16.8	And so it was normal to live in a situation where you didn't have a lot of freedom,
1:22.4	where you didn't have the ability to say what you wanted, where your parents had to be concerned about what they
1:31.1	told you because you could go repeated in school and get them in trouble. So I had, what I describe
1:37.6	as a pretty good upbringing, middle class family. We didn't have everything we wanted, but we had
1:43.7	what we needed. In hindsight, it could have been terrifying. We didn't have everything we wanted, but we had what we needed. In hindsight, it could
1:46.3	have been terrifying. We learned to march and parade rest and everything else at five years old.
1:51.5	We had very short haircuts mandated. I mean, if your hair was within three fingers of your
1:57.5	shirt collar, you got sent home. You look at it now. I look at it through the eyes of my kids,
2:02.5	and I said, wow, that was different. When a teacher came into the room, you stood up at attention
2:06.9	until they told you to sit down. You know, it was very militaristic. They ran a campaign.
	...

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