Thomas Modly is an accomplished executive, board director, former senior government leader, business strategist, military veteran, educator, entrepreneur, and bestselling author whose career spans approximately four decades across government, defense, aerospace, information technology, professional services, and academia. As President and CEO of Bélarock Ventures, he draws upon an unusually broad range of leadership experiences to advise organizations confronting complex questions of growth, transformation, innovation, and national security. His career has taken him from military service and global consulting to the highest levels of civilian leadership within the United States Department of the Navy, giving him a perspective shaped by both public service and commercial enterprise.
Modly’s leadership philosophy has been forged through assignments in environments where decisions carry significant organizational, financial, technological, and human consequences. His professional progression has exposed him to organizations ranging from entrepreneurial ventures to one of the world’s largest professional services firms and the immense operating enterprise of the Department of the Navy. Throughout those experiences, a consistent theme has been his ability to understand complex institutions, identify barriers to meaningful change, and help leaders translate ambitious strategies into practical transformation. He brings particular depth in executive management, organizational transformation, information technology, education and learning, aerospace and defense, international affairs, and national security.
His government service culminated in his role as Acting Secretary of the Navy, following his service as Under Secretary of the Navy. As Under Secretary, Modly led broad transformation initiatives intended to modernize the Department’s business operations, including efforts involving information technology consolidation, civilian human-capital strategy, financial auditability, and supply-chain transformation. He also served as the senior department official responsible for oversight of classified programs. These responsibilities required the ability to operate at the intersection of strategy, technology, organizational culture, fiscal stewardship, operational requirements, and national security.
As Acting Secretary of the Navy, Modly assumed responsibility for an extraordinarily complex institution encompassing the Navy and Marine Corps. His portfolio included five-year budget development, business operations, operational readiness, human-capital reform, information management, cybersecurity, financial audit readiness, and long-term strategic development. He reported at the highest levels of the federal government and interacted with congressional oversight while advancing initiatives intended to improve institutional performance. His tenure included increased senior-level attention to the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier program, restructuring information leadership to strengthen coordination of IT and cyber efforts between the Navy and Marine Corps, and promoting a more integrated approach to future force structure and shipbuilding strategy.
Before entering senior Navy leadership, Modly spent more than a decade with PwC, where he served as a Managing Director and Global Defense Network Leader. In that capacity, he helped drive the growth of the firm’s government defense business internationally and worked with multidisciplinary teams addressing complex organizational and technology challenges. Among his notable engagements was the sale and leadership of a large-scale Oracle enterprise resource planning implementation for NATO. His consulting career strengthened his ability to connect strategy with execution while leading multinational teams across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including work in challenging operating environments such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
That international exposure remains an important dimension of Modly’s value as an executive and director. His career has provided firsthand experience with the ways geopolitical conditions, national priorities, technology, organizational capabilities, and economic considerations intersect. He has operated across Europe and the United Kingdom and in demanding environments in Iraq and Afghanistan, while also developing experience and relationships across a much broader international network. This perspective enables him to approach business challenges not simply through a domestic operating lens, but through an appreciation for global relationships, security considerations, institutional differences, and the realities of leading across cultures and organizational boundaries.
Today, Modly applies those lessons through Bélarock Ventures, where he serves as President and CEO. The firm focuses on providing practical and creative guidance to organizations seeking to accelerate growth and contribute to the transformation of national defense across the sea, air, space, and cyber domains. His entrepreneurial work reflects a particular interest in innovative and nontraditional organizations rather than limiting his perspective to established defense enterprises. Having worked across startups, major consulting organizations, government institutions, and emerging technology businesses, he understands both the discipline required to manage at scale and the agility necessary to build, innovate, and compete in rapidly changing markets.
Board service represents a natural extension of that career. Modly currently serves on the boards of PMG Learning Solutions and Draganfly Inc., bringing his experience in transformation, learning, technology, aerospace, defense, and executive leadership into the boardroom. His work with Draganfly connects him with the evolving unmanned systems and drone sector, while his involvement with PMG Learning Solutions complements his longstanding interest in education, learning, and organizational development. He has also served on the board of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award Foundation and maintains involvement with organizations connected to naval service and legacy. These roles demonstrate a capacity to contribute across commercial, educational, technological, and mission-oriented settings.
Modly’s academic foundation is similarly multidisciplinary. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Government from the United States Naval Academy, a Master of Arts in Government with concentrations in international relations and political theory from Georgetown University, and a Master of Business Administration focused on business, government, and strategy from Harvard Business School. The combination of military education, political and international study, and advanced business training has supported a career in which commercial strategy, public policy, technology, and institutional leadership repeatedly converge. It also informs his ability to examine board-level issues from multiple perspectives rather than through a single functional specialty.
Transformation is one of the central themes running through Modly’s professional life and public thought leadership. He has spoken publicly and participated in interviews on the challenges organizations encounter when attempting meaningful change, particularly when established structures, incentives, technologies, and cultures must evolve simultaneously. His interest in writing further complements this work, allowing him to explore leadership and organizational questions beyond the immediate demands of executive decision-making. As an author and experienced public speaker, he brings an ability to articulate complex ideas in ways that connect strategy, history, organizational behavior, and practical leadership.
For boards and leadership teams, Modly offers a combination that is difficult to replicate through a conventional career path. He understands the realities of governing enormous institutions, but he also appreciates the opportunities and constraints facing smaller, entrepreneurial organizations. He has worked in consulting, technology transformation, government, defense, education, and international environments, giving him an eclectic perspective particularly relevant to companies navigating disruption, global expansion, organizational change, national-security markets, or complex stakeholder relationships. While defense, aerospace, information technology, education, learning, and globally oriented businesses are natural areas of alignment, his transformation experience can extend to organizations across a wide range of industries.
At this stage of his career, Modly is particularly interested in contributing to organizations where his perspective would add a dimension not already represented around the boardroom table. Rather than simply joining another large, traditional defense enterprise, he is well positioned to support businesses where insight into management, global affairs, national security, organizational transformation, technology, and economic development can influence long-term direction. He can be especially valuable to growing or established companies confronting the transition from entrepreneurial success to institutional scale, entering defense or government markets, navigating international complexity, or determining how emerging technologies can support their strategic objectives.
Underlying Modly’s career is a commitment to service, learning, adaptability, and consequential leadership. Four decades of experience have taught him that transformation is ultimately about more than processes, technology, or organizational charts; it requires people to understand why change matters and leaders who can create alignment around a meaningful purpose. His professional journey—from the Naval Academy and military service to global consulting, senior government leadership, entrepreneurship, authorship, and board service—has given him a broad understanding of how organizations respond when circumstances demand change. He brings that accumulated perspective to the boardroom with an emphasis on thoughtful governance, intellectual curiosity, strategic discipline, and practical contribution.
Character:
Modly’s career reflects a sustained commitment to service, responsibility, intellectual curiosity, and leadership in demanding environments. He approaches governance with an appreciation for accountability and the human consequences that accompany significant organizational decisions.
Knowledge:
His experience encompasses national security, aerospace and defense, information technology, education and learning, international affairs, organizational transformation, professional services, and executive management. His education at the United States Naval Academy, Georgetown University, and Harvard Business School complements decades of practical experience across military, government, corporate, entrepreneurial, and board environments.
Strategic:
Modly has repeatedly operated where long-range strategy must be translated into organizational action, from global consulting engagements and technology modernization to force structure, institutional reform, and business transformation. He brings boards an ability to consider strategic decisions through interconnected commercial, technological, geopolitical, operational, and human-capital lenses.
Communication:
As an executive leader, author, public speaker, and former senior government official, Modly has extensive experience communicating complicated ideas to audiences with widely different perspectives and responsibilities. He combines executive-level communication with the ability to frame transformation around purpose, helping stakeholders understand both the strategic rationale for change and the practical implications of pursuing it.
