Advana’s future uncertain as program manager prepares to leave DOD

Alex O’Toole — the program officer for the Pentagon’s enterprisewide data and analytics “Advana” platform that’s in the midst of a major transformation — is preparing to soon exit that role and the Chief Digital and AI Office, sources told DefenseScoop this week.

His planned departure comes as President Donald Trump is installing new leaders across the Defense Department, and the government’s vision for the CDAO’s future (as well as Advana’s) remains unclear.

The name Advana is a mash-up of two words — advancing analytics — and essentially encompasses the office’s original intent at the platform’s inception.

Its roots trace back to DOD’s chief financial officer’s unit, when staff needed to pull data from thousands of disparate business systems that historically were not interoperable. In 2021, Booz Allen Hamilton won a five-year, $647 million contract to expand the program. Not long after that, Advana’s implementation and oversight was one of the main Pentagon elements transitioned as a foundational pursuit within the CDAO when that office became operational in 2022.

Broadly, Advana is a complex data warehouse that also arms the military, defense officials and their approved partners with decision-support analytics, visualizations and data-driven tools.

In September 2024, CDAO leaders unveiled a new Advana re-compete plan designed around funding up to $15 billion in contracts to a diverse range of companies over the next 10 years. 

Sources who spoke to DefenseScoop this week on the condition of anonymity suggested that amid the ongoing transition of presidential administrations — and with O’Toole’s plan to depart before the end of next month — the DOD’s next steps for Advana are uncertain. 

O’Toole joined DOD as Advana engineering solutions lead in 2019 after serving as a staff data scientist at Booz Allen, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He did not respond to DefenseScoop’s requests for comment on Friday.

A DOD spokesperson acknowledged but did not directly answer DefenseScoop’s questions about O’Toole’s planned farewell, and whether the CDAO aims to hire a new program officer to oversee the Advana portfolio or appoint an interim manager in the near term.

“Advana continues to be led by the Deputy CDAO of the Directorate of Scaled Capabilities,” the spokesperson said.

Garrett Berntsen currently serves in that deputy CDAO position, according to an unclassified internal document recently obtained by DefenseScoop.