Ms. Jill Boward serves as the Executive Director, Combatants, Program Executive Office, Ships where she provides executive leadership in complex, new construction shipbuilding programs defining the 21st century surface combatant fleet. Ms. Boward’s responsibilities span acquisition efforts to design, develop, engineer, produce and deliver the Navy’s current and future combatants. Program offices within this portfolio include: the DDG 51 program (PMS 400D), the DDG 1000 program (PMS 500), the DDG(X) program (PMS 460), the Government Equipment Management (GEM) office, as well as the Team Ships Corporate Operations office. Additionally, she serves as a co-champion of the NAVSEA Journey Level Leadership Program.
Ms. Boward was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in September 2015. As a senior executive, she also served as the Executive Director, Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) from 2019 to 2021 and was responsible for an organization of over 400 civilian and military personnel and 128 programs (combat systems, weapons, radars, and related international and foreign military sales). From 2015 to 2019, she served as the Director of the Naval Sea Systems Command’s Cost Engineering and Industrial Analysis Group (NAVSEA 05C), and as the Navy’s competency lead for cost estimating, providing cost estimating and industrial base analyses for all shipbuilding, weapon and combat systems for submarines, carriers, and surface ships.
Prior to her SES appointment, she served as the Director for Amphibious and Auxiliary Ship Programs for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Ships, supporting the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, from 2011 to 2015. She spent the majority of her career within NAVSEA 05C, serving in various positions prior to her 2015-2019 assignment as the Director, to include: Deputy Director; Industrial Planning and Analysis Division Director; Surface Combatants Division Director; DDG 51 cost team leader and analyst; and combat and weapon system cost analyst. She also worked as a COR and the Staff Engineer for the Contracts Management Division in the U.S. Army Garrison - Directorate of Engineering and Housing, Republic of Panama. She started her career as a Naval Acquisition Development Program cost analysis intern at NAVSEA.
She earned both a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and a Master of Engineering Administration from Virginia Tech, and a Master of Science in National Resource Strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University.