Federal Contractors | Technology 2023: CANDICE LING

Ling took over leadership of Microsoft’s federal arm in July after Rick Wagner, the sector’s president since 2020, stepped down to pursue new opportunities.

Ling previously served as civilian federal sector vice president for Microsoft, a position she held since October 2021, and she also spent 19 years with Canadian consulting firm CGI, most recently as a senior vice president in Fairfax. She joined Microsoft as a government industry leader in Asia in 2018.

Microsoft’s federal team works for the U.S. government’s civilian and defense sectors and shares the Pentagon’s $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability Contract to build out cloud capabilities for the Department of Defense with Amazon, Google and Oracle. Microsoft had previously won a $10 billion precursor to that contract, known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, but in 2021, the Pentagon said it was not moving forward because that contract had been developed when the department’s cloud needs were not yet mature, according to The New York Times.

Ling received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Western Michigan University and an MBA from the University of Texas.