Top Chief Technology Officers to Watch in 2025: CALIBRE Systems’ Charles Onstott

Over the past year, Charles Onstott led CALIBRE Systems’ efforts to strengthen partnerships with advanced technology companies including AWS, RegScale, Spectro Cloud and Vast. Under his leadership, CALIBRE earned AWS Advanced Services Tier status through the coordinated work of the Innovation Center and operating divisions.

These partnerships are leading to new paths to revenue for CALIBRE and creating a lot of excitement about the company’s future, he said.

Onstott also led efforts to help the company’s front-line leaders understand CALIBRE’s evolving technology capabilities so they can better help their clients navigate the changing government environment.

“Charles has done more than drive innovation — he’s built a culture around it,” said Richard Pineda, president and CEO of CALIBRE Systems. “Charles is the rare kind of CTO who blends strategic foresight with flawless execution. In the past year, his focus on delivering value through emerging tech, strong partnerships and mission-first thinking has propelled CALIBRE forward. He has created real momentum that is reshaping how we engage with our partners, solve client missions and lead in the federal market.”

Why Watch

In the coming year, Onstott and his team will focus on helping clients solve their mission challenges using the CALIBRE Innovation Center and technology partners. They plan to build practices around specific partners leading the way in application modernization and management, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

“I remain humbled to lead such an extraordinary team of innovators,” Onstott said. “Over the past year, we’ve built real momentum at the CALIBRE Innovation Center — developing impactful solutions by leveraging the strengths of our world-class technology partners. From AI to application modernization, we’re focused on helping our government clients harness emerging technologies effectively to drive mission success.”

Fun Fact: Before starting his doctoral research, Onstott completed a 100-mile and several 100K mountain bike races. Today, he is trading trail time for dissertation writing as he pursues a doctorate in business at Virginia Tech, focusing on the dilemmas AI creates for entrepreneurs and technology executives.

See the entire Top CTOs to Watch in 2025 list here.