Principal
Nishi Narula is a Principal at OST, where she helps shape the company’s strategic direction and strengthen its future readiness through innovation, growth-oriented initiatives, and applied intelligence. She brings deep analytical, operational, and strategic expertise to guide OST’s pivot toward emerging technologies, including the practical application of generative AI across the company and its client programs, while also supporting alignment with evolving federal government policies and priorities.
In her role, Nishi advises and supports enterprise efforts to continuously improve business performance, foster innovation, and identify strategic opportunities for advancement. Her earlier leadership of the Business Performance Group (BPG) and Human Capital Management (HCM) helped establish OST’s performance-driven culture and built the foundation for many of its current operational frameworks. Today, she contributes to initiatives that connect performance insights to strategic actions and collaborates across functions to support OST’s continued evolution and impact.
Nishi has long held a pivotal position at OST, bridging performance metrics, quality systems, and enterprise analytics to design and implement scalable improvements. Under her direction, OST introduced several transformational initiatives including the Balanced Scorecard, Project Playbook, and the Employee Career Path Suite platform. She architected OST’s governance structure, central portal of asset libraries, OST University, and the OST Engineering Review Board. She also led the implementation of methodologies such as Agile5, SecDevOps, CMMI Level 5, ISO, and high-maturity analytics. Her co-authored work on these initiatives was published in CrossTalk, a Department of Defense journal.
Before becoming Principal, Nishi directed federal and state-level delivery programs, spanning software and systems development, strategy, change management, and operational governance. She led multiple process improvement efforts, supported successful CMMI and ISO assessments, and chaired OST’s Solution Engineering Process Group for over a decade.
Nishi holds two Master’s degrees, in Operations Research and Computer Science, and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics. She has been a featured speaker at the SEI Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) Conference, the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) conference, and SEI’s High-Maturity Measurement & Analysis forums. A recipient of the Women Worth Watching award by Diversity Journal, Nishi remains actively involved in OST’s evolution, engaging in hands-on problem-solving and helping drive the company’s pivot toward future-focused capabilities and growth.