SAVAN KONG

As the first Customer Experience Officer (CXO) for the United States Department of Defense (DoD), Mr. Kong led the Customer Experience Officer Portfolio Management Office (PfMO), pioneering efforts to integrate customer experience (CX) principles into IT initiatives across the nation’s largest employer. In this role, he drove efforts to enhance the experience of service members, civilians, and stakeholders by ensuring that technology solutions were functional, sustainable, scalable, secure and mission-ready.  Mr. Kong served as the principal advisor to the DoD Chief Information Officer (CIO), Principal Deputy CIO, and other senior leaders, shaping strategies that improved digital services and modernized customer interactions across the defense enterprise. His leadership in this space earned him the 2024 Defense Scoop Industry Leadership Award, recognizing his contributions to advancing innovation within the defense sector.

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Before his appointment as CXO, Mr. Kong worked as General Manager at Rebellion Defense, where he specialized in the development of mission-critical software for defense and security applications. Earlier in his career, Mr. Kong served as a Digital Service Expert at the Defense Digital Service, where he led rapid-response initiatives such as the Basic Optical Biometric Analysis (BOBA) program and Project Rabbit, both of which played vital roles in defense and security operations.

 

Beyond the public sector, Mr. Kong's career spanned technology, real estate, and consumer industries, where he built, scaled, and optimized innovative products.  As the first employee at Redfin (NSDQ: RDFN), he helped shape modern real estate search, co-authoring a patented (US9436945B2) interactive map-based search and advertising technology.  Mr. Kong also contributed to medical software development at Kareo, led consumer design at Amazon, and held executive roles at Conenza and BlogTalkRadio during their formative stages. His diverse experience across public service, private sector innovation, and entrepreneurship enabled him to drive customer-centric transformations, ensuring that technology served people effectively across industries.