When Dr. Alison Hawks first encountered the Pentagon’s sprawling acquisition system as an academic-turned-entrepreneur, she witnessed a fundamental disconnect that would reshape her understanding of how governments buy technology.
Tasked with supporting the overhaul of defense procurement through the Section 809 Panel, Hawks observed a troubling pattern: “We do not really have a technology problem because we know the technology exists; we have a requirements problem.”
That realization led Hawks to co-found BMNT with Pete Newell in Europe, an expert advisory firm working with defense and intelligence agencies across the US, UK, and Australia.
The company aims to help government agencies “almost disrupt their own requirements process to de-risk investment in solutions, and to be able to do that in a repeatable and scalable way,” Hawks explained.
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From Battlefield Innovation to Silicon Valley Methodology
BMNT’s unconventional origins trace back to the battlefield innovations of US founder Newell during his tenure as director of the Rapid Equipping Force in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When Newell left the US Army over a decade ago, he had “a conviction that he could have a huge impact from the outside in versus the inside out,” leading to BMNT’s formation alongside co-founders William Treseder, Jackie Space, and Joe Felter.
Hawks brought a different perspective to the venture.
With a PhD in military sociology from and teaching experience at King’s College London, Imperial College London, and Georgetown University, she was teaching at the UK Defence Academy delivering professional military education to UK officers when she was recruited to work on US defense acquisition reform.
Her role at the Section 809 Panel included working with a team to understand what regulatory and legislative changes could be made to change the mindset of how the Department of Defense acquires things within the then 176,000-strong defense acquisition workforce.
“I realized the intersection of everything I was interested in — entrepreneurship, emerging technology, defense and security, and academia — all came together,” Hawks said of her decision to join BMNT as a partner after five years of the company’s operation.
Challenging the Requirements Culture
Hawks is particularly critical of what she describes as the “requirements-based culture” dominating defense procurement.
“Requirements culture is problematic,” she stated bluntly, arguing that “perfectly assumed solutions and requirements that go out to industry” create “very expensive solutions that don’t really fit the pace at which the threats are evolving.”
BMNT’s approach centers on problem identification rather than predetermined solutions.
“Our role is to go in and really understand what is the problem our customers are trying to solve,” Hawks explained. The company works with government clients, helping them test hypotheses, prioritize problems, and facilitate rapid capability acquisitions.
BMNT is solution agnostic. “Whether that is an emerging technology or a high technology readiness level, what we are trying to do is ultimately de-risk investment in a solution for a customer, at pace,” Hawks emphasized.
This philosophy extends to how Hawks believes the roles of government and industry should be fundamentally realigned.
“Over time we have somehow mixed up our respective roles. Government should and must be the experts in the problem and have the ability to communicate that as requirements and industry must be the expert in the solution,” she observed.
“Yet with predetermined requirements the government acts as the expert in the solution, and industry often acts as it is expert in both. And this creates a lot of friction.”
Academic Innovation Through Hacking for Defense
Parallel to BMNT’s consulting work, Hawks spearheaded the transatlantic expansion of Hacking for Defense (H4D), an educational program that brings real defense problems into the university classroom, with the launch of the Common Mission Project (CMP) in the UK.
“This is missing in the UK,” Hawks recalled thinking when she first encountered H4D during her Pentagon work. “I think that this has a much wider play. We could have a huge impact. I knew I wanted to bring it back to the UK to launch and scale it.”
Since launching H4D in the UK, called H4MoD, in January 2019, Hawks and the CMP team have scaled the program from one university to 27 institutions.
The initiative has since been successful in integrating into professional military education as an “innovation competency” that can be reported on officers’ career trajectories.
The program has also diversified beyond defense, with Hawks noting expansions into transport, law enforcement through “hacking for law enforcement,” and environmental challenges via “hacking for sustainability.”
The educational approach serves a broader strategic purpose, particularly as European nations confront increased security threats.
“We need to get people to care about some of these really big problems,” Hawks argued. “If we can break them down into constituent parts that are interesting and we put them into universities for students to solve, where they can work alongside their ministries of defense, then we create a generation that will be advocates of defense.”
The program aims to build “a more resilient society” by ensuring that future leaders “fundamentally understand the role defense and security plays in the overall security of a nation and of a continent and within allied relationships.”
NATO Engagement and European Expansion Challenges
BMNT has worked with NATO on multiple occasions, with projects ranging from building “an operating model for innovation” to electronic warfare initiatives with the Royal Air Force.
However, Hawks highlighted the particular potential of H4D for NATO members facing contemporary security challenges.
“Look at the mobilization of Poland and Germany, the Baltics, and the Nordics,” she noted, emphasizing the need to engage civilian populations in defense thinking.
The program could prove crucial for post-conflict reconstruction, with Hawks specifically mentioning Ukraine: “If the war ends, how do you rebuild that society?”
Expanding H4D across Europe has revealed significant cultural and bureaucratic challenges.
“We’ve had a big demand signal from across Europe to do hacking for defense,” Hawks said, but noted that implementation varies dramatically by country. In Poland, for example, “people in the army are not allowed to talk to people outside of the army about their problems at all, which is very different culturally to the US and the UK.”
Such restrictions require program modifications to “create a bit of a cultural shift, which is what Poland wants, to have more transparency between the army and society where we can have those conversations.”
The cultural barriers haven’t dampened enthusiasm. Hawks described how a Ukrainian student who fled the conflict and took the course at the University of Glasgow became “so impassioned having taken the course and saying, we must do this in Ukraine,” that BMNT is now “working with the Ukrainians to integrate the course into several universities there.”
Bridging Capital and Problems
To address these market failures, BMNT operates a Defense Investors Network, which Hawks noted started in the US around 2018 and launched in the UK in 2023.
“On a bimonthly basis, we convene dual-use investors and senior members of the government to come and have a conversation and be able to share structured demand signals, to share some obstacles,” she explained.
The goal is building “education and stronger relationships so that we can communicate these things more easily and move a little bit faster.”
Hawks described the network as part of BMNT’s broader mission to “join capital with problems and stimulate that system.”
Transatlantic Tensions and Unintended Consequences
The current US administration’s stance on European defense burden-sharing has created what Hawks characterized as “a frenzy of activity in Europe.”
While acknowledging that some of the US’ views on Europe and its defense “are not necessarily wrong,” she highlighted significant unintended consequences.
“For a long time, individually countries felt that they needed to have better capabilities and to be able to stand on their own two feet,” Hawks observed. “But there was no catalyst for that.” The American pivot provided that catalyst, but with complications.
“The vacuum the US is leaving in terms of investment, soft power, and being the dominant figure in Europe has created an opening for China,” Hawks warned. “As those announcements were made, you saw an influx of Chinese actors in Europe saying, ‘well, we can fund some of this.'”
The situation has also fostered European technological sovereignty concerns.
“There’s been some trust lost with the US in terms of, well, we don’t want them to be able to switch our capabilities or our software off with a button,” Hawks noted. “So therefore, we’re going to focus developing sovereign technologies and/or ally technologies within Europe.”
Capital Influx and Market Limitations
The geopolitical tensions have stimulated significant capital flows into European defense technology, though Hawks noted persistent structural challenges.
“The problem has long been that Europe does not have growth capital to build these unicorns,” she explained, citing companies like Anduril and Palantir as examples, while noting that “we do have Helsing” as a European success story.
“That’s why a lot of the companies and these startups tend to go to the US or Asia, to the bigger markets where they can scale,” Hawks added. While the current capital influx hasn’t “necessarily solved that problem,” it has “created much more fertile ground to get those small seed companies and technology companies to a Series A, and to be a little bit more stable.”
However, Hawks identified a critical knowledge gap among new investors. “There’s not a really strong understanding in Europe of what dual use is,” she stated. Many investors claim to focus on dual-use technologies but lack experience with the complexities involved.
“If you’ve never worked with a defense or dual-use company, you suddenly need a different sales team, a new product roadmap, and different security processes,” Hawks said. “From an investor’s perspective, that’s a major shift. It’s a different exit profile.”
The fundamental challenge remains unchanged: “The one thing, the variable, the control variable that hasn’t changed is defense acquisition.”
Strategic Gaps in European Defense Planning
Despite increased activity and investment, Hawks argued that Europe lacks coherent strategic direction.
“I don’t really see that bigger strategy in Europe,” she said. “What are we trying to achieve apart from rebalancing from the Trump administration walking away and being prepared for Russia to be more aggressive?”
While European governments have committed to opening “the doors more to SMEs” and making it “easier to do business,” Hawks contended that “that part is still trying to be figured out.”
Future Expansion and Market Entry Services
Looking ahead, Hawks outlined ambitious expansion plans across both sides of BMNT’s mission.
For Hacking for Defense, “our focus is scaling across Europe and really working with our partners to be able to have the program fit for them but retain the core principles of the program.”
On the commercial consulting side, BMNT has developed what Hawks described as a new practice area: “We’ve built a practice helping companies enter the defense market.”
This service emerged from observing “a lot of companies spent too long finding their first customer, understanding the commercial requirements for doing business with the government, and the security requirements.”
“We feel very passionately about connecting those technologies to problems that can be solved,” Hawks explained. Too often, “problems exist and the companies ping around like a ping pong ball frustrated trying to get their first pilot or trying to convert a pilot contract into a longer-term contract or just understanding what is the accreditation needed.”
Having “built the company here from scratch and gone through all of these contracts and getting them ourselves with the defense ministry and intelligence apparatus,” BMNT now helps companies “understand how do they position themselves” and “understand their customers’ buying behavior.”
Mission: Creating Competitive Markets
Hawks framed BMNT’s ultimate mission in terms of market efficiency and competition.
“Our hope is to scale that part of the business to really increase the shots on target for the defense ministry so that for their problems, they can find several high quality solutions and have a competitive marketplace.”
The current system, she argued, suffers from limited competition “where it is established market players outcompete really great companies who can deliver in less time and half the cost.”
“Our mission is to cut through all of that noise for companies and help them connect to problems faster and with a really strong commercial positioning so that they can scale in the UK and into Europe,” Hawks concluded.
As defense spending increases across Europe and technology continues to evolve rapidly, Hawks positions BMNT as a crucial bridge between government needs and industry solutions — challenging traditional procurement approaches while building the next generation of defense-minded professionals through academic partnerships.
The company’s dual focus on immediate consulting services and long-term educational programs reflects Hawks’ belief that transforming defense innovation requires both systemic change and cultural shift across multiple generations of leaders.
