From a federal marketing fellowship to the knotty business of getting commercial software into government, Rogers has built a career translating between two worlds that rarely share a dictionary.

Before she became Watermark’s chief marketing officer, Melissa Pippine spent years close to products, customers and the untidy systems between them. Her career makes a quiet argument: good marketing begins long before the campaign.

The Brandt CMO has built a career around an unusual brief: use data, design and government technology to help more people step away from their screens and into the outdoors.

She began with press work at the Kennedy Center. Now SAIC’s marketing chief is turning customer research, sharper positioning and practical AI into a growth system for a federal technology company.