Dan Smoot

Dan Smoot is a technology executive with more than three decades of experience scaling software and IT companies. As CEO of Vantor, Smoot leads efforts to develop advanced sovereign intelligence systems that integrate space and ground assets for national security. Vantor Holdings, formerly Maxar Intelligence, is an American software company specializing in spatial intelligence, Earth observation, and related software and services. Vantor's technology is used across the defense, intelligence, and commercial sectors for applications including mapping, threat monitoring, and autonomous navigation.

Under Smoot's leadership, Vantor emerged from Maxar Intelligence with the WorldView Legion constellation and three AI-powered platforms: Raptor, Sentry, and Tensorglobe. The company transitioned to a business model with 90 percent recurring revenue, establishing itself as a platform relied upon by other companies. This transformation earned Smoot the Business Leader of the Year honor at the Geospatial World Leadership Awards at the Geospatial World Forum in Amsterdam. Smoot's vision centers on delivering secure, software-enabled products that support government and commercial customers in building autonomous, interoperable systems.

Before joining Vantor, Smoot served as CEO of Riverbed Technology, where he led the company's transformation from a hardware provider to a software-focused business serving most of the Fortune 100. He also held roles as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Customer Officer at Riverbed. Prior to Riverbed, Smoot held senior positions at Salesforce, including Executive Vice President of Global Partner Sales and Executive Vice President of Market Readiness, where he optimized sales and go-to-market processes to grow the sales pipeline and accelerate revenue. These efforts contributed to a period of rapid growth at Salesforce. Before Salesforce, Smoot worked at VMware as Senior Vice President of Global Customer Operations and spent more than 12 years in senior leadership roles at Cisco.

Throughout his career, Smoot has worked closely with the defense and intelligence communities to integrate emerging technologies into national security architectures. He has been a speaker at major forums on technology and national security, including the McCain Institute Sedona Forum, where he leads discussions on the future of spatial intelligence, and the Aspen Ideas Festival, where topics have included the intersection of artificial intelligence and the future of warfare. Smoot has also served as a board member of the American Heart Association Western Affiliate and was previously chairman of the Greater Bay Area chapter.