Marco Romani
Marco Romani is currently an independent contractor advising startups working with the Department of War. He is a 30-year veteran of the United States Navy, retiring as a Captain in 2017. On active duty, his first assignment was a Bombardier/Navigator in the A6E Intruder. Follow on assignments with Joint Chiefs of Staff Assessment directorate as a Nuclear War Planner, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Space and Electronic Warfare directorate as an action officer. After his CNO N6 tour Marco transitioned to the Naval Reserve. As a Lieutenant through Commander, he served with CSG-7 and CSG-11. While with CSG-11 he volunteered to serve at the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid air base in Qatar during dual carrier operations in support of OIF and OEF. He then was assigned to PACFLT where he worked in the current and future plans group. During this period, he also qualified as an Air Operations Center Watch Floor Director and Maritime Operations Center Crisis Action Team Chief. In 2016 he went back on active duty for an assignment in CNO Carrier Aviation the as the MQ-25 Stingray requirements officer where he led a team chartered to accelerate the acquisition of the first carrier based unmanned aircraft helping to set the strategy for Naval Aviation through the 21st century. The MQ-25 program is projected to cost over $10B.
In his civilian career Marco worked at Applied Materials (a semi-conductor capital equipment company), BARRA (a fintech company), founded the first indoor go-karting company in the US, founded a management consulting firm purchased by The Boston Consulting Group, founded a quantitative hedge fund, purchased and ran an automotive tool manufacturing company sold to a private equity firm in 2022. From 2019 to 2023 he was COO of OKSI, a small non-traditional defense contractor. OKSI develops autonomous command and control algorithms enabling fully autonomous control of teamed dissimilar unmanned vehicles, GPS denied navigation solutions, and low-cost precision guidance kits for previously unguided weapons. He accepted the role as the Director of the Central Coast Tech Bridge at the Naval Postgraduate School in September 2023 where he is focused on bringing dual use technology into operational use within the Department of the Navy. From July to December 2024, he was temporarily assigned to HQ Naval Forces Europe (NAVEUR) advising NAVEUR on the use of unmanned systems. Marco left government service in September of 2025. He is also a mentor at Stanford University assisting with Hacking for Defense (H4D) classes since 2019. Multiple H4D teams he has mentored have gone on to raise venture capital. In addition, he has mentored multiple startups working with the Defense Innovation Unit and the National Security Innovation Network.
His hobbies include, skiing, flying, collecting cars, and automobile racing.