Kim Crider is a Founding Partner of Elara Nova. She brings more than 35 years of experience managing multibillion-dollar global operations and technology programs in space, aerospace, cybersecurity, IT, data, and AI to the core team. 

A recently retired U.S. Air Force (USAF) Major General, Crider was the first Chief Technology and Innovation Officer for the newly established U. S. Space Force (USSF) where she oversaw a $2.5B Space Science & Technology portfolio and directed a $750M digital services and cybersecurity portfolio to advance the $15B global military space enterprise for 16,000 personnel. Prior to that, Crider was the Air Force Chief Data Officer, a first in the DoD, where she led the implementation of a $100M enterprise data management portfolio to assure availability of operational and business data to over 850,000 military, civilian and contract users across the Department of the Air Force’s $126B enterprise, and established a strategy for enterprise data management that has seminally influenced other DoD level data strategies and initiatives. 

Crider regularly advises US Political Appointees, Service Secretaries, Military Service Chiefs, and Civil Agency leaders, as well as international military, civilian and industry leaders, on the strategic use of technology to achieve competitive advantage. She has extensive international experience having served in Europe, Australia, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, and has been a seminal leader in global space, air and cyberspace operations, coalition and NATO command, control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and international information sharing. She built and led two multimillion-dollar specialty consulting firms focused on IT/data strategy, cybersecurity, and digital services in the education, architecture & engineering, financial services and health technology sectors. A senior engineer at the MITRE Corporation for over 15 years, Crider led the engineering for global enterprise networks, cybersecurity, and advanced surveillance radar systems across the DoD and Homeland Security.

Crider earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Duke University, an M.B.A. from Western New England University, and a Graduate certificate degree in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University. She graduated with distinction from the USAF Air Command and Staff College and the National Defense University Industrial College of the Armed Forces and has been an executive fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the University of Tennessee.