Blog
May 29, 2025
Meet Alexander Brown, Senior Principal and Applications Modernization and Innovation Lead
For more than seven years, Alexander Brown has played a pivotal role in shaping Attain Partners’ digital product strategy, driving innovation across the firm, and delivering complex technology projects for clients.
As Senior Principal and leader of both Applications Modernization Services and Innovation at Attain Partners, Alexander leads the full lifecycle of the Attain Apps product line and delivery of custom and complex technology projects. Through Attain Apps, he supports transforming core intellectual property into intuitive and scalable SaaS solutions that support research and academic institutions. With deep expertise in product management, design, development, and client engagement, Alexander has guided the creation of products such as Attain Research Performance and Attain Rate, as well as products for Attain Partners’ clients, including MHEC’s upcoming MDSIS, which will support the management of the state’s scholarships.
Through his leadership, Alexander continues to strengthen both Attain Partners’ technology portfolio and our clients’ operations with next-generation, custom-developed products and assessments.
Interested in learning more about Alexander? Read on in our interview below.
Attain Partners (AP): What sparked your interest in product development and innovation?
Alexander Brown (AB): I found my passion for building products somewhat by accident, right as I was graduating from college. I first joined a startup working as a mobile app developer and then continued as a part of IBM’s federal consulting business. The feeling of materializing something that will impact people’s lives from thin air is second only to seeing users enjoy what you’ve built. Not too long after joining IBM, I found my calling in the product development process in the product and design functions, as it brought me closer to the people who are impacted by my work.
AP: How do you leverage your role with Attain Partners to create an impact?
AB: It is always on my mind that our customers or their customers might spend either an entire day or time every day in the software we create, so if we can make that experience excellent, we have an obligation to do so.
As a practitioner, this has led me to believe that enterprise software can simultaneously serve complex use cases, deliver engaging aesthetics, and provide a usable experience. I leverage my role as the lead for our App Modernization services and Innovation department to push our teams on this goal for every customer. Obviously, we don’t demand that all customers use the processes that most often lead to that outcome; we do always try.
AP: Of our seven core values, which speaks to you the most?
AB: Even after nearly seven years with Attain, our value to Be Bold has always held a special place in my heart and mind. For our clients, our company, and our consultants, there is always an opportunity and a solution path, especially in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. To truly “Be Bold,” our job is to light that path with an unwavering commitment to deliver results for our clients.
AP: What do you find rewarding about the work you do?
AB: I have never lost my initial love for building products, but it has extended into a love for solving hard problems, usually with software. That moment, after collaborating with the customer and our amazing team members, when the path becomes clear, definitely sparks joy.
AP: How have you seen modernization efforts transform organizations?
AB: Custom development is a sticky issue for almost every organization that walks that path, which is often why we connect with customers. Some of the biggest impacts we’ve seen are around modernization of systems, which have enabled leaps forward in the ability for customers to retake ownership of maintaining their own systems.
AP: How do you keep pace with evolving technologies and industry trends?
AB: While technology’s pace of change continues to accelerate in many respects, my goal in tracking trends and developments is to find and explore durable trends to provide guidance to my clients. I generally take a somewhat crowdsourced approach by looking to my industry peers and internal teams to supplement my independent exploration. Through regular check-ins with peers who work in a wide array of domains, I can discover trends that might be coming to the public sector. Our team holds a weekly developer workshop to explore an array of topics and best practices; by sitting in on these, I can catch some of the grassroots changes that may be driven by engineers’ preferences.
Having been swept up in the early waves of blockchain as a solution, I am generally averse to taking solutions and going to look for a problem. So often, my exploration of trends and developments is in service to specific client challenges, as fresh solutions and technology can sometimes be the key to what seemed like an insurmountable challenge.
AP: What are your interests outside of work?
AB: As previously mentioned, I’ve never lost my love and passion for building things, so in the time that I am not spending with my family and young daughter, I make furniture. I started working as a kid and found my way back, and I found that I missed the act of building things.
Learn more – Alexander Brown
Alexander Brown is a Senior Principal and leader of both Applications Modernization Services and Innovation at Attain Partners. Alexander is responsible for the full product lifecycle of the Attain Apps product line and the delivery of custom and complex technology projects for our clients. Attain Apps features the firm’s cornerstone intellectual properties distilled into easy-to-use SaaS products. With an academic background in economics and experience as a product manager, designer, developer, and consultant himself, Alex works hand-in-hand with experts, designers, and developers to create products and deliver custom solutions that provide academic and research institutions with best practices and insights.
