Lauren Nelson,

Lauren Nelson

VP, Senior Research Director

Lauren Nelson is a senior vice president and research director at Forrester, where she leads Forrester’s Technology Architecture & Delivery service and manages the firm’s cloud and infrastructure research portfolio and analysts. In this role, Lauren sets research direction, oversees analyst coverage and quality, and works closely with clients to help them navigate foundational technology decisions that shape long‑term business outcomes.

Before moving into research leadership, Lauren spent more than a decade as one of Forrester’s lead cloud analysts, covering cloud strategy from its earliest enterprise adoption through today’s AI‑ and platform‑driven architectures. She has advised hundreds of organizations, including many Fortune 1000 companies, on cloud and broader technology strategies spanning migration, modernization, governance, and operating model change. Lauren is widely recognized as a leading authority on cloud strategy and has been frequently quoted and featured in major business and technology media, including The Washington Post, WSJ, Computer Weekly, CIO Dive, and TechTarget, for her perspectives on the evolution of cloud and infrastructure.

Lauren’s areas of expertise include cloud strategy and management, private and hybrid cloud, open-source strategy, cloud migration and portability, industry cloud, and the organizational and operating model changes required to scale modern technology platforms.

Research Coverage

Planned Research

What research can you expect from Forrester in the next 12 months? Updated biweekly, our publishing plan will keep you current with market and technology trends. Use the link below to download a list of our upcoming research.

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September 24th, 2026 3:00 PM - 3:40 PM Webinar

Adapt And Adopt: Lessons From The Navy’s High-Performance IT Transformation

How does an organization with 850,000 users and some of the world’s most demanding mission requirements innovate with startup-like speed? The US Department of the Navy tackled that challenge head on, transforming how it evaluates, adopts, and scales technology across the enterprise.Join Forrester’s Lauren Nelson and Justin Fanelli, CTO of the US Department of the Navy, as they discuss the strategies, frameworks, and leadership principles behind the Navy’s modernization journey. Drawing on Forrester’s case study, they explore how the Navy cut deployment timelines from months to weeks, launched 18 innovation pilots in a single year after five years with none, achieved Zero Trust compliance years ahead of schedule, and scaled generative AI across the organization.In this webinar, gain practical insights into the Navy’s “adapt and adopt” approach, including the Innovation Adoption Kit (IAK), methods for linking technology investments to mission outcomes, and lessons for overcoming bureaucracy, technical debt, and slow adoption cycles. Whether you’re in government or the private sector, get actionable ideas for accelerating innovation and delivering measurable business value through technology.Key takeaways: The Navy’s framework for accelerating innovation adoption at scaleHow to balance speed, security, and mission outcomesLessons learned from enterprise AI, cloud, Zero Trust, and platform modernization initiativesHow to build a culture that enables both rapid experimentation and disciplined executionTarget audience level: all levels