From a mechanical engineering student to company founder and expert in supply chain transformation, Sasha Pailet Koff, B.S. ‘97, has always maintained the same perspective on her role as an engineer: “We’re built to solve the problem, not fall in love with the solution.”
It’s this tenacity for solving problems that initially piqued her interest in engineering while attending a Society for Women Engineers event in her hometown of New Orleans. Today, drawing on an engineer’s mindset strengthened during her undergraduate studies at the George Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science (GW Engineering), Koff helps leaders across a number of industries solve their problems through digital transformation practices and innovative supply chain strategies.
“I think the four years spent [at GW] were not about getting the right answer all the time, but developing a systematic way of taking a problem, breaking it down, and starting to really wrestle with it in terms of potential solutions,” said Koff.
On May 15, Koff will take the stage as this year’s keynote speaker at the GW Engineering graduation celebration, where she will share how her own winding career journey exposed her to a wide range of experiences and how that breadth ultimately strengthened her path. She will encourage the Class of 2026 to embrace uncertainty and not be afraid of taking the non-linear path in their careers.
Family ties
GW wasn’t originally on Koff’s list of colleges, but a chance suggestion from a family friend on GW’s admission team pushed Koff to visit the campus. Drawn to the engineering school’s small size, Koff made her decision after a conversation with the Director of Advising and Administrative Records, Howard Davis. “It felt like I was going to have an advocate on campus, and that is what really did it,” she recalls.
Her connection to our tight-knit community has been strong since day one. Koff met her husband, also a mechanical engineering student, at orientation, and they are now proud parents of a GW Engineering student. She shares how exciting it is to hear her daughter taking advantage of the unique opportunities that come from attending a university in the nation’s capital, like studying at the Library of Congress or watching a movie at the Air & Space Museum.
GW’s location in Washington, D.C. helped Koff land an internship at the White House. This led to work for the U.S. Navy before her first full-time job at a government consulting firm, which she landed thanks to an alumnus working at the firm who returned to GW on a recruitment mission.
Hands-on learning was another defining aspect of Koff’s GW Engineering education–one that she feels helped set her apart from peers at other universities. From building a solar car and racing it around the world to joining the Theta Tau engineering fraternity, she immersed herself in experiences that brought theory to life and expanded her network.
For Koff, being this year’s commencement speaker is her own opportunity to inspire. She explains: “It’s about giving back and hoping that at some point in the future, there will be other people who continue to give back in the same way that I am and will help to be that voice.”
A journey marked by milestones
With over 25 years of experience across technology, consumer goods, healthcare, and specialty chemicals, Koff’s career demonstrates the value of a meandering path. Her voracious desire to learn, which she feels all engineers share, enabled her to pivot quickly between industries.
Koff has been recognized as one of the Supply Chain Digital Magazine’s Top 100 Women in Supply Chain and as a 2025 New Jersey Top Innovator to Watch. She spent more than two decades at Johnson & Johnson, most recently serving as Vice President of Supply Chain Technology for Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health.
At Johnson & Johnson, a mentor of hers told her that future supply chain leaders would be those with broad careers and encouraged her to keep learning, even when others question her path. No matter the industry, she focuses on applying tech to support the effectiveness of the process and the people she leads.
Early in her career, Koff used tech to improve individual parts of the supply chain, such as distribution or sourcing. As tech advanced, it became possible to collect and consolidate data from all these previously isolated areas, allowing her to visualize how every part of the supply chain fit together.
This holistic view helped her identify ways to optimize the entire supply chain at once. With the emergence of analytics, she could not only understand the flow of information but also begin to anticipate and predict future challenges. She feels that her unconventional career path helped her lean into analytics and be prepared to leverage emerging artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
After Johnson & Johnson, she became the Senior Vice President of Data, Analytics, and Automation at Dell Technologies. She currently serves as the President of So Help Me Understand, LLC, a boutique advisory firm, Managing Director of the Cyber Readiness Institute, where she helps advance practical cybersecurity solutions for businesses worldwide, and a Partner with The Masters of Supply Chain, an executive network focused on strengthening clarity, collaboration, and resilience across complex global operating environments.
Koff notes that the nature of work will inevitably change due to tech, but at the end of the day, she views AI as another tool to be harnessed for problem-solving. Studying engineering is key to understanding how to use these tools effectively, she says.
“Tools are going to continue to get better at helping you accomplish goals, but you have to have this mindset in terms of how to think about the problem. That’s not going to go away,” Koff said.
Through So Help Me Understand, Koff has observed that the C-suite executives most successful at leading through change are those who read books unrelated to their work. Continuous learning enables them to view problems from different angles and rethink their approach if needed. She offers the same advice to students carving their career path.
Koff encourages GW Engineering students to define success for themselves by consistently reflecting on their values throughout their careers, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the curiosity that drew them to engineering.
“Even though you’re graduating, that’s not the end of your learning journey; it’s the beginning of it,” Koff concluded.