For Jacobs’ Caesar Nieves, 2021 was a year to transform, adjust and focus on culture. As he looks to the new year, he’s calling 2022 a stabilization year — a time to execute and expand on cyber and intelligence mission areas.
As senior vice president and general manager of the cyber and intelligence business, Nieves said his team spent a large portion of the year getting the culture and the people right, so everything would fall into place.
“We also had to create a true identity — who we are,” he told WashingtonExec.
The business unit has about 4,000 employees and brings in $1 billion in revenue. It was built from a handful of big acquisitions — meaning five different cultures and ways of doing business.
“I really spent the last year and a half transforming the business to compete effectively with other large industry peers utilizing our strengths in multidomain cyber and intelligence solutions,” Nieves said.
He identified which core markets and capabilities to prioritize, to focus capabilities in areas of growing client demand and where Jacobs solutions and technologies enjoy clear competitive advantage.
“And then, do we have the right culture to help drive that?“ Nieves said. So, his team set its sights on three core areas: readiness, operations and its insights group.
“We went from stove piped, functionally focused . . . to market focused and a refreshed set of capabilities that align to the market/customer needs and budgets,” Nieves said. This included focusing on core capabilities that directly met the needs of customers.
In 2022, the business unit is looking to execute on its 3-year pipeline on the mission-focused environments aligned with those capabilities. It’s also the year to continue and further expand the business unit’s higher-margin profile.
The Needs of an Emerging Market
“Much of our readiness capability area is tied to the cyber and intelligence training that we perform using proprietary solutions and technologies,” Nieves said. “It also has a number of areas that we do from a digital solutions perspective,” which includes DevSecOps and IT modernization opportunities with existing customers.
In terms of operations, this is where Nieves and his team focus on the three-letter agencies, on cyber and intelligence data and information gathering, threat hunting, monitoring and managing networks.
“If you look at the adversarial things that are going on, whether it’s the dark web, whether it’s things that are going on in Afghanistan from a watchlist perspective, we’re providing unique solutions to address all of those client challenges,” Nieves said.
The business unit also implemented an insights group, made up of data scientists and all-source intelligence personnel focused on big data, artificial intelligence and its various types including the use of machine learning to solve cyber and other mission data problems across the federal government.
Jacobs has built a hub for all types of advanced analytics building decision-making tools that allow customers to act decisively with speed and accuracy.
“We are in an emerging market — cyber and intelligence — that is evolving every day,” Nieves said. “New threats and trends . . . all focused on data and information — all areas that are priorities for the government and have budgets that continue to increase.”
To respond to these needs, Nieves and his team homed in on core areas: digital intelligence, cyber terrorism, space convergence, collection automation and advanced training — but they’re not doing it alone.
“As you can imagine, our customers and clients want to do things faster with defense and commercial state-of-the art technology, so we’ve developed partnerships with startups and the venture capital community to distribute, co-develop and integrate next-generation solutions with companies such as HawkEye360 and NetAbstraction,” Nieves said. “We have also expanded our industry partnerships with technology providers like IronNet, ForeScout and Splunk to develop integrated solutions for some of our clients’ most pressing problems.”
Considering the increasing threats and sophistication of cyberattacks, the amount of data the government consumes and produces, the need to use that data to make decisions, and the nature of today’s digital world, Jacobs is working with customers to help them be at the leading edge.
“Our job has really been that true partnership, and to share and bring in new technologies and emerging trends for them to be aware of,” Nieves said. “We consider ourselves a large solutions and technology disruptor. Working around our clients’ mission, we are transforming the way that our clients do business through the use of new technology and deeply technical advisory services.”
And that disruption was much needed during the pandemic, which accelerated technological needs as offices turned virtual and employees went remote. Aside from highly classified work that must be done in SCIFs, Jacobs has corporately embraced collaboration tools.
“We’ve had to modernize our infrastructure to keep up with the latest trends that are going on, but it’s really increased and sped up our focus of what we had planned to do three years from now and instead we are doing those things today,” Nieves said.
And in doing so, Jacobs is also upskilling its workforce to keep up with the pace of technology.
Putting National Security and People First, Always
The federal mission is a personal one to Nieves. He spent his entire life in the federal space, and his career path has always been about national security and protecting the nation.
“I grew up in the Air Force, in the military, in the GovCon world, and so that’s really all I know,” he said.
A Northern Virginia native, Nieves’ parents are Air Force veterans, and his brother is also in the Air Force.
Nieves joined the Air Force after he graduated from high school in 1992, and attended college while serving. He earned his bachelor of science degree in systems organization and management at Hampton University in 1998, at a time when systems organization was tied to people, culture and technology during the insurgence of IT and internet.
During his time in the Air Force, Nieves was responsible for the acquisition, configuration and maintenance of network operations while assigned to the Air Combat Command.
After transitioning into industry and also receiving his MBA in information systems management from Regis University in 2002, Nieves spent 10 years at Booz Allen Hamilton learning consulting and understanding how to grow and progress in certain functional areas within a business.
After Booz Allen, Nieves became a sector leader and vice president at Dell Federal responsible for customer service engagements, and then a vice president at Unisys helping transform the defense business to be more technology focused.
He also held senior-level positions with Engility and CALIBRE Systems before landing at Jacobs in 2019. Throughout his military and private sector career, he always been focused on cyber, intelligence, C5ISR and systems engineering.
“What Jacobs was committed to is building the industry’s best cyber and intelligence business that delivers on mission outcomes and drives highly profitable revenue growth at the end of the day,” Nieves said. “With my background and the discussions I had with Jacobs corporate leadership, this was the right opportunity for me to leverage Jacobs’ global scale and capabilities to transform the cyber and intelligence business.”
Today, while overseeing strategy and delivery of cyber and intelligence solutions, he leads a team supporting 150 projects in 30 locations around the globe.
“Our growth has been driven by the digitization of intelligence, collection automation and key cyber solutions like our threat-hunting capabilities and advanced cyber training,” Nieves said.
And as a military veteran, Nieves said the nature of the work at Jacobs is meaningful and continues to drive his focus going forward — which includes helping mentor and prepare the next generation of leaders.
After creating a vision and transforming the culture of the cyber and intelligence business unit, the excitement and passion of his team moves the business forward.
“The people and culture drive our success — listening, empowering, being a disruptor, making bold moves — all things I’ve learned through my career,” Nieves said. “My job over the last 5 years or so has been to expose more and more leaders and rising stars to what allowed me to be successful.”