The finalists for WashingtonExec’s Chief Officer Awards were announced March 25, and we’ll be highlighting some of them until the event takes place live, in-person May 11 at the The Ritz-Carlton in McLean, Virginia.
Next is Chief Growth Officer (Private) finalist Bridget Medeiros, executive vice president and chief growth officer at NCI. Here, she talks key recent achievements, learning from failures, career advice and more.
What key achievements did you have in 2021/2022?
Last year was an incredible year for NCI in so many ways. We were awarded the largest contract in our history to help manage the General Services Administration’s Digital Innovation for GSA Infrastructure Technologies contract. Under this $807 million contract, we are working with our GSA customer to help them achieve the significant value that digital transformation offers. It is truly gratifying to see the results of the team’s hard work and dedication, and to see our customers realize the value of their own vision and efforts.
In addition to that, we’ve experienced significant growth over the last two years, in part because of the rollout of our Empower AI Platform. The AI technology that we now offer, which is being implemented with many of our customers, provides almost endless opportunities for the federal workforce to free up their time and resources to focus on mission outcomes.
And our customers aren’t the only ones who have seen the value of our Empower AI Platform. Our industry partnerships have blossomed as well, with about $500 million in new contracts to help our partners implement AI and other technologies with their customers.
We are especially proud of our recent partnerships with companies like Leidos, GDIT and several others that are getting underway. It’s an exciting time to be working together, and we are doing some really innovative work for all of our customers.
But all of this is secondary to the achievement of our incredible NCI team that has been working so passionately on these innovations during the pandemic. What they are delivering to our customers is truly inspiring, and a lot of fun to be a part of.
What are you most proud of having been a part of in your current organization?
I am so proud of the culture of innovation we have built here at NCI. It takes collaboration and sometimes conflict to create the best solutions for our customers. I have been impressed by our team’s ability to work through really difficult challenges and remain committed to disrupting ourselves even when it is uncomfortable. And doing this hard work through the pandemic, where we had to overcommunicate because we were all working remotely. But as we worked through these issues, we have emerged a much stronger company, and a more resilient team.
What’s one key thing you learned from a failure you had?
Embrace a “fail fast” mentality. Nobody enjoys admitting to failure. However, in a culture of innovation, you have to not only accept it, but embrace the failure. We fail here at NCI every day, but we learn from those failures and apply them to the next project, so we don’t repeat that failure.
My first year at NCI was a tough one. We had 31 jobs under evaluation, and we went zero for 31. I was stunned. I knew we had to quickly figure out how to differentiate our company in our proposals and through that massive failure of losing jobs, we emerged with our AI strategy that has resulted in over $1.5 billion in new business — all including our AI offerings.
Which rules do you think you should break more as a government/industry leader?
I am not a fan of “breaking rules,” however, I am a huge fan of working with our government counterparts to educate them on how to change the rules. I truly believe that it is the contractor’s responsibility to continuously bring the best solution to our government customers and provide them with thought leadership on how emerging technologies can improve their mission.
It takes a partnership and the willingness to change how we think about work today and how we can build a more efficient and effective workforce for the future. A quote from Paul Allen that I embrace is, “If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because you are playing by the rules.” Sometimes, we have to change the rules to solve complex problems.
What’s your best career advice for those who want to follow in your footsteps?
I have three pieces of advice. The first is to learn by doing and be open to all options that provide you with the chance to learn something new. The second is, don’t forgot that your success will be defined by the people you surround yourself with — people who choose to work with you will do so because of how you treat them. And finally as a leader, learn to listen, listen, listen before you make any decisions that impact your team. Your team needs to be heard and you hired them because you value their inputs, so listen to them.