Vasili Ikonomidis
CIO, Empower AI
Not only has Empower AI rebranded from the former NCI, but the company has also transformed and won its largest contract in company history – $807 million from the General Services Administration’s Office of Digital Infrastructure Technologies.
Thanks to the leadership of Vasili Ikonomidis, these initiatives and several others helped the company smoothly transition from an IT services provider to a full-scale technology firm.
For the GSA DIGIT program, a mission-critical initiative notable for its significant scale to harness artificial intelligence technologies, Ikonomidis played a key role from the start. He led the entire technology and service desk transition from the incumbent contractor, in which GSA said it was the “smoothest transition” it had ever been through.
During that same time, Ikonomidis and his team outsourced IT service desk operations for employees and customers to Red River which drove down ticket closing times and improved customer service. They also onboarded more than 200 employees with the new GSA contract, moved from traditional land lines to RingCentral for $50,000 in monthly savings, and participated in a companywide migration to Microsoft Azure services.
Empower AI also moved to a new, state-of-the-art facility in Richmond, Virginia, to better support its Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services customers. These initiatives helped the company save more than $1 million.
“Vasili has a unique ability of combining his strong operational, technical knowledge and capabilities with a deep understanding of the user experience and their needs,” said Paul Dillahay, Empower AI president and CEO. “And when you add in his sincere, tireless and steadfast dedication to the teams he leads, it has a positive impact on everyone around him, as well as our business.”
Why Watch
Looking ahead, Ikonomidis and his team will be developing and implementing new AI capabilities internally to bring new value to the business, while also working with developers to further evolve AI tools and other technologies for federal clients. Other 2022 initiatives include upgrading and migrating the company’s financial systems to ServiceNow and Costpoint, and further enhancing device and network security with Okta and other tools.
“We believe that AI will play the most significant role in advancing the transformation and modernization of our federal IT systems, as well as our own business,” Ikonomidis said. “It’s exciting to be leading these efforts not only for our government clients, but for our employees as well.”