Stephen Kehoe
Vice President of Pricing, SMX
Stephen Kehoe’s biggest achievement has been harnessing over 25 years of pricing experience with a variety of companies, to develop pricing techniques and a thorough understanding of how to create winning proposals.
Through these techniques, Kehoe has helped government companies from small to large understand industry-leading pricing strategies and how to achieve significant cost reductions. Kehoe understands that pricing and compliance is a critical piece of the proposal process.
In his role at SMX as vice president of pricing, Kehoe leads his team to ensure deadlines and pricing parameters are clearly identified and defined.
The role of the pricing department has completely evolved over the past two decades throughout the GovCon industry, said SMX Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Koczan.
“Originally relegated to the ‘back office’ with a focus on compliance, pricing teams have evolved to become a critical component of a company’s successful bid/capture/proposal process,” he said. “We rely heavily on the pricing team to bring strategic insights, creative solutions, and technical financial expertise to each bid, and they actively engage with the Growth Office throughout the lifecycle of the capture process.”
One of Kehoe’s most notable recent achievements was being an integral part of the SMX team that successfully defended and won the competitive recompete award of the estimated $2.3 billion task order titled AFRICOM Reconnaissance Intelligence Exploitation Services. This win is a crucial contract for SMX and an opportunity to continue to support the critical missions USAFRICOM executes. The analysis tools and procedures developed through this proposal will serve as a foundation for pricing and contracts in the future.
“Steve and the team of analysts under his purview are an integral part of shaping capture strategy and improving our ability to win across various and complex addressable markets, and their influence has helped SMX successfully capture billions of dollars of awards over the past few years,” Koczan said. “We couldn’t have done it without them.”
Why Watch
In 2023, Kehoe and his team are heavily focused on partnering with the chief growth office to enhance and refine the proposal process as well as ensuring a timely and compliant proposal submission. Kehoe will focus on leading his team with an emphasis on continual development and enhancement of pricing models and tools to drive processes for the proposal teams and clients.
These enhancements will provide a clear and concise understanding of pricing and the proposed solution. The updated process will also require implementation of new policies and procedures, to ensure adherence to government regulations and internal policies. This will serve as a key part of the SMX operations, given the heavily regulated and complex environments in which supported clients reside.
“At SMX, we believe the enhancements we create will provide our clients with a faster and more effective analysis of cost realism,” Kehoe said. “Achieving these improvements while working alongside a company known for their knowledge and understanding of government regulations.”