When Liz Tribelli, chief strategy officer at Bart & Associates, started her professional career, her biggest focus was simple: find a job after graduation and stay in the Washington, D.C., area.
“I had no idea what consulting was, and after my Booz Allen corporate orientation, I went straight to my first customer site and stayed there for six months until my project had a work stop due to funding,” she told WashingtonExec.
So, Tribelli used that time to learn more about the business side of consulting and worked on her first proposal. Having spent the predominance of her college career writing papers, she found the transition to proposal writing came naturally.
And eventually, she’d climb the corporate ladder and expand her skills.
“Over the years, I benefited from leaders who pushed me out of my comfort zone, placed confidence in my abilities, and ultimately gave me opportunities to run projects, grow an administrative team, course-correct struggling accounts, and pursue new customer accounts on my own,” Tribelli said.
She enjoyed her functional area of expertise and running a P&L, but quickly discovered her true passion was in orchestrating the mechanics behind the scenes bringing together people, processes and strategy to deliver results.
When Tribelli transitioned to Hexagon US Federal from Booz Allen, she took on a fully internal role leading corporate services. During her tenure, she managed several projects that strengthened the organization’s posture, including one of the most consequential efforts of her career: Overseeing the divestiture of the Strategic Services & Solutions business, a mission-critical services line providing IT, geospatial, cyber assurance and situational awareness solutions.
“The divestiture not only involved M&A coordination and transition planning but also gave me visibility into the strategic pivots that shape organizational growth,” Tribelli said. “That experience became a real turning point, both for the company and for me.”
Not only did it give her a front row seat to a high-stakes transition process, but it also placed her squarely in B&A’s orbit and ultimately positioned her into my current role as chief strategy officer.
“Now, I get to focus on integrating and scaling those capabilities to drive growth and advance our strategic mission,” Tribelli said.
Today, she’s tasked with setting and driving B&A’s growth agenda. Its CEO’s vision is to create an organization through organic and inorganic growth that provides connected, autonomous and secure solutions in support of federal missions, Tribelli added. And with the next acquisition always on the horizon, that part of B&A’s growth trajectory is aimed at finding ways to provide scalable service offerings that align with the evolving needs of the federal civilian, defense, intelligence, homeland security and broader national security landscape.
To complement that component of the organization’s growth plan, Tribelli is focused on:
- Successfully integrating the former HS3 business and creating an operating model that focuses on growth as a combined entity of double its original size.
- Elevating capture discipline and translating that into quality proposals that presents unique solutions to difficult problems.
- Building the right partner ecosystem including small business and tech partnerships to expand capabilities and create bespoke offerings.
“Each of these ties directly to our mission to deliver high-impact solutions for federal clients and to our growth strategy of disciplined pursuit, higher win rates, and scalable delivery,” Tribelli said. “At the end of the day, I’m accountable for turning strategy into wins.”
That means making sure B&A has the right pipeline and teams in place, while telling the right stories so that its delivery excellence has more chances to shine and its impact scales.
In her personal life, Tribelli is showing up in similar ways — and giving 110%. She used to think she had a hard time saying “no” to things, and would find herself stretched thin between her personal and professional undertakings. She was often told by friends, family and loved ones that she took on too much.
“As I’ve grown into my career and into motherhood, I’ve changed that narrative,” she said. “Yes, I may do ‘a lot,’ but the reality is, giving back is a core pillar of my ethos and when I commit to doing something, I commit to it in its entirety.”
When she was in her early 20s, Tribelli decided to join her company’s Women’s Forum – but simply joining wasn’t enough. She ran it for many years. When she decided she wanted to give back to the Delta Gamma community at her alma mater, she didn’t just volunteer to help at an event, she ran the entire recruitment process for years. When her daughter joined a new school, she signed up for the PTA, and a year later, became the president. When her daughter joined a new soccer team, she became the team manager.
“So, while some people might see all of that as ‘doing too much,’ I see it as living in alignment with who I am. Giving back and showing up fully, whether it’s for my community, my family, or my colleagues,” she said. “These experiences shaped some of the most meaningful relationships in my life. It’s not about being unable to say no; it’s about saying yes with purpose.”
That mindset carries over into her professional life as well — when Tribelli commits to something, she sees it through. Whether it’s leading a community effort or driving a strategic initiative, Tribelli believes in showing up fully and leaving things better than she found them.