Yvonne Vervaet joined Nightwing as its chief growth officer in April, where she’s leading strategic vision, business development, organic growth and new capabilities across the intelligence community, federal civilian, Defense Department and commercial markets.
“Being a hyper-competitive person, the Nightwing opportunity was all about the challenge,” she told WashingtonExec. “This company has great bones: the best customers, supporting the most critical missions, great past performance, one of the most advanced technology investment programs (IRAD), a deep commitment to mission success, and most importantly, we have a team of some of the most talented engineers, technologists, analysts and other personnel needed to grow this company.”
Vervaet has been supporting the aerospace, defense and intelligence communities for over 30 years. Most recently, she spent 27 years focused on proposals, capture and business development in roles of increasing responsibility. And over the last 15 years, she’s built high-performing growth teams across the industry.
“Foundations of my early career were in finance, program control, pricing and program management. These have given me a solid foundation and understanding of program execution challenges, which I think is unique for a BD person,” Vervaet added.
She previously served as senior vice president for growth and capabilities and chief growth officer at MANTECH, where she spent seven years helping rebuild the company from a major market downturn, which occurred in the OCONUS support drawdown.
This success uniquely positioned her for the opportunity at Nightwing, she said. The company, having just recently divested from Raytheon, is at a major inflection point in its growth strategy and approach. “I feel lucky to bring the lessons learned from my previous experiences to help navigate the company through those challenges,” Vervaet said.
She’s currently focused on accelerating the company’s growth strategy post-divestiture, with an eye on aligning Nightwing’s core cyber, electronic warfare and engineering capabilities, and the addressable markets associated with each.
“My goal is to expand and accelerate the growth of our backlog and strengthen our position as a trusted mission partner to our customers,” Vervaet said.
Vervaet and her team also see all things EW and space resilience as major growth opportunities as they work to strengthen Nightwing’s capabilities and position in these markets. That includes focusing on vulnerability research, cyber resilience, smart engineering (including artificial intelligence).
“This includes streamlining the entire BD deal identification, vetting, and maturation processes, realigning job functions, providing training to our personnel needed for their new roles, and creating an overall ‘culture of winning’ where people are driven by the success of the mission,” Vervaet added.
And while her three-decades of experience and expertise in the field prepared her for her current role, the people along the way have — and do — make a difference, especially in GovCon.
“I have been very lucky from my early career forward to have great mentors,” she said. “To me, a great mentor is someone who sees your potential and not only provides coaching and support, but more importantly provides you with the opportunities to prove yourself, so ‘stretch’ assignments or big projects that push the bounds of your capabilities.”
In addition, Vervaet has benefited greatly from the use of a professional coach. She recommends the book, “What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There,” as it has proven true in her case.
“The grit, agility, and hard work that skyrocketed my early career needed to be refined to make it to the next level; I see a lot of people struggle with this,” she said. “The move from ‘do-er’ to ‘player-coach’ or leader can be very difficult when you are used to getting things done on your own. I really enjoy paying it forward to younger professionals.”
Fun fact: Vervaet is a self-proclaimed “fierce competitor” with a softer side. She’s a mother of three children, including one who was adopted at 4 years old; step-mom of two; and dog mom of five rescue dogs. “I am personally driven to make the world a kinder, better place in any way possible. Kindness, love, and respect are not like pieces of pie . . . if you give them, you don’t have LESS to give . . . you have just made the world a better place,” she said.