As president of RealmOne, Matt Ford brings 20 years of experience in the intelligence community and a passion for supporting critical national missions.
His career path was shaped in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when he was preparing to enter college and, like millions of others, felt the lasting impact of that day.
“I had close family friends who worked in this industry and remember the weight they clearly carried in the months after the attacks, but also the deep love of the mission they supported,” he told WashingtonExec. “I knew I wanted to be a part of it.”
When Ford obtained his security clearance, he was working on a small materials contract and then moved into an analyst role.
“Once there, I volunteered to be a Deputy PM above my usual duties,” he said. “That gave me the experience I needed to pursue my PMP and move into a Program Management position.”
His portfolio eventually expanded to include satellite projects, mission enclave management and early cloud initiatives. Before joining RealmOne, he managed programs across the intelligence community supporting infrastructure, development and data management.
“As my portfolio grew, so did my network and partner companies – including RealmOne, formerly known as iNovex, which was a small company at the time and one of our top teammates,” Ford said.
He watched RealmOne grow into a leading prime and joined as chief operating officer in 2018, when the company had about 50 employees. Since then, he has driven alignment across the enterprise to strengthen its vision and customer support.
Below, Ford shares why he chose this mission-focused path, how he keeps customer priorities first and where he sees growth opportunities ahead.
Why was this the path you chose, and how influential was it to your career?
This path allowed me to work with great people, with freedom to shape a company going from being a small to midsize business and focus on truly important projects that make a difference. I chose this industry, it didn’t happen by chance, and every day I am eager to contribute to it. Along the path of my career, I have had dozens of mentors, bosses, and colleagues who left deep impressions on me, and who helped me become the leader I am today. While the specific roles I’ve held have been great, I’d be nowhere without those people who took the time with me. Their positive influence is something I hope to continue paying forward in my career and life.
Do you have a personal connection to the current mission you support? If so, please explain.
I have family members who have served in the military who have left their own impressions on me, and a deep-rooted love for our country. I’ve supported the same big-picture mission for my entire career as new technology has emerged, adversaries have evolved, and priorities have shifted.
What are your current top priorities and responsibilities? How do these relate to your company’s overall mission/growth strategy?
My top priority is to keep RealmOne focused on our customer’s evolving priorities and drive successful mission outcomes by aligning our talented workforce with those priorities. My responsibility is to maintain an agile and innovative environment to achieve that priority. That may sound simple, but we serve our nation’s security by adapting to ever-evolving technology and emergent threats. Now, we obviously have strategic goals as a company, but they themselves align back to that top priority. What challenges and threats keep our customers up at night? If we help solve those challenges and help defeat those threats, our customers sleep a bit better, and good business outcomes follow.
Where do you and your team see growth opportunities in your current field or portfolio you support, or what do you anticipate to be your customers’ top pain points?
Obviously, AI, and more specifically, GenAI, will continue to emerge and influence how we work – changing the threats facing our nation and the ways in which we defeat them. In the asymmetrical threat environment, America is challenged to ensure ethical use of advancing technologies while also retaining dominance. This includes preventative counter measures, as cyber-attacks against defense systems and critical infrastructure have only increased in frequency and complexity.
Automated Risk Management Framework, a unified network infrastructure, and Zero-Trust are all critical, and will present significant growth opportunities for RealmOne. The sharing of transformative capabilities, pillar services, and intelligence must get smarter and faster, while always keeping compliance at the forefront.
How are you and your team planning to address/prepare for these opportunities?
We place a huge emphasis on employee training. It’s one of the biggest areas of investment as a company year-over-year, and the fruit of that investment manifests daily in how our teams think and respond to the complex challenges. For our entirety as a company, we have also invested in our innovation infrastructure in the strong belief that providing talented and innovative team members with the tools and resources to ideate brings real solutions to our customers.
How important is mentorship & networking in GovCon? Were they influential to your career?
It’s everything. Specifically, being a coachable and humble person has served me well – and will continue to serve me well in every aspect of my life. I can learn something from anyone, and whether you’re a colleague, team member, partner in the industry, or customer – I’m glad of any opportunities to hear from you.
What is something most people don’t know about you personally?
Frankly, there probably isn’t much. I’ve been fortunate to live an integrated life and what I mean by that is I get to be me – the husband, father, and leader everywhere I go. My days are spent supporting my wife and children in their pursuits, working out, and working with the team at RealmOne. Just like I set ambitious goals for our company, I set personal ones to push myself beyond my comfort zone. For example, I’ve run ultra-marathons and set a long-term goal of completing a 100-mile race. I’ve reached the 50-mile mark twice, and while the training commitment is daunting, that challenge still motivates me—much like the stretch goals we set in business to drive growth and innovation