In a competitive government contracting market, companies work strategically, efficiently and receptively to grow — all while responding to business challenges during a pandemic, and sustaining best business practices and a talent-retaining culture. These mission-oriented private companies serving federal agencies may vary in size and solutions but relate in strong financial leadership driven by missions and customer needs. And to excel in a thriving GovCon market following a year of unprecedented obstacles, companies rely on a few things: mergers and acquisitions, strategic growth initiatives, strong operations and smooth integrations.
That doesn’t happen without financial leadership. For WashingtonExec’s Top 10 Chief Financial Officers to Watch in 2021 list, we identified the best of the best in private companies putting long-term growth, strategy and profitability first, based on their accomplishments, impact on internal financial and operational goals, and vision for the near-term future — bringing exactly what the GovCon community needs to empower competition and success.
Tom Hohman
Chief Financial Officer, IntelliBridge
Under Tom Hohman’s leadership, IntelliBridge completed two significant acquisitions within the last 12 months. Both used capital raises through debt financing, which Hohman led minimizing equity dilution.
The two acquisitions have positioned IntelliBridge to enter 2021 with extensive technology, intelligence and mission support capabilities and prime customer footprints across defense, federal law enforcement and civilian agencies.
In addition to performing due diligence and closing two acquisitions during 2020, Hohman and his team focused on developing a sound financial infrastructure to support IntelliBridge future growth. This included integrating financial teams, developing best practices/processes, and fully automating financials systems.
Why Watch
The main focus for 2021 will be to leverage the automation gains and financial infrastructure established in 2020 and continue to focus on best practices and processes and internal controls to support IntelliBridge’s growth.
The acquisitions will increase the workload and responsibilities of the financial team and it will be important in 2021 to maintain a positive culture to retain and hire the best finance team. Automation, efficient processes and good internal controls will ensure IntelliBridge will continue to scale appropriately to support a rapidly growing company.
Tamara Jack
Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Secretary & Treasurer, LMI
Tamara Jack made the most of an inauspicious start as LMI’s chief financial officer. She stepped into the role permanently in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic upended Americans’ lives and businesses.
Despite the unexpected hurdles, she helped LMI achieve a company-high $397 million in revenue. But a bigger accomplishment, she said, was supporting the workforce through the uncertainty. LMI’s headcount grew despite reduced or suspended access to customer work sites as part of new safety protocols.
“Our leadership team has been dedicated to keeping employees safe, healthy and engaged in the customer work that they value,” she said.
LMI’s average opportunity size increased from $4 million to $7 million last year, affording LMI the flexibility to accommodate people on different projects.
As board president of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s National Capital Region chapter, Jack spearheaded the creation of a career assistance task force for members in industries slowed by COVID-19. At LMI, she helped establish a COVID-19 reimbursement program. All employees were eligible to receive a stipend of up to $1,000 for costs associated with full-time telework like office materials and family support.
Why Watch
Jack’s legal and financial acumen were pivotal to LMI’s most recent corporate acquisitions, The Tauri Group and Clockwork Solutions, both of which she structured and led a due diligence team that facilitated closing the transactions ahead of schedule.
In addition, Jack helped lead financial, legal and contractual integration, as well as the assimilation of intellectual property and proprietary tools. Her team also developed an M&A playbook of best practices to support future efforts. With M&A activity heating up again in 2021, Jack has LMI prepared for any eventuality.
Debbie Ricci
Chief Financial Officer, Guidehouse
Debbie Ricci is laser focused on overseeing the financial strategy and financial operations of the business. October 2020 marked Guidehouse’s first year as a combined commercial and public consultancy platform.
When the pandemic created a need for a remote workforce, Guidehouse’s 100% cloud-based IT architecture seamlessly supported the transition of a global workforce while maintaining consistent client support and expanding services to the workforce to evolve as the market changed.
These efforts have resulted in a stronger culture, broader client support and growth, and an opportunity to co-design the work force and workspace of the future.
Ricci’s key initiatives include overseeing business process engineering and balance business operations that are equally balanced between public sector and commercial services. She also focuses on supporting growth in the federal market.
“Challenges of today are more complex than ever, and they require commercial and public partnerships to move these crippling issues forward,” Ricci added. “That’s exactly what Guidehouse is great at delivering . . . results that advance the mission of our client’s forward with positive impact.”
Why Watch
In 2021, Guidehouse will focus its efforts on growth — both organic, particularly on its expanded capabilities in the federal marketplace and managed service offerings, in addition to acquisitions related to tech enablement and market expansion.
Importantly, Guidehouse will continue its People First programs, which supported its employees during COVID. It embodies the company’s values of respect, integrity, innovation, stewardship and excellence where it matters most — with its greatest asset — its people.
“It’s exciting to be a part of this dynamic firm and leadership team,” Ricci said.
Kathie Powers
Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer, Riverside Research
Kathie Powers joined Riverside Research in early 2017. During her tenure, she restructured the CFO department, transformed systems, and created a more flexible department informed by meaningful business metrics.
In 2019, Powers implemented new financial, payroll and HR systems to help scale the rapidly growing business. 2020 was a year of working through the challenges that new systems bring on top of operational changes that came with moving the year-end, month-end and payroll periods, all at the same time.
If new system implementations were not enough, significant contract wins in both Riverside Research as well as its subsidiary, Applied Research Solutions, brought operational issues forward that needed to be solved.
As the entire company grew from the mid $80 million in 2017 to over $300 million in consolidated revenue at the end of 2020, both companies needed to rethink operational policies and procedures. This wasn’t just for the CFO department, but across the entire company.
Why Watch
2021 is all about putting financial tools into the hands of the technical staff so they can do their job as effectively as possible. The team is improving systems, working along with operations to understand their requirements, and keeping up with the ever-changing technology its work brings to its customers.
Through Powers’ experiences in operational finance roles and restructuring and managing through various stages of transition, she learned how to work with operations to successfully accomplish the goals of the organizations. These skills, honed over time, have provided her the tools necessary to transform the financial systems at Riverside Research.
Alan Stewart
Chief Financial Officer, Peraton
Alan Stewart was instrumental in Peraton’s 2020 growth — despite the overall economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stewart and his team contributed significantly to the company’s success by creating a number of new processes focused on financial performance. Those include a reduction in days sales outstanding, improved cashflow, developing a project workspace analytics dashboard application, reengineering the process of producing quarterly forecasts, and developing an enterprise-level financial consolidation model.
Stewart and his team also successfully migrated the accounting system of Solers, which Peraton acquired in 2019.
Stewart worked to change Peraton’s cost and rate structure to further increase the company’s competitiveness. The finance team also automated several accounting functions, such as AP and billing workflow, and enhanced productivity metrics.
Additionally, Stewart also implemented a new indirect rate structure. By instating more efficient and timely processing, Stewart’s efforts helped Peraton to better support its customers and missions of consequence.
Why Watch
Stewart’s main focus for 2021 will be completing the $3.4 billion acquisition of Northrop Grumman’s integrated Mission Support and IT Solutions business. As part of this large and complex integration, his team is responsible for coordinating payroll, billing, reporting and other accounting systems.
Stewart and his team have their sights set on not only a successful integration, but supporting the future growth of the combined company as well. He plans to continue to enhance metrics, improve processes and increase financial performance for Peraton.
DJ Paine
Chief Financial Officer, Avantus Federal
With over 20 years’ progressive financial leadership experience, Donald “DJ” Paine has been instrumental to the strategic growth trajectory Avantus Federal has been on.
The day-to-day life at Avantus is fraught with unique yet exciting challenges driven by the unprecedented growth of nearly 600% the company experienced since its 2018 acquisition.
Paine was key to the completion and integration of two acquisitions closed in 2020: Lucid Perspectives LLC and MissionTech Solutions LLC. He also worked with his team of 20 finance professionals to quickly adopt new technologies and revamp internal processes to continue to serve the corporation amid the pandemic. Additionally, Paine worked his team to reorganize the company’s indirect rate structure, combine the health and welfare benefit plans of six legacy-acquired companies.
Client satisfaction, internal and external, is a key focus for Paine. While always keeping an eye on long-term objectives, he methodically does his due diligence, and meticulously plans the work and works the plan to ensure he and his team provide best-in-class solutions to the organization.
Why Watch
In 2021, Paine will continue to invest in new technology solutions for the company — focusing on automation. He will also continue to help with the company’s M&A and integration strategy.
Paine continues to push innovation throughout the company using innovative techniques. He knows Avantus’ clients expect the company to be proactive. His determination and expertise as CFO are setting new standards allowing the company to move forward so Avantus can continue to acquire the tools and the talent to deliver on what is next.
Adam Omar
Chief Financial Officer, Altamira Technologies Corp.
Adam Omar joined Altamira Technologies in April 2020, and has since ensured business continuity through the pandemic and enhanced liquidity and cashflow.
Omar was instrumental in implementing three new infrastructure systems for scale to support the company’s growth, and led the acquisition of a General Services Administration blanket purchase agreement to provide a vehicle for future growth. Plus, he contributed to the award of a transformation proposal.
In terms of financial strategic initiatives, Altamira Technologies has used contracting vehicles, including Other Transaction Authority, to provide the customer flexibility and access to its technology and services.
“We offer our customers best value through pricing and competitive indirect rate structure,” Omar said.
Additionally, the company offers its employees enhanced fringe benefits to attract and retain top talent for national security work at key customers, and teams up with other contractors through contractor teaming agreements to offer customers a more comprehensive and diverse skillset and pricing.
Why Watch
In 2021, Altamira Technologies will continue to ensure employee wellbeing and safety. Omar will also focus on organic growth at the existing customers through long-term and recent contract awards, and on submitting winning proposals through suitable contracting mechanisms and pricing strategies. Plus, he’s homed in on continuing to evaluate acquisition targets that fit the company’s long-term strategic growth plan.
Jake Kennedy
Chief Financial Officer, Amentum
2020 was a productive year for Amentum’s finance organization. Effective last Jan. 31, Amentum essentially became a new company. The finance organization had to establish new functions to support the business, to ensure the proper financial capitalization of the business was in place, and that the finance organization provided the necessary resources to serve its customers optimally.
“Prior to the sale of the business from AECOM, much of the newly added financial support was provided by the corporate entity,” Jake Kennedy said. “We are very proud of the fact that we were able to stand up the new functions quickly and provide the needed value added support to our stakeholders.”
Being a stand-alone business has afforded the company the flexibility to deploy innovative technologies, including robotic process automation and data analytics to enhance Amentum’s project management delivery, cost management and cash flow. As a result, the company has realized improved margins and cash flow.
And each of Amentum’s support functions captures a significant amount of meaningful information, whether that information is related to human capital, business development or trends driving the activities company supports for the customer. Historically, this information has been captured in disparate systems and databases.
“We have focused on assimilating this information using business intelligence tools that help us better predict resource needs, identify potential risks before they occur and support strategic initiatives,” Kennedy said. “We have spent a great deal of energy distilling meaningful information for our customers and our customers are responding positively as evidenced by our positive CPAR scores.”
Why Watch
The company remains excited about the DynCorp International acquisition, which closed Nov. 20.
“Much of our team’s focus in 2021 will be about integrating the businesses to inspire the best from both organizations,” Kennedy said. “We will also continue to focus on being more efficient and providing more predictive information to our projects with our goal of always exceeding customerss expectations.”
David Adams
Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, CNSI
2020 was a tough year for many businesses. But for David Adams, his laser focus on people, process and strategy helped CNSI not just survive, but thrive.
Despite COVID-19 reshuffling priorities, CNSI closed the year with double-digit revenue growth. When the pandemic hit, Adams’ team was ready, preserving cash to protect the company’s global workforce and ensure business continuity. Amid the chaos, they overhauled processes, decreasing monthly close times by 50% while delivering actionable data on a timely basis.
Adams credits his team as the driving force behind those achievements. Strategic hiring enabled him to “build a cohesive global team.” Diverse backgrounds and complementary skill sets helped it remain agile when a critical bank temporarily closed in India because of regulatory issues.
“The team in India didn’t skip a beat — taking care of our employees and partners is at the core of what we do,” Adams said.
Adams’ financial leadership, combined with deep experience in strategic growth initiatives and strong operations, will ensure CNSI continues to deliver mission-critical products and services, including processing medical and pharmacy bills for federal employees’ work-related illnesses and injuries as well as claims processing and provider enrollments for state customers.
Why Watch
”My priority for 2021 is to maintain momentum and continue to help CNSI perform exquisitely, while making key investments in the further development of our proven product,” Adams said. Most important to him is to lead by example through his commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion within the team.
“With our current backlog of 8x annual revenue, people, processes and systems need to be optimized for a long time to come,” he added.
Robert Richards
Chief Financial Officer, BlueHalo
Finance executive Robert Richards joined BlueHalo as chief financial officer in November, overseeing financial performance of the company as well as overseeing financial planning and analysis, program control, accounting, contracts, IT, facilities, legal and treasury.
Prior to BlueHalo, he was CFO for Centauri, citing the selling of the company at the end of third quarter of 2020 to KBR, Inc., as a particular achievement during a difficult COVID-19 deal environment.
As a key member of the BlueHalo senior executive leadership team, Richards points to the completion of four acquisitions in the fourth quarter of 2020 (ATA, Brilligent Solutions, Base2 Engineering, Fortego) as major milestone and success for the BlueHalo team.
And under his financial leadership, the company also launched a new BlueHalo financial system Jan. 1 using Unanet Financials.
Why Watch
In 2021, Richards remains focused on fully integrating those four newly acquired entities to establish BlueHalo as the new premier middle-market national security company.
