WT 360: The market from all angles
Nick Wakeman, Ross Wilkers
▶ Webplayer- Business
- Management
- Government
- Technology
Nick Wakeman, Ross Wilkers
▶ WebplayerWT 360 is where the conversation takes place on what’s driving the federal government market now and where the sector is going. Editor-In-Chief Nick Wakeman and Senior Staff Reporter Ross Wilkers look at the market from all angles through interviews with industry executives and informed observers of the sector.
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Sep 28, 2026 · 26:08
JPMorgan Chase stood up its $1.5 trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative in the fall of 2025 with flexibility built into the system because one approach may work for a…
Sep 21, 2026 · 36:30
At the time of this episode’s recording, the Small Business Administration had received 66,000 comments in response to its proposed sweeping rewrite of size standards for…
Sep 14, 2026 · 35:38
Digital Infuzion was born in 1999 as a health informatics company with the idea of helping organizations improve clinical research and its first client at the the National…
Aug 3, 2026 · 33:01
One fundamental change to how the government contracting ecosystem functions centers on technology development and fielding: all of that must happen quicker and on a different…
Jul 27, 2026 · 40:36
Greg Barbaccia’s impending departure from the federal chief information officer role after 18 months in it is one of a handful of headline topics that got industry’s attention…
Jul 20, 2026 · 35:40
LMI touts itself as a provider of “commercial-grade, mission-ready technology” as a description of its goal to bring fast-moving technology into federal environments with strict…
Jul 13, 2026 · 36:07
If 2025 and 2026 have told us anything, it is that the government no longer sees the decades-long status quo of acquisition as acceptable anymore because the world is too…
Jun 29, 2026 · 30:58
By joining Constellis as CEO in February, Dan Gelston took the helm at a company with a vision of moving beyond a reactive security model to a more proactive and tech-enabled…
Jun 22, 2026 · 39:59
The 2026 Washington Technology Top 100 rankings are now live for everyone to use in their own research of the federal market’s largest technology and services contractors, plus…
Jun 15, 2026 · 39:17
The second Trump administration has outpaced the first one in terms of executive orders signed by the president, but this current tenure has put more focus on government…
Jun 8, 2026 · 38:07
We have taken a deeper dive into the government market’s private investment landscape in recent weeks by hearing the viewpoints of a banker and then a venture capital specialist.…
Jun 1, 2026 · 33:15
If it feels like investors everywhere have some curiosity about the defense tech landscape, then it’s because more of them both want to increase their knowledge and sometimes…
May 18, 2026 · 35:35
The window for government contractors, especially those in defense and space technology, to go public is open again as several listings over the past 12 months show and SpaceX’s…
May 11, 2026 · 33:10
The federal government’s lead agency for domestic cybersecurity and infrastructure protection matters has only completed its first week of being fully back up and running after…
May 4, 2026 · 39:56
Once again, the U.S. government is accusing China of being among several foreign entities that are looking to steal proprietary information on artificial intelligence models from…
Apr 27, 2026 · 26:24
Decision authority shifts, the government acting like a venture customer and data transparency being the standard mode of operations are examples of how the old formulas of…
Apr 20, 2026 · 19:35
Noblis was stood up in 1996 as a science, technology and strategy organization that works with federal agencies on creating and rolling out solutions for some of their most…
Apr 13, 2026 · 30:54
While the 20th century’s Space Race was strictly head-to-head, the 21st century variant is much more complex and multipolar as private businesses and nations are looking to lead…
Mar 30, 2026 · 32:40
Cuts to contract and grant spending, including outright cancellations, were a feature of the Department of Government Efficiency’s activities during the first year of the Trump…
Mar 23, 2026 · 36:38
GovCon finds itself in a strange situation where the Homeland Security Department does not have a budget and is in a shutdown, but the three immigration agencies are still…
Mar 16, 2026 · 36:43
Science Applications International Corp. can move ahead on their big decision points now that it has a permanent chief executive, which presents at least one element of certainty…
Mar 9, 2026 · 23:16
The Defense Department and Anthropic are on opposite ends of a nasty disagreement, with government-wide and industry-wide implications, over what the company’s Claude large…
Mar 2, 2026 · 32:07
Data labeling refers to the practice of tagging and identifying raw data in order to add meaningful context, of which U.S. government agencies openly admit they struggle with and…
Feb 23, 2026 · 29:57
Humans in the loop are, in theory, supposed to be as much a part of all conversations surrounding the use of generative artificial intelligence tools as a way to safeguard…
Feb 9, 2026 · 31:25
Consolidation and “common goods and services” dominate the discussion around how the federal government wants to revamp its contracting functions, including moves to put the…
Feb 2, 2026 · 26:26
Pressure points on defense companies from their Pentagon customer to invest more and do business differently than before are coming from multiple levels of leadership, including…
Jan 26, 2026 · 37:26
Commercial technology is front-and-center of everyone’s mind across the public sector ecosystem these days, but history shows that agencies have moved slow on the acquisition and…
Jan 12, 2026 · 33:44
Post-shutdown recovery is one item carrying over from calendar year 2025 into 2026 and the chance of another funding stoppage happening on Jan. 30 is not zero percent. That…
Jan 5, 2026 · 35:10
The spring of 2024 was a turning point for Nightwing, when the business separated out of its then-parent RTX to become a standalone company focused on cybersecurity and…
Dec 15, 2025 · 37:23
Most years of a presidential transition result in some adjustments by the government contracting community as a new administration settles in, but 2025 presented more variables…
Dec 8, 2025 · 25:31
American Systems opened for business in 1975 and transitioned to an employee stock ownership plan 15 years later, a model that makes it one of the market’s largest 100% ESOP…
Dec 1, 2025 · 31:04
In his Nov. 7 address to industry, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth laid out what the U.S. military wants from its contractors and wholesale changes the Pentagon is carrying out to…
Nov 24, 2025 · 23:29
The 2025 government shutdown is on-record as the largest ever at 43 days, which means the recovery period will last well into the spring and presents a risky environment for…
Nov 17, 2025 · 30:50
Commence is a newish company looking to help federal agencies, state and local governments, and private sector entities harness technology with the goal of helping care providers…
Nov 10, 2025 · 36:20
Amentum is marking one year since its merger with Jacobs' government businesses to create a $14 billion-annual revenue company whose strategy centers around engineering and…
Nov 3, 2025 · 54:19
The government shutdown is now in week number four, which gives us a checkpoint to gauge the impacts so far and those to come for federal agency operations. Part one of this…
Oct 27, 2025 · 18:28
The business of federal contracting does not entirely come to a halt during government shutdowns, and arguably picks up in other ways, but financial concerns certainly remain…
Oct 20, 2025 · 36:27
Tria Federal’s acquisition of Softrams back in the spring transformed the acquirer almost overnight into a 1,500-person team that looks to blend technical offerings and…
Oct 9, 2025 · 18:10
Stop-work orders from government agencies to their partners in industry do not, in fact, entirely pause the business of federal contracting as companies have plenty to do as they…
Oct 6, 2025 · 38:53
All government shutdowns do end at some point, no matter how dark and gloomy things may feel, and all businesses are charged with navigating both today’s environment and…
Sep 29, 2025 · 37:02
Booz Allen Hamilton has invested in 17 startups since the launch of its venture capital fund in 2022, which initially had $100 million to work with and is now tripled in size to…
Sep 22, 2025 · 32:01
Government workforces absolutely have been disrupted here in 2025 through layoffs and other exits of employees from agencies, but there is a future to talk about and especially…
Sep 15, 2025 · 30:12
In his first year as CEO, Ron Ash of Accenture Federal Services has been positioning the company for growth opportunities that focus on Trump administration priorities for…
Sep 8, 2025 · 29:40
Needless to say, the 2025 presidential transition has put technology higher on the agenda when talking about the business of government and how those tools can be a lever for…
Aug 25, 2025 · 31:36
Government contractors struggle with exit and succession planning for multiple reasons, while the majority of transaction activity in the market these days has some level of…
Aug 18, 2025 · 41:30
For technology startups, the closure of an external investment round should be considered only the beginning of a new cycle in their strategies to grow the business and…
Aug 11, 2025 · 38:42
Every founder of a company faces this quandary: What does our next phase look like? How do we get there? Who can help us get there? Sophia Harris and her leadership team at ODRG,…
Aug 4, 2025 · 33:48
Reindustrialization is a catch-all description of moves by government and industry to reinvigorate domestic manufacturing amid other countries’ investments on that front,…
Jul 28, 2025 · 21:08
Uber is the newest example of a consumer technology company entering into a government-wide arrangement with the General Services Administration, which negotiated the pact on…
Jul 21, 2025 · 26:57
Government contractors are under a different sort of microscope for not just how they do their work supporting agencies’ missions, but also how they talk about themselves out in…
Jul 14, 2025 · 41:18
Companies in the government market have to make big “Sliding Doors”-type decisions all the time on which paths to choose for themselves and those to turn away from. Aaron Myers…
Jul 7, 2025 · 30:46
Iran is known to be one of the world’s major nation-state actors in cyberspace and that fact has returned to the forefront since its war with Israel started on June 13. David…
Jun 30, 2025 · 50:23
The Veterans Affairs Department is coming under heightened scrutiny after it emerged that artificial intelligence likely played a role in VA’s decisions on which contracts to cut…
Jun 23, 2025 · 22:53
Each annual release of the Top 100 also provides a jumping-off point to start pondering what the next year’s rankings could look like and how today’s macrotrends shape it. For…
Jun 16, 2025 · 20:34
Edition number 32 of the Washington Technology Top 100 rankings is now live for all to use in researching the federal market's largest technology and services contractors, and…
Jun 9, 2025 · 27:21
The U.S. defense landscape has a few mainstays whose corporate headquarters are in another country and the reverse is very much true as well regardless of geopolitical and…
Jun 2, 2025 · 35:49
As Trump’s White House sees things, the General Services Administration should take on substantially all of the responsibility for managing the federal government’s acquisitions…
May 19, 2025 · 25:44
Golden Dome is the U.S.’ newest ambitious attempt to create a multi-layered defense system for protecting the mainland from incoming ballistic, hypersonic, cruise and other types…
May 12, 2025 · 27:45
Specifics of what the structural changes to how the federal government buys goods and services for industry remain under construction, but companies now have some clear themes…
May 5, 2025 · 21:10
The pace of change is accelerating in the market, which means we can always take a step back to understand where those changes have come from and how that drives business…
Apr 28, 2025 · 21:13
In typical times, there is no going back after an agency tells a company their contract is being terminated for convenience of the government, which starts a settlement process…
Apr 21, 2025 · 19:24
Google set off quite the reaction when the tech giant’s offer to discount its cloud-based productivity suite at 71% for all federal agencies was accepted by the General Services…
Apr 16, 2025 · 36:22
The nature of mergers and acquisitions in the government market is changing and our 2024 roundup of closed transactions further illustrates that evolution toward…
Apr 14, 2025 · 38:54
Public company acquirers ( unicorns ) certainly get everyone’s attention, but our 2024 M&A Roundup shows how the private equity collective continues to be the majority buyer and…
Apr 9, 2025 · 29:38
Few companies have closed as many acquisitions as CACI International. CACI has three acquisitions on our 2024 M&A Roundup : Azure Technologies, Applied Insight and Quandrint.…
Apr 7, 2025 · 48:12
In each year from 2004 and onward, WT publishes a report and augmenting analysis that catalogs merger-and-acquisition activity in the government market as a way to trace the…
Mar 31, 2025 · 24:15
Even in a period of unprecedented change across the GovCon ecosystem, industry observers across-the-board remain certain that agencies and contractors alike will have more supply…
Mar 27, 2025 · 28:10
Thales North America has a significant U.S. presence with thousands of employees and customers ranging from the Defense Department to NASA and the Federal Aviation…
Mar 24, 2025 · 23:25
Private capital is a broad umbrella term for several different types of investment and ownership models in business, but private equity is the one that looms the largest over…
Mar 17, 2025 · 28:05
When publicly traded companies release their financial results, the most interesting aspect of the conference calls have little to do with the numbers themselves and everything…
Mar 10, 2025 · 39:10
It goes without saying that success in the government contracting ecosystem requires more than just having good methodologies and processes, both of which are significantly…
Mar 3, 2025 · 34:25
Few doubt that quantum computing will have a tremendous impact on the tech world and beyond. But as NextGovFCW's emerging technology reporter Alexandra Kelley explains in this…
Feb 24, 2025 · 31:26
Ernst & Young needs little introduction as one of the world’s professional services Big Four firms, which gives it reach into every industry and ways of taking lessons learned…
Feb 17, 2025 · 22:24
Government contractors reside in the unique intersection of macroeconomics and industrial policy, both of which are relevant in the conversation surrounding President Trump’s use…
Feb 10, 2025 · 17:10
The Department of Government Efficiency is the new Trump administration’s main vehicle for at least starting the process of change at many federal agencies and on a very fast…
Feb 3, 2025 · 27:35
The first two weeks of President Trump’s second but non-consecutive term in office have brought with it a breathless pace of executive orders and other actions that government…
Jan 27, 2025 · 21:16
Many questions about talent in public sector often center around the hiring process and what happens after the offer letter is signed, that being the onboarding phase. Where…
Jan 13, 2025 · 17:59
Jacobs carved out its Critical Mission Solutions and Cyber and Intelligence businesses in late 2024, but still remains a technology company for the markets it does work in. In…
Jan 6, 2025 · 35:53
The ongoing transition to a Trump 2.0 administration is far from the only key happening that government contractors have to take note of and follow closely with 2025 now…
Dec 16, 2024 · 35:54
The ongoing White House transition is unprecedented because before Donald Trump’s (re)-election in November, Grover Cleveland’s win in 1892 was the last time a president was…
Dec 9, 2024 · 26:51
When Leidos unveiled its current structure in the fall of 2023 , chief executive Tom Bell emphasized repeatability as how the company would approach its digital transformation…
Dec 2, 2024 · 20:18
Some jobs will require college degrees for as far as the eyes can see. But in this episode, NextgovFCW’s tech workforce reporter Natalie Alms describes how what government and…
Nov 25, 2024 · 22:08
Big mergers that essentially create new companies require a lot of work to harmonize all of the people, processes and resources into something more cohesive across the…
Nov 18, 2024 · 27:24
One of the government market’s most-anticipated transactions closed on Sept. 30 when what we can call “Old Amentum” joined forces with Jacobs’ federal-facing units. This episode…
Nov 4, 2024 · 31:21
Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University, shares the findings of a new report that identifies areas of concern…
Oct 30, 2024 · 19:32
Bryce Technology has been named to the Washington Technology Fast 50 list for four consecutive years, climbing to No. 11 in 2024. For this episode, Bryce Tech's founder and CEO…
Oct 28, 2024 · 30:41
Companies can get distracted a lot when carrying out their strategy and vision, which often times leaves them vulnerable to losing market share to competitors and unexpected…
Oct 21, 2024 · 39:14
It is not just appearances that suggest a robust government technology market, in fact there are numbers and patterns we can point to here in week number four of federal fiscal…
Oct 7, 2024 · 20:52
Understandably so, the names of global tech giants are often at the center of the conversation surrounding how the U.S. government is putting its CHIPS Act funding to work…
Sep 30, 2024 · 27:13
Boeing’s current difficult period is well-documented and acknowledged by its new CEO Kelly Ortberg, who joined in August to lead the turnaround effort. Audrey Decker essentially…
Sep 23, 2024 · 16:40
Artificial intelligence is not just a technology that government contractors provide their customers, but also is becoming a bigger piece of internal operations. Kim Koster, vice…
Sep 16, 2024 · 26:43
Frustration builds up when things go wrong in the world of government acquisition and that feeling is true on both sides: the customer and contractor alike. Adam Rentschler and…
Sep 9, 2024 · 36:55
Many of the ingredients for creating more connective tissues between business, government and society are already in place even with so much commentary and conversation around…
Aug 26, 2024 · 28:20
Next to satellite imagery, drones have been the major technological focal point for the war in Ukraine and U.S. Army leaders have been looking to learn quickly from how the…
Aug 19, 2024 · 26:37
Dennis Kelly's public sector career journey began in the Navy and has continued as a senior executive for multiple contractors, which he led through periods of growth to be…
Aug 12, 2024 · 26:15
Raft's first six years of being in business are a lot like what many startups encounter, in that much of the growth has been bootstrapped and in very select corners of the market…
Aug 5, 2024 · 29:43
Much of the world shut down on July 19 after cybersecurity company CrowdStrike distributed a faulty software update that essentially rendered 8.5 million Microsoft Windows…
Jul 29, 2024 · 29:41
Generative artificial intelligence is only the newest example of how federal agencies have different comfort levels with adopting new technologies and in this instance,…
Jul 22, 2024 · 36:48
Just about every conversation about technology across the federal landscape seems to begin and end with generative artificial intelligence, a tool that spurs fears and hopes all…
Jul 15, 2024 · 31:18
Byron Bright described KBR as a "big, large science, technology and engineering company" to open a presentation for investors in May on the vision and blueprint for the entire…
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