Executive search for prime and subcontractor operators serving DoD, Space Force, the Intelligence Community, and civilian agencies. Cleared workforce. Capture and BD leadership. Compliance-fluent operators who know how to run a program inside the regulatory perimeter, not around it.
The govcon talent market does not behave like the commercial one. Clearances have economic value. Customer relationships compound over years. Capture leaders carry a network that took a decade to build and they are not posting their resumes on a job board.
Generalist recruiters miss this. They source on title and skills, screen on resume, and lose at the offer stage because they did not understand what the candidate was actually evaluating. The clearance retention bonus. The geographic concentration around DC, Huntsville, Boston, and Colorado Springs. The proposal cadence that defines the BD calendar. The agency relationships that are the actual product.
We work this market because we know what closes a govcon candidate. It is not a job description. It is a credible story about the program, the customer, and the runway. We tell that story in the first call.
Capture leaders who run end-to-end on $50M to $500M opportunities. Color teams, blue and pink reviews, customer engagement strategy, win themes. Cleared with active customer relationships.
Operators who can run a portfolio of cleared programs against EVMS discipline. CDR readiness, gate reviews, and the kind of customer rapport that survives a contract modification.
Technical leadership for cleared development programs. SCIF-based teams, ITAR-controlled engineering, multi-discipline integration across DoD platforms.
Proposal directors and pricing leads who understand FAR Part 15, cost realism, and what wins competitive contracts versus what looks good on a board slide.
Cleared production environments. AS9100 and CMMC-aligned facilities. Operations leaders who run a regulated manufacturing site without losing margin to compliance.
DCAA-compliant finance leadership. Manufacturing accounting discipline. Indirect rate strategy. Cost-type contract financial management. The finance leaders who pass an audit and still build the business.
Contracts leadership across FFP, T&M, CPFF, IDIQ, and OTA vehicles. The leaders who keep the business on the right side of every clause.
FSO leadership, CMMC 2.0 program leads, ITAR and EAR controlled-operations directors. The leaders who keep the contract alive when audit shows up.
P&L leaders running cleared business units inside a larger company. The operators who hold both the customer relationship and the financial line.
Federal work runs through a wide spectrum of company types. We run searches across all of them.
Publicly traded primes and the operating divisions inside them. Comp packages clear the proxy. Governance is real. Customer relationships are decades old. We have placed leaders into operating units where the parent ticker is on the wall.
The manufacturers that build the systems and components the primes depend on. Often PE-backed, sometimes privately held. This is the core of where we work.
Portfolio companies in acquisition, integration, or scale-up phases. The operating partners and portco CEOs know the math. We deliver to it.
Closely held A&D businesses building executive teams ahead of succession, sale, or organic growth. Culture is the search.
Companies entering the federal market from commercial tech, space, or advanced manufacturing. We help them build the leadership team that can clear the regulatory and customer maturity bar.
Compliance is not a footnote in govcon searches. It is part of the candidate brief, the comp benchmark, and the offer structure. We work in it.
DFARS and FAR. Cost realism, allowable cost discipline, indirect rate strategy. We screen finance and contracts leaders against this fluency.
CMMC 2.0. Level 2 and Level 3 readiness. Assessment cycles. The hiring implications across IT, security, and operations leadership.
ITAR and EAR. Export-controlled engineering, U.S. person requirements, and the candidate-side realities of citizenship and clearance.
DCAA audit readiness. Indirect rate ceilings, audit trail discipline, and the finance leaders who pass an audit without burning the business.
Security clearances. Secret, Top Secret, TS/SCI, and the operating realities of clearance retention, mobility cost, and what closes a cleared candidate at the offer stage.
Air Force, Navy, Army, Marine Corps. Program executive offices, depot operations, sustainment contracts, modernization programs.
Space domain awareness, launch and ground systems, commercial space integration with the government acquisition cycle.
NRO, NGA, NSA, CIA programs. TS/SCI cleared work where the candidate market is intentionally small and the relationships are everything.
CBP, TSA, Coast Guard, and the broader DHS program portfolio. Border, port, and aviation security operators.
DOE, NASA, FAA, and other federal customers where A&D and advanced manufacturing capability intersect with civilian mission.
Foreign Military Sales operators, international program leaders, and the contracts and BD leaders who navigate FMS, DCS, and allied program coordination.
Federal hiring is its own discipline. If your search is stalled or the offers are getting declined, the diagnosis usually sits upstream of the candidates. Tell us what is on the table.