Executive Mosaicâs Weekly GovCon Round-Up: Larry Prior Joins the Carlyle Group; Firm Renews Federal Focus and Top 10 Stories
Jim Garrettson, Executive Mosaic CEO
Larry Prior Joins the Carlyle Group; Firm Renews Federal Focus
   The Carlyle Group has signaled a renewed focus in the federal market by hiring Larry Prior, CSRAâs former president and chief executive officer, and a four-time Wash100 winner, as an operating executive in its aerospace, defense and government services team. The move comes two years after Carlyle soldtheir remaining stake in Booz Allen Hamilton, after taking the company public in 2010 following an approximately $2.6 billion acquisition. In 2015, the private equity firm bought Novetta for an undisclosed sum, boosting its cyber analytics portfolio.
Highlighting his optimistic outlook for the country, David Rubenstein, Carlyleâs co-founder and co-executive chairman, commented on Bloomberg TVÂ yesterday, âWe might be in the longest cycle ever of economic growth.â
   Carlyle said Prior will provide investment guidance on acquisition and sourcing, and give advice on growth strategies, operations and management. Prior commented he looked forward to offering expertise on consolidating the federal services market, as well as helping drive new value. Ian Fujiyama, a managing director within the A&D and government services group, expressed excitement at drawing on Priorâs experience.
   At CSRA, Prior spearheaded the companyâs $9.7 billion acquisition by General Dynamics, which closed in April. Before that, as vice president and GM of Computer Sciences Corp.âs North American public sector business, he helped oversee the companyâs 2015 merger with SRA International to form CSRA. Prior has also held senior leadership roles with BAE Systems, ManTech International, SAIC, TRW, LightPointe Communications and High Technology Solutions.
   Prior will join an established team assembled by Frank Finelli, a managing director overseeing U.S. national security investments, and a 2015 Wash100 winner. Before joining Carlyle, Finelli served as a legislative assistant to then-Senator Dan Coats, R-Ind. Currently the director of National Intelligence, Coats assumed office last year.
There are several key factors contributing to the significance of this announcement which should keep all eyes on Carlyle/Prior. They include:
Smart money (i.e., Carlyle; Veritas) leaning into the GovCon market;
A bias toward consolidation of large company M&A;
An improving economy;
The waning impact of sequestration;
The new administrationâs commitment toward funding DoD, space, DHS, Intel and IT technology projects;
The availability of capital for investment;
More emphasis on delivery of products and services than on regulations;
The fact that LPTA has faded which should put upward pressure on margins;
The fact that technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, hypersonics and astonishing new edge processing capabilities will accelerate the replacement of legacy systems;
And the algorithmic race for superiority and exponential promise of quantum computing.
THIS WEEKâS TOP 10Â NEWS STORIES
Weekly Contract Awards This week’s top GovCon contract awards: Lockheed Martin, Pond-Woolpert JV, Serco, General Dynamics and Deloitte, among others.
VMware and Amazon Web Services have unveiled a hybrid cloud service designed to help government agencies accelerate migration of applications to the cloud and securely manage workloads through a common infrastructure.
Shay Assad: DoD to Reduce Cost, Pricing Data Requirements in New Procurement Policy
Shay Assad, director of pricing, procurement and acquisition policy at the Defense Department, recently said that the agency will soon release a new policy that would help reduce the lead time for major procurements, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.
Kimberly Reed Nominated Export-Import Bank President
Kimberly Reed, former president of the International Food Information Council Foundation, has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve a four-year term as president of the Export-Import Bank.
Randy Castro, formerly senior vice president of federal programs at AECOMâs technical services business, has joined Black & Veatch as president of its federal business.
Anne Rung, director of government sector at Amazon Business, has said adopting an e-commerce platform could help federal agencies manage spending transparency and compliance with acquisition policies, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.
NSA Moves Mission Data to IC GovCloud Platform; Greg Smithberger Comments The National Security Agency has started migrating signals intelligence information, foreign surveillance and other intell data into a single classified cloud platform designed to help intelligence community analysts accelerate queries and generate insights from data, Nextgov reported Thursday.
Joint warfighting is a major focus for the Department of Defense as it works to adapt to the challenges of the modern battlefield, a constantly shifting landscape in which success is determined by data and digital capabilities. Interested in getting a comprehensive look into the intricacies of joint warfighting initiatives? The Potomac Officers Club’s Joint Coalition
Dan Davis, a GovCon industry executive, has joined ASRC Federal as vice president of solution architecture. He announced his appointment in a LinkedIn post published Monday. Davis brings to the role his decades of experience leading strategic planning, business development, technology product design and development, systems engineering, procurement, project management, integration and testing initiatives. Prior
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded basic ordering agreements to 37 companies as part of the second pool of the STRATUS program for cloud integration and development support services. USDA issued a request for quotes in late September and received 122 quotes for STRATUS Cloud BOA Pool 2, according to a special notice published