Akima has appointed Lauren Cates, a federal growth executive, as vice president of business development for its emerging markets group.
The company said Thursday Cates will oversee the company’s growth strategy, expand market presence and deliver mission-critical technologies to military and government customers.
“Lauren’s expertise in federal business development will be instrumental as we expand our capability offerings and strengthen our market position,” said Mike Alvarado, chief growth officer at Akima.
Who Is Lauren Cates?
Cates is a business development executive with more than 15 years of federal contracting experience.
Prior to joining Akima, Cates led the growth team at Indigo IT, where she helped secure contracts in cloud, cybersecurity and enterprise IT services. She also spent more than 10 years at the Bowhead Family of Companies, where she served as director of business development and oversaw billion-dollar pipelines.
The University of Florida journalism graduate has completed Shipley training in federal proposal management.
What Is Akima?
Akima is a government contracting firm that provides mission-focused platforms across IT; aerospace; training and readiness; protective services; facilities and ground logistics; systems engineering; mission support; furniture, fixtures and equipment; and construction. The company operates as a subsidiary of NANA, an Alaska Native Corporation, and has over 11,000 employees supporting federal customers.
The latest leadership move came a week after Akima appointed Marcus Lopez as chief operating officer.
The company also holds positions on significant federal contracting vehicles. Akima has won a spot on the U.S. Air Force’s 10-year, $7 billion contract to provide contract field team labor augmentation support services. Akima is also positioned to compete as part of the Missile Defense Agency’s 10-year, $151 billion Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense contract vehicle.
