On February 28, please join the American Heart Associate at the 11th Annual Heart Ball. This black-tie celebration will support the goals of the AHA and host more than 600 doctors, executives, and community leaders to support programs and research for the American Heart Association.

Event Details:
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
Ritz-Carlton, Tyson’s Corner
1700 Tysons Boulevard
McLean, VA 22102
(703) 506-4300
Black-tie Attire

Citibank has garnered quite a bit of attention from TARP watchers over its plans to purchase a foreign-built $50MM Dassault luxury 12 Passenger corporate jet.  This comes on the heels of news that the former CEO of Merrill Lynch (Bank of America) spent $1.2 million refitting his office early last year.On November 18th, 2008, Congressional lawmakers rebuked Detroit’s Big Three CEOs.  The corporate jet became a symbol synonymous with corporate excess.  Automakers noted this and responded by promising to dispose of their corporate jets. 

Although a corporate jet may seem an unnecessary cost to some at first glance, its benefits have been realized for many years.    Jet owners say private jets allow for more employee productivity via airport convenience and the virtual office concept. Of course, not having a corporate jet here at ExecutiveBiz, we’ll have to take them at their word. Click here to read more.   

Washington Area Home prices down..sales up! 

According to the Wall Street Journal and Standard & Poors, DC area homes have fallen 19.4% year-over-year.  Recent housing sales took a noticeable incline in a sign indicating bargain hunters are out in numbers.  Read more here. 

Despite a financial bust that was precipitated by a real estate bubble, top economists are giving cautious signs that there is an end in sight.  Knight Kiplinger recently headlined a lunch event at the Potomac Officers Club, and gave the DC executive crowd a heartening forecast.  Click here to read more. 

Northrop Grumman recently announced it would streamline its sector units from seven to five in order to improve the company’s program performance and enhance its cost competitiveness. The five new sectors will be aerospace systems, electronic systems, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services — and Linda Mills will be a key part of that change. Mills, who currently oversees the company’s $4.5 billion information technology unit in McLean, Va., will lead the Information Technology and Mission Systems sectors combined to form the new Information Systems sector — a $10 billion provider of advanced technologies to defense, intelligence, civil agency and commercial customers.

“Linda Mills’ proven track record, broad customer experience in the areas served by the sector and deep understanding of the systems integration and IT capabilities of the business make her ideally suited to serve as president of the Information Systems sector,” says Ronald D. Sugar, Northrop Grumman chairman and chief executive officer.

Other industry veterans agree.

“Linda Mills is an exceptional leader both within Northrop Grumman as well as in our community,” says Donna Morea, president of CGI. “Her unparalleled commitment to operational excellence, her business savvy, and her integrity help make NGIT a trusted partner to government and business alike.  We also benefit from Linda’s insight and drive here in our greater Northern Virginia community, as a contributor to the Northern Virginia Technology Council as well as other local not-for-profit organizations.”

Back in August David Kriegman was named President of TechTeam Government Solutions, an IT-services based provider in Chantilly, Va. In this week’s Executive Spotlight, Kriegman talks about TechTeam’s business development goals for the coming year, the trends he’s tracking, the latest in cyber security issues, and how he unwinds away from the office.

What leadership lessons have helped prepare you for your current role?

David Kriegman: In order to succeed in the government professional services business, you really have to tie yourself more to the customer’s mission than to promoting a technology. On the leadership side, it’s important to play to people’s strengths. An effective leader identifies what somebody is really good at and has them do that, and then finds a different way to get the other things done. Get the right people on the bus and make sure they are doing the right things — you will get a lot more out of them.

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Web 2.0 activity has exploded across the government, and few have a better understanding of what that change will mean than Dan Mintz, former chief information officer with the U.S. Department of Transportation. Mintz’s recent responsibilities included serving as the senior agency official for privacy and the Secretary’s lead for the Department’s Identity Theft Task Force. Mintz came to the government from Sun Microsystems, where he chaired a corporate-wide team that studied protection of federal government sensitive information within Sun’s corporate information systems. Here Mintz shares what it takes to be successful in the Government 2.0 space, and what trends lay ahead.

What are some ways government agencies can strengthen their relationship with stakeholders?

Dan Mintz: Simple. Create a dialogue. I’ll give an example. At the Department of Transportation we created a Secretarial blog where the Secretary not only provides information, but also allows stakeholders to blog and participate in the blog.  We received comments and after looking at them to make sure they are appropriate, we posted their comments on the site.  So we weren’t  just expressing the Secretary’s opinion, we were also creating a dialogue and allowing people who otherwise might not get access to the public-government discourse to get access.

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The winds of change are blowing in the government marketplace, and nowhere is that change more felt than in the realm of web-based communications. For the latest in Government 2.0 trends, we recently sat down with Andrea Baker, director of technology and self-described “social web evangelist,” who works with Navstar, a Falls, Church, Va.-based provider of IT services for the government and private sectors. Here Baker shares the latest in social media trends and how organizations can use dynamic web tools in their organizations and on behalf of their government clients.

Could you tell us what a social web evangelist does?

Andrea Baker: I borrowed the term “evangelist” after I met Anil Dash, a Vice President of Six Apart, a social blogging software platform, last fall. He called himself an evangelist on his business card. He inspired me with what he was doing in bringing better blogging software to the world. I look to use the phrase “social web evangelist” to help the user experience with new tools, how to use the tools and improve productivity.
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Ask Elizabeth Smith what her greatest leadership challenge is, and she’ll be the first to tell you: the one she’s facing now as the new executive vice president at Perot Systems. It’s also a challenge that Smith’s background has more than equipped her to handle. “It’s requiring me to take all the best practices I’ve learned and taught over the last seven years from my consulting experience and combine it with my previous experience leading up a federal sales team to really recreate and reposition the sales force here to be much more powerful,” says Smith. Recently, Smith sat down with ExecutiveBiz to talk about her new role and what’s on the agenda for the year ahead.

Your new role is executive vice president at Perot Systems, what is your outlook for 2009?

Elizabeth Smith: I am very excited about our outlook for 2009.  We’ve brought on board a number of new experienced and talented people to both our operations and sales leadership teams, and are really poised for the first time to pull through all of our commercial best practices for use in the federal marketplace.  We also have a new president and new administration coming in that is very focused on change.  They are facing enormous challenges and I think our background, experience and expertise will be very impactful.

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