Defense
Hilary has a deep understanding of what is needed to manage and grow a successful business. She is focused and direct in her coaching style, and has the unique ability to break down complex challenges into actionable steps for success. Her coaching sessions are structured, purposeful, and always geared toward meeting the objectives of her client. Hilary is a knowledgeable and accomplished professional who will bring out the best of an organization. I wholeheartedly recommend her coaching services to anyone looking to improve their understanding of client relations, overcome challenges, and reach new heights in their professional career.
Tara Pitsenberger,
, Vice President, Regulatory Compliance, QinetiQ NA
I recently engaged Hilary both to deliver a keynote at our Leadership Offsite with many SAIC executives as well as to develop and deliver bespoke training to our business development and capture teams. The initial result: outstanding. Hilary came in and engaged our learners through interactive dialog and activities. The feedback from our team was exceptionally positive, they all want to have her back. We received comments such as “Phenomenal instructor would absolutely recommend using her again” and they shared that they enjoyed Hilary’s style, benefited from her broad knowledge of BD, and her many real world examples backing up all the concepts…Her candid personality was a total hit. I look forward to continuing to work with her going forward.
Cari Bohley,
Director, Talent Development, Engility
“Hilary engaged as part of our overarching business development and capture management development program with an emphasis on Customer Engagement. Her 5 C’s Framework and approach to addressing the customer’s “Want” captivated and inspired the workshop participants. I look forward to working with Hilary again.”
Lisette Bergeron,
VP Growth Business Operations, Engility
“Hilary, I received many positive comments concerning your keynote presentation; for example: ” I could have listened to her all day,” and “What a great speaker and perfect message she delivered.” “What an incredible woman.”
Debbie Thurman,
Vice President, Contracts & Procurement Federal Services, URS
“My team is still talking about how they enjoyed your boot camp and your great content. As you observed, the team is very social, and they related so well with your examples and stories. Syl told me she is already thinking about ways to reach out to our customer base in 2008. Also, you will be interested to know that 2 of my employees attended the 2-day Northrop Grumman class on ‘Customer Intimacy’ after taking your boot camp. Both told me that they got so much more out of your session. You are a delight to work with and I look forward to some great things in 2008.”
Pam Macaleer,
Director, GSA Schedules, Northrop Grumman
“I engaged Hilary Fordwich to moderate the National Defense Industrial Association’s 2nd Annual Cyber Security Month Conference this past October. As the lead for the project, I couldn’t be happier with Hilary’s professional preparation, engaging dialogue with the panelists, and her supreme confidence and presence before an audience of industry leaders as well as the press. From Congressmen, Cyber Security CEOs, to the Defense press, Hilary is an outstanding ‘Ringmaster’ managing our conference with ease and grace. I only hope I can enlist her fabulous skills in the future.”
John Toomer,
Director, Intelligence, Information and Cyber Systems, Government Operations, The Boeing Company
“Strelmark is assisting us to increase our win rate in terms of new business. Hilary has a certain charm about her as well as a disciplined, systematic approach that we really needed. She was effective in a very brief period of time working with our team as we prepared in both responding to our client needs as well as presenting orals which is a key part of the procurement process. She yields results and we plan on expanding her role at Unisys.”
Greg Baroni,
President, Global Public Sector, Unisys
“Hilary is one of the best in the industry when it comes to providing team training that is focused on building and leveraging customer relationships. Her session with us was not only insightful and practical, but motivating. She provided us strategies and tools we can use to further leverage our incumbent advantage and apply a laser-like focus on our customers. My management team is now ready to take our customer relationships to new levels! Everything she said was on the mark… her presentation was not the typical “canned pitch”, but a specially developed interactive session tailored for our management team and our customers. Hilary comes with my highest recommendation.”
Tom Mitchell,
President and COO, ManTech Security & Mission Assurance Corporation, ManTech
“We had the opportunity to bid for a $47 million contract at Aberdeen. We had already started but weren’t convinced we were on the right track. I retained Hilary to work with our team because of her expertise in training winning teams to bid with large defense firms as our sub-contractor. Within a first day-long session she had us and our subcontractor, TASC, aligned far more effectively and efficiently. The efficacy of her expertise and organization was instantly noticeable and Hilary quickly got us to focus on what the government really wanted from us versus what we thought they needed.
While our firm had all the advanced technical knowledge of our capabilities and we were well qualified in terms of our content delivery, Hilary managed to position us with intricate strategic and tactical skill in preparation for our win. She has an ability, without alienating any member of a team, to cut quickly to the core of our differentiators, and bring out the best in our or any other team to make a win possible.
I will never know if we might have won without that session from Hilary, but I am glad to report that I think she got us totally on the right track. We will be working with her further.”
Charlie Grabenstein,
President, Orbis Inc.
“During my tenure as the VP and Chief Learning Officer at ManTech International, we engaged the services of Hilary Fordwich to bolster and further grow and develop a positive customer service attitude and presence for our Project Managers, Business Developers, Capture Managers and divisional General Managers when they interacted and interfaced with government and commercial clients. Hilary Fordwich was impressive, personable, professional and had the ability to engage and transform a variety of personalities and egos. Based on Hilary Fordwich’s instruction, faciliation and engagement ManTech International was able to maintain and improve the relationships with incumbent clients and enabled our personnel to build as strong of relationships with clients we were pursuing, also resulting in several contract wins..”
Al Malinchak,
VP & CLO, Mantech
“In my role as Division Director, Defense Business Unit at TASC, I was representing TASC as the Subcontractor for the Orbis bid for a $47 million Aberdeen contract. We had already spent some time gathering our position on our end and what we thought could be an approach for winning the contract.
Orbis had also done some work on their end when we were brought all together for a one day initial session with Hilary Fordwich, as an external BD executive who was pitched as ‘preparing us to win’. To this point we were two different firms with a bit of experience working together but not really positioned as a singular and cohesive team. Prior to Hilary’s coaching we were really all over the place, with only a loose organization bringing our differentiated points of talent together, after Hilary’s training we felt ourselves to be a well-oiled machine prepared to win our targeted contract.
It was amazing that in one day, very diplomatically, Hilary managed not only make us feel like a team, but she deftly got us all on the same page, cut through all the clutter of what we were offering from each of our firms and came up with some really compelling win themes.
The result? We won! Not only do I give Hilary great credit for this, as I know Orbis does too, but she made the day fun, memorable and I would heartily recommend her for any and all firms wishing to win a bid.”
Bill Bennett,
Defense Service Sector AECOM Management Services Group, Former Division Director, Defense Business Unit, Defense Business Unit TASC Inc.