Your Potential, Our Help.
Championing your Firm is our first priority.
Advancing Innovative Ideas to the Department of Defense
America was built on the entrepreneurial spirit and leads the world today because of our early adoption of innovative ideas. Yet innovative private enterprises find the size and intricacy of our growing governmental bureaucracy daunting and they shy from bringing their solutions to help meet national security needs.
The Department of Defense
The big defense contractors know how to interact with the Department of Defense, but their R&D alone will not keep us ahead of our strategic competitors. To maintain our security, we must be able to win an information age contest – in data transmission (to include in space and for applications such as UAVs), data storage (in the cloud and at the edge), data processing (at speed and with AI), and data security (to prevent hacking, jamming, spoofing and disruption). Small and medium private companies are investing and innovating in each of these fields in pursuit of business goals and apart from defense applications. Yet, they can also gain great value by bringing their solutions to DoD. Lead-Up Strategies can help.
Our Founder and CEO
Tom has unique and useful insights given his prior service as a General Officer and the relationships and understandings that entails and his later service with the Executive leadership at the Department-level as the General Counsel of the Air Force. Both in and out of uniform, in his ten years in the Pentagon, he witnessed and experienced the decision-making-process which considers the best-military advice given by uniformed leaders which then, in execution, is also tempered by budgetary, regulatory and political considerations. At the forefront of thought and discussions on the need for US competitive advantage, his service as a General Officer and his time as a Department C-Suite executive gives him the relationships, knowledge and insights that can help small and medium contractors unravel the puzzle of the Pentagon.
Unmatched Experience
Past consulting includes: Guidance, analysis, judgments and insights into DOD, Departments of Army and Air Forces, to include the U.S. Space Force, decision-making, policies, practices, culture, personnel, and organizational structures. Specifics include reviewing strategic or communication plans, advice upon developing business opportunities, formulation of strategies, red-teaming proposals, content development for use in white papers and proposal responses to the DoD or other prospective customers. Consulting does not include lobbying or the provision of legal advice, but can also include insight based upon relationships with a wide array and diverse network of in-house and private sector legal counsel.
Speaking Engagements
We believe in bold and innovative ideas that inspire your team. We handcraft a unique plan tailored to your team, structured around our 5 pillars of a successful speaking engagement.
Lead-Up -Unlocking Your Team’s Full Potential
The Launch of the U.S. Space Force
Cyber Piracy and Ransomware – Let’s Try a Maritime Solution
5G and the Huawei Threat
How Data is Changing the Nature of War
Leadership and Organizational Consulting:
There is nothing more constant today than change. Changes to technology and changes to laws, regulations and policies require and necessitate that an organization, whether in government or in the private sector, adapt to the change …or neglecting to adapt fail. I have years of experience determining whether an organization’s structures, policies, and culture actually are adapting to change or not… and whether the organization is then accomplishing its desired vision and mission in response to the new normal.
Leaders always think the systems they invest in, and the guidance they spend enormous efforts developing, will be used and followed. But both the ever-constant variable of change and organizational inertia have an impact…and that impact increases over time. Lead-Up Strategies can help determine the ground truth, and help identify organizational disconnects. Good leaders know their organization will accomplish the mission and achieve the organization’s vision when the leader provides the right tools. There are no more important tools for an organization today than a clearly stated mission and vision, its organizational structure, and well-tailored policies. Lead-Up Strategies can help achieve all three.
Crisis Response and Investigations:
When you need a team member or team-leader to respond to a crisis or to learn lessons from a past crisis, Lead-Up Strategies has a broad array of experience and a reputation for absolute integrity.
Benefit from years of experience advising strategic leaders in response to crises and when transforming organizations to adapt to the age of information technology, big data, and virtual services. Former investigation experience includes responding to the biggest breach of classified information in DoD history and other service-wide compliance or incident investigations. Compliance advisory work comes with three years’ experience of having been the Department of the Air Force Chief Compliance Officer. Tom has advised entities as diverse as the military academies, the NFL, and government leaders in Israel, Colombia and Myanmar, on technology transformation and compliance strategies
