HSDF THE PODCAST

Future of Federal Procurement & Acquisition - Part 2

• Homeland Security & Defense Forum

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Welcome to “HSDF THE PODCAST,” a collection of policy discussions on government technology and homeland security brought to you by the Homeland Security and Defense Forum

 The federal procurement ecosystem stands at a crossroads of transformation, with sweeping changes to regulations, business processes, and technology integration reshaping how government and industry work together. This engaging conversation between experienced acquisition leaders dives deep into what these changes mean for both sectors and how to prepare for the road ahead.

 Featuring:

  • Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer
  • Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer

This discussion took place at the HSDF’s Symposium Defending the Frontline on June 26th, 2025. 

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Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

that, and you know that is one of the things that I, you know, when people ask what keeps you up at night. You know, when you think about these things, I do think about the workforce. How do we prepare them for what's coming, how? I mean? Yes, they're there living it. But industry, by the way, has the same challenge. Your workforce has to prepare for what's coming and how they're going to work with the government, contracting professionals, as you're trying to get, you know, your procurements done and your contracts renewed, et cetera. So let's talk a little bit about the workforce before we close out. Talk to me a little bit about how do we prepare the workforce. People love to use the word train. I'm so sick of that word now. No, how do we educate them and enable them to do the job? And we talk about empowerment. That's a strong word. How do we do that?

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Very hard. I agree with you your comment about training. Training is wonderful and I think you know, between DAU and FAI and individual agencies, there's been a lot of forward movement in changing the model of training. You know whether that happened through the pandemic and how we were delivering it. But I think what's going to be key now is more of the experiential learning, especially as we're rolling out, you know what's changing and we're encouraging people to. You know, embrace the opportunity to fail.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

No you know, right Fail forward, right Fail forward right Fail forward which is what we always said in the pill, like smart, risk-taking right and having that infrastructure around them, not just with experiential learning. I'm not saying do away with classroom training and things like that there's a place for so much of this but I do think the experiential piece of it and the co-learning between this is where it really is incumbent upon industry and government to be coming at this together, learning together, for industry to be giving its ideas and solutions. So, yes, the workforce has a lot on their plate, but they are up to the task and you know you want to just boil the ocean. Sometimes I get so excited thinking about what's happening and I'm thinking, oh, we should do this and we need to do that. And again, I'm saying we because I still think I work for the government. I don't, but people are excited about the realm of the possible and you want to get after it quickly.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

So you know, we talked about technology before.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

We have to be careful because we are overhauling regulations, right, we have to be careful because we are overhauling regulations, right, we are revisioning business processes and we're talking about technology and we know that there is a logical, I'll say order Agile.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Obviously you know I'm not talking about this and that, but we've got to be careful that, as we develop and use the technology, that it is done, you know, in tandem with what is happening with the changes to the regulations and the business process revisioning.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

So that is a tall task and the workforce, you know, needs to be ready for that, as does industry. So, again, I think, being in there, testing it, living it, giving the feedback to me that's how most of the learning is going to be happening throughout this process, versus waiting for everything to be put in place and then some training module to come out to do that. But they need a lot of support, not just from the leadership that we talked about yesterday, the training. They really do need an environment, a culture that's where the leadership really comes in that is going to stand behind their ability to embrace what's changing and what's happening. So, making sure that you know the leaders, the supervisors, are ready to help them embrace, you know, the testing before the production, if you will, that's really what I think is important here.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

So we're about to wrap up, so I want to tag off of something you said it's not just the workforce, it's their leaders. We also have to bring them into the equation, help them understand that they are empowered to make decisions, because sometimes we do encounter leaders that don't seem to know that they're empowered to make decisions, but they also have to know how to provide the right level of support to their people, how to have their backs, because if you don't have their backs, you're going to fall back into the patterns of the past, where you're managing by fear. You're doing the work by fear. The last thing that I do want to talk about is a little bit.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

I think it's important, now more than ever, for government and industry to focus on transparency. Agreed, we have to be a little bit more transparent about our data so that people understand who we are, what we do and how we do it. I think that's extremely important, because I think some of the challenges that we're seeing come from people not really understanding what the role of government is and the role of industry when they're working with government. So I think that's extremely important. Nina, it's always a pleasure to see you. You know how I feel about you. You were my deputy for quite some time and if you could put up with me as your deputy.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

I used to stand behind her as she was writing emails saying don't write that, Don't say that Cross that out.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

Take the exclamation point out. Cross it out.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Don't put 10 exclamation points next to that. That is a true statement. She put it in red font, bold.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

No, no, no, she would say. So you're screaming in an email, no, no. So I do want to give you an opportunity to ask any questions, if you guys would like to ask a question or two, is it on yeah Beth Wade, deepwater Point?

Audience:

Maybe this is outside the scope of this session, but I'd really like to get your opinion on what's going on with GSA, the consolidation, the OEMs negotiating, putting the resellers as subs. I mean, it's not all goodness in light, all this change. I don't think, and I'd really like to hear what you think.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

Sure. So I have not seen the ultimate game plan right. Gsa is supposed to come up with an ultimate plan. I believe that GSA plays an important role in the buy-in function and I do think that they could do a lot of really good things with the common buys to support the agencies, to support the agencies. Gsa is like any other agency, staffed with individuals who have to work within the confines of regulations and blah, blah blah. So I'm not sure that they can do it any better, but what they can do is help us do it better as a collection.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

So I'm not going to comment on the negotiating with the OEMs, because I understand the impact it has on the resellers, but I also look at the impact it has on the government. I mean, sometimes we were getting really jacked up on the prices, and that's just the reality, and there was no consistency in the pricing, and then, of course, our friends on the Hill would then criticize the agency. So I think there's some goodness there and they got to figure out how they make that work for the resellers, because I don't think you put the resellers out of business. We're constantly trying to grow our industrial base. That's what we talk about all the time in all fields right, and so we need this industrial base. We need industry supporting us. I think the OEMs are going to have to work with the resellers and figure out how they make that relationship work and make it good for GSA to do these things.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Yeah, I'll just add you know, when you talk about consolidation, you know we've been trying in government for some time to. You know, gsa had their vehicles and all of the agencies were, you know, either using some of those vehicles or the best in class. But I do think there was still too. Personally, I think there was still too much redundancy. And I think you know the spirit of what they're trying to do, I think is good, right, but it gets back to what we've been saying all along, like what are the unintended consequences? Right? What's going to come out of this? And I think, as they overhaul FAR, part 8, I think we all need to be paying close attention to what that's going to look like. So there's so many moving parts and pieces. I just believe that there was opportunity for improvement there, but I think we need to pay close attention to what the unintended consequences might be.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

Yeah, and give them a chance. Give them a chance. Let's see what the game plan comes out today, because they have tall order. Consolidating all those contracts Good luck with that. I'm so glad I'm not in that. No contracts Good luck with that. I'm so glad I'm not in there. No, just kidding. Good to see you. This is like old home week. I'm running all my. I see you, kathy, over there.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Tiffany Bailey. Good to see you both. I know I'm impressed, yeah.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

He's the next GSA. He'll be the next GSA administrator Watch.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

We can try to repeat it if you want. Talk about the overall with regulation. Talk about the need for the event to be more transparent. Where do you see the next iteration for the event?

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

I haven't heard a lot of talk about that. I'm going to sit and click. Where is that?

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

So, just so everybody can hear her, she's asking. We talked about transparency. She wants to know what our opinions are about the evolution of the procurement innovation lab. Want me to go first? I'll let you go.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Yeah, so you know, I recently had an interview with the virtual acquisition office and I was asked about this.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

And so Shariah, who created the pill, and I helped expand it, and I am still thrilled with what that team has done and how it was expanded across government, how agency after agency stood up their own version of the Procurement Innovation Lab. But with this, what I think is happening with the FAR overhaul is we're trying to embed in the you know, overhauled regulations more ability to innovate. Naturally, like Soraya talked earlier about, we used to innovate in spite of the regulations. What my hope is for the overhaul of the FAR is that it's not gonna be in spite of anymore, but hopefully built into the regulatory process, that that discretion, that ability to make smart decisions and manage risk is going to be built into that, rather than us trying to find the loopholes, which was a lot of what I saw before. We always said we thought eventually the Procurement Innovation Lab should work itself out of a job. We always said that from the beginning, not to like hurt the people's feelings who were involved in it, because we are the biggest champions right.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Yeah, we always thought that, and that is ultimately what I think needs to happen, because we want it to be part of the culture. You want it to be part of just how we do business every day, and that is, again, a tall order shifting the mindset and the culture of the workforce. It's not easy, but that's, for me, what the evolution of innovation would be.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

Yeah. So I always like to lay out really super lofty goals as needed companies to say come on, saraya, bring it back a bit. But in the ideal world, every contracting officer, every contract specialist out there will be an innovation advocate. They would be looking at the procurements that are put before them, the questions that they are asked by their customers, the problems that come up during contract administration, and being innovative and creative about solving that problem. That's the ideal and that's where I was trying to go culturally.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

I know you're never going to get to 100%, everybody's not going to do it, but if we could get the majority of the folks to really think innovatively, to say what is the problem that we need to solve and how can we solve it, how can we bring the right folks together to solve this problem? How do we partner with our industry partners to get this job done, that's really what should happen. And so, to answer your question, in my ideal world the procurement innovation lab should no longer be needed if we do this right. Do I think it's going to go away? No, I think there's always going to be a home there for it, because in our government we can't get away from checks and balances and so somebody's still going to be piling stuff on, but hopefully now you know it'll take another 40 years and then I won't be around. But no, but it's been 40 years and look at all that's been added on, and I often talked about the amount of work and the responsibility that we were putting in the hands of a contracting officer.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

A CO was no longer just writing a contract. They had to be a logistics specialist, an engineer, an environmentalist, because they had to follow all these rules. They had to understand, they had to read these rules and understand them, because they were applying them in the contract. So let's get back to some basics and let's build compliance into the process Because, as I always said, our role was to deliver on the mission, our role was to enable the mission, and when you stop talking about the mission, you're failing, and I think the role of government is to deliver on the mission.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

So those are my thoughts. You know what that increased risk-taking, managed risk-taking is going to look like in the realm of not just compliance, but, you know, are we doing it correctly? Are we holding ourselves accountable to? You know, getting the best outcomes, not getting mired in, you know, step-by-step process, but getting to, yes, and getting to the right outcome along with industry. Again, I think the big challenge for you guys is we're doing all of this, but you need to come along, not just and understand, like, what are you doing within industry, within your own organizations, to be ready for this co-collaboration, right? So I'm very, I would love to talk to every one of you because I would love to know what's kind of happening with inside of your organizations in terms of, you know, becoming more agile yourselves in your own processes, right? And how are you looking at the potential changes in part 33 and some of the other areas that we've talked about? I'm very interested in your perspectives.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

So, so with that, I think they're giving us the hook, so we're going to be around for a little bit, but thank you all for your kind attention, for sticking around with us, and please again join me in congratulating Nina on a great career, thank you. Thank you, rania.

Audience:

I would like to give Soraya, nina and all of our tremendous program speakers another big round of applause. We are so grateful that they were able to share some of their insights and expertise today, especially in this time of unprecedented change, and I do once again want to thank our event partners Dell Technologies and Oracle Cloud. And we also want to thank our event partners Dell Technologies and Oracle Cloud, and we also want to thank the incredible team here at the Gallup building for their support and our awesome mic runner, sam. So we hope you'll stay for our reception, which is going to begin right through those doors. But just really quickly, I did want to provide some updates on other amazing upcoming HSDF events.

Audience:

We have our Cybersecurity Symposium taking place July 23rd. We've got an awesome program planned, really focusing on the changing cyber landscape to include critical infrastructure threats from nation states, as well as how agencies are leveraging AI and automation for cyber outcomes. And then later this year we'll have our Tech, innovation and Government Symposium. On November 5th, we will be back here at the Gallup Building, and our 8th Annual Border Security Symposium is going to be on December 12th. We'll be over at the Reagan Building this year. So registration is open for all of these events. You can find those links on our website and, as a reminder, we are looking for sponsors. So if your company is interested in helping shape these programs or provide some industry thought leadership, please reach out to us directly. And thanks again for joining us today.

Audience:

I will see you at the reception perception. Do you regret anything? Would you start over again?

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

Yes, yes, yes.

Audience:

Yes, yes, yes, yes yes.