HSDF THE PODCAST

Future of Federal Procurement & Acquisition - Part 1

• 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

 Acquisition veterans Soraya Correa and Nina Ferraro bring unparalleled wisdom to the revolutionary FAR overhaul transforming federal procurement. Drawing from their combined 80+ years of experience and leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, they offer a candid assessment of what's working, what's concerning, and what's essential for both government and industry partners.

 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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Megan Mance, Executive Director, Homeland Security & Defense Forum:

And to close out our program, we have a special dynamic duo for you. Soraya Correa, former chief procurement officer at DHS, and recently retired Nina Ferraro, former deputy chief procurement officer at DHS, are joining us and I think, as this audience knows, there's a lot happening across the federal acquisition landscape and at DHS in particular, so we look forward to this discussion between these two amazing ladies. Let's give them a warm welcome All right, good afternoon.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

All right, we're going to wake you up because there's a reception. No drinks unless you cheer us on. They got a laugh on our point.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to put up with us for the next half hour.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

20 minutes or so. So, yes, there's a lot of stuff going on in the. You saw what I did, you know, right, I already put away my notes. There's of stuff going on in the pre. You saw what I did, nina, right, I already put away my notes. There's a lot going on in the procurement landscape. We all know there's the revolutionary far overhaul and a lot of things are being done.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Nina and I come from this world. Each of us has spent 40 plus years in the federal procurement landscape. Nina recently retired from the Department of Homeland Security. When they talk about a dynamic duo, there's some truth to that. We worked together quite a bit over the last what 20 plus years, and one of the things that we were always focused on was how do we make acquisition better? So we're very passionate about this topic. We're watching what's going on, we're engaged in what's going on through some of our relationships with outside organizations. But what we thought we'd share with you is our perspective on what's going on with the revolutionary far overhaul, what we're thinking about as these things are happening and what we think industry should be thinking about as these things are happening.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

But before I start, I do want to congratulate Nina on her recent retirement from the federal government should be thinking about as these things are happening. But before I start, I do want to congratulate Nina on her recent retirement from the federal government. It's a huge loss to the Department of Homeland Security, but a great benefit to us all, because now she'll probably do some interesting stuff out here supporting the workforce. So, nina, thank you very much for your service. Thank you, and let's open this discussion by first talking about the revolutionary FAR law. You know, for 40 years we've been living with the federal acquisition regulations. What I like to tell people is the FAR didn't stop me from getting the job done. It didn't stop you from getting the job done. Whether we needed something in an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, we got it done. So it's not the regulations that hold us back. I think it's the interpretation of the regs. What are your?

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

thoughts. I totally agree, and I will say that when Soraya and I worked together at DHS Soraya, you might know, championed the Procurement Innovation Lab at DHS many, many years ago, and so Soraya was way ahead of her time in reimagining innovation and what can be done within the federal regulatory framework, and so I think you know I'm really proud of what we did there. But both Soraya and I know that it was no easy lift, and I think many of you know that. You know we came far, but not near far enough. So I look at this revolutionary FAR overhaul as a great opportunity to reinforce a lot of what we were doing, quite frankly, already, and to bring the workforce along. So because you know that really is the crux of it all the workforce and industry who are out there making it happen every day in procurement. We know the answers, we know what the friction points were, we know where we got stuck and many times we got mired in things that we preferred not to be getting mired in. So I think this is a great opportunity for us to be doing that, and Soraya mentioned that.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

You know we're paying attention to what's going on. We are. You know we were chatting in the green room over there about. You know, hey, what do you think about this part that was already overhauled? What do you think about what they're doing with these? You know strategic guidance that they're putting alongside of the overhaul, and we've got our opinions about that. But so it is exciting, but it is something that needs to be watched closely, not just by the federal community but by industry, because obviously it has significant impacts on you. The parts that were overhauled to date, they're fine and good, but I think the really impactful stuff is coming, things you guys really care about. You know commercial items and negotiations and bid protest regulations and small business. All of those things are coming, and so we're paying close attention, as I know all of you are as to. You know what's going to come out of that.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

So you know, I've been to a couple of events where people ask well, why rewrite the FAR? Well, for 40 years people have been piling on to the FAR and adding compliance requirements that, frankly, in our opinion, many times were unnecessary. Someone did something wrong, and so the way we correct for it is we blame everybody, which was like the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and Nina knows that was not my philosophy of leadership, right, you know, I went right for the target, right Anyway. But so I think it's good that it's being rewritten and that it's going to be simplified. My larger concern is that there is a cultural change that has to take place.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

When we stood up the Procurement Innovation Lab, there was a cultural change that we had to go to that. We had to help people understand what they were able to do, the flexibility that they could exercise, how to look at risk and how to I'm going to say manage risk, because I wanted people to understand it's okay to take risks, you just got to know the risks that you're taking and you got to manage them right. And one of the things that I've always harped on and I will always say I can teach a contracting officer to do anything, isn't that true? And we can probably even encourage them and give them the confidence to do the things we want. But you've got to have the right leaders on the team, from the supervisor that does the day-to-day to the manager, to that senior procurement executive. What are your thoughts on the leadership that's needed during these times?

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

I mean, as we all know, you know, anytime you're going through a significant change, leadership, from especially that first line supervisor level on up, is critical, and this is an interesting time to be a part of leadership and to be watching what's happening, because everyone is in this together. This isn't a change for a particular program, a particular agency. This is massive right. It's a massive undertaking that requires a really a gut check of, like, how to lead during this kind of change. And it's not just the leaders, by the way. You know, the entire workforce, the entire federal workforce industry, needs to be thinking about how we are leading this change together, and I think this is something that is very much a co-creation.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

And what I like about what's happening is that it is agile and iterative. So the process is going, you know, bit by bit, and the fact that we've got a lot of deviations from the regulations that are out there right now. That's good, because it's allowing all of us, including the workforce and the people who lead them, to test it out. We don't always get that opportunity. We're used to rulemaking where, you know, it takes a long time and there's the comments and it's back and forth and ultimately you end up with something and then you train the workforce. This is something that we are all in together. I say we. I keep forgetting that.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

I keep forgetting that I retired that everyone is in together, and, and so I think this is a great opportunity to lead not just those individuals in the traditional leadership roles, but every single person involved in the acquisition system has an opportunity here to you know. I always say you know what's the system itself, are the people right, the people who execute what's happening, and so what a great opportunity to be able to influence change that, in many cases, is long overdue and very exciting, quite frankly. So I think there's risk there, but, like we just talked about risk-taking, so we can manage those. But I think you know, being able to be in it, live and watch people understand it, try it out, give feedback, allow those strategic guidance documents to be evolving over time that's exactly what needs to happen so that we don't step into something, put something you know, put a flag in the ground and then we're stuck with something that doesn't work. So I'm very excited about it.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Well, and I've always believed. You know that my philosophy was there is no one size fits all. You know, we adapt to the situation that we're in. So one of the things that I think quite a bit about was we talk about this far overhaul is, I do think about industry. As most of you probably know those of you who know me I was always a very big champion of industry, about getting out there, engaging with industry, bringing industry into the conversation.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

And right now that's one of my bigger concerns is industry needs to be engaged and I know a lot of the industry associations have formed working groups. God knows I'm on a few of them. We formed working groups do not have all the answers, industry. You have some of the answers. You've lived this experience as well. So I encourage you to participate and comment and get in there and be a part of this solution and not be afraid to challenge some things if you think they're harmful to you, they're harmful to you. But I do think that we sometimes have put too much in the regulations to protect industry and not enough to protect the government. You know what I'm talking about Protest, anyway.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

You said it, not me, yeah, but you know, I have opinions about that, but I do think that industry you need to be engaged, and one of the things that I think we need to bring industry in a little bit more is the discussion about technology and how technology can improve the acquisition process. So what are your thoughts? What do you think?

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

Absolutely Well. It's been interesting. The evolution, you know, as we've, as government, has come full circle on technology and always will, because it's not going away. It's. You know, in earlier years we were focused in procurement on, you know, the technology itself, the technology that we are. What is this technology that we're buying and who's providing it and what are the capabilities out there. And now what I see is that's incredibly important. It still is. But also, you know, bringing technology into how we conduct the acquisition process right.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

That has been something that we've been working on, I think, for a while, and I think it's going to speed up and I think there's a lot more sharing that needs to be done in that space, because good things have been happening with AI, with, you know, rpa and all of the great technologies that are out there in terms of the process itself and how we apply it, but I think adoption has been too slow. People have been as recently as a few months ago, before I retired, you know, we were training the workforce on, you know, how to use AI and how to make their jobs better, and there was definitely still a lot of fear out there. There was a lot of fear and we were trying to turn the conversation into your world. What are you working on? What is your process? What are your pain points? Instead of trying to sell a tool or a technology to the workforce, it was more about what do you do every day. What data are you using and manipulating and dealing with on a day-to-day basis? And helping people get to an understanding of how it's helpful and how it can make their jobs better, I think, is the focus there, but obviously you know there's a lot more that can be done in this space.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

One of the things I get excited about is predictive analytics. That's something that I think there's huge opportunity for, not just in the realm of understanding what the government's needs and requirements are and what the demand is for certain you know products and services, but also in the administration of contracts. Right Like trying to better understand how our contracts are operating. That's something when I was at DHS, I know we were very interested in. You know, using the data, that we had to understand how well those contract or not well those contract vehicles were operating, because it's hard to tell sometimes.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

There's lots of data, but without managing that and looking at that in a way that helps drive better decisions. It's only as good as it is right. So I think there's other. You know use cases for that. You know predicting performance under contracts, looking at contractor data and what we have on that. So there's, I think, a lot of opportunity there. So again, the how, I think, is more exciting to me even than the what, the what we kind of all have known about for a while, but how to apply it super exciting.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

Well and how to help the workforce accept it, Because I do think that there are the fear mongers out there that keep saying it's going to take your job, no, it's not. No, it's not, it's going to make you better at your job. That has always been my philosophy about technology that if I put the right technology in the hands of our contracting professionals, our acquisition professionals because the program officials need it too but if we get the right technology in the hands so that they can see and use the data more intelligently, instead of playing with the data, as I like to say, manipulating spreadsheets if they can push a button and get the right data now, they can make some smart decisions and some smart choices and focus on solving problems. That's really what we're here to do. As I always like to tell people, we're not here to write contracts, we're here to enable the mission, and if we're going to do that, then we have to be more efficient and more effective in how we collect data, use data, share data, and you did bring up the sharing of data, which I think is extremely important.

Nina Ferraro, Former DHS Deputy Chief Procurement Officer:

I think some of what we've seen in the recent months, when you see some of the information that's coming out about some of the data. What you're finding out is that you've got some bad data in the systems. You know you've got a lot of noise in the systems. You know you got a lot of noise in the system, the data that hasn't been cleaned up, et cetera. Junk in, junk out, right, that's the way it works. So I think it's extremely important that technology be a part of this discussion about the revolutionary far overhaul, because all the changes in regs are not going to make any better if you haven't figured out how to use IT effectively.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

Totally agree and I also think a big part of this, which is culture and process and everything changing here, right, it's the unlearning, right? So it's not just it's the unlearning of process and procedure, using technology in a way that you know how do we remove that fear that you're talking about? Right, so it's unlearning culture, unlearning the fear, unlearning the procedures that we have followed, that people just well. Yeah, I know there's this technology, but I've been doing it this way forever and I can keep doing it that way. So it's a challenge. You know it is a huge challenge.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

That's not something that you know is just going to happen overnight and you know we'll probably get to talking about the workforce a little bit more.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

But you know, you all know you're probably calling your, your COs and your cores and you know they're going through a lot.

Soraya Correa, Former DHS Chief Procurement Officer:

Right, they're trying to learn, as you know they're, they're, they're flying the plane as it's being built and you know they're being told that. You know there's going to be incredible empowerment to the acquisition teams as a result of what's happening with the far overhaul, and that is indeed the intent to try to empower the acquisition teams to have more discretion, to have more flexibility, to be able to make better decisions. At the same time, there's a lot of sort of review of things going on right now. So they're sitting in a seat where they're trying to execute their work. Not everything is flowing as quickly as it used to, because there's more scrutiny over what the government is buying and, at the same time, we're telling but you're going to be empowered, and there's a lot of conflict, right, but but I'm proud of them and I think that they are doing really well and they can't get there without people like yourselves. So just wanted to add that little point.