Charles Lyons-Burt
Robert W. Baird & Co. — the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-headquartered wealth management organization — is bringing a prestigious roster of government services company representatives and federal officials to the Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner on Nov. 15. The company’s annual Government and Defense Conference is an all-day affair that is never the same from year to year, according to Baird Managing Director and Co-head of the Government and Defense Investment Banking Practice John Song, who is one of the key organizers of the event. (It is now in its sixth iteration.)
“We try to find new things and new ways to develop insights about the industry that the audiences really value,” Song told ExecutiveBiz. “We find it incumbent on us not to rely on how we’ve been doing in the past, but really define new formats, new content, new speakers, who can all contribute in a unique way.”
The speakers are an eye-catching selection of government contracting and the federal sector’s best and brightest. Wash100 Award winners Mile Corrigan of Noblis, Stephanie Mango of CGI Federal, Todd Probert of CACI and Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Stacey Dixon will all be giving presentations.
While the other above-mentioned guests will deliver solo addresses, Probert will lead a panel discussion centered on electronic warfare’s decisive role in environments like Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific region, consulting voices from the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force.
Song says the reimagined structure and methodology for the day’s many panels are one of the surprises attendees have in store. The Baird managing director will facilitate a panel of his own between leaders from Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI and Anduril focusing on mergers and acquisitions deals. Other sessions will discuss the space domain as seen through the prism of the conflict in Ukraine and a potential future one with China; as well as the future of AI in government; and the force of innovation in the warfighting realm.
The event will also feature contributions from heavy-hitters like LinQuest’s Joe Dodd, Ultra Intelligence and Communications’ Jon Rucker, NTT Data’s Chris Merdon and Accenture Federal Services’ Ron Ash and Brian Hobbs.
Alongside his longtime professional partner, Baird managing director and fellow Wash100 awardee Jean Stack, Song works around the clock to bring the event to the GovCon community. It’s not an easy feat, but “nothing that’s worth doing is ever easy,” he shared. He went on to profess that the enormously positive feedback he and Stack receive from their colleagues in the industry is sometimes the only thing keeping them going, joking, “if that wasn’t there, then there’s no way anybody would subject themselves to this amount of pain.” Nearly 1,300 people have so far registered either to attend this year’s event in-person or view it virtually.
For more information, or to request an invitation to the conference, please contact Baird’s conference events team at [email protected].
