Julian joined SOSi in 1994, shortly after receiving a bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University and five years after his mother Sosi Setian founded the company. Since becoming the company’s CEO in 2001, he has driven more than $5 billion dollars of contract awards and $200 million dollars of acquisitions, making SOSi one of the best known, enduring, and respected leaders in the defense and government services industry. Julian accomplished this growth without ever competing for any restricted small business set-aside contracts, nor accepting any outside equity capital or investment in the business. Rather, he has led SOSi’s success by offering best-in-class solutions for the most competitive prices, demonstrating a steadfast commitment to customers, partners, and employees.
When Julian initially joined SOSi, the company specialized in providing foreign language translation and transcription services to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), U.S. Customs Service (USCS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Office of the U.S. Attorney. Julian grew the company’s business with the federal law enforcement agencies and diversified into the Department of Defense (DoD) and intelligence community, winning the company’s first unrestricted prime contract in 1996. By 2003, Julian had established SOSi as one of the largest providers of contract language services globally to the DoD. Over the next decade, Julian leveraged SOSi’s market position to diversify into numerous other business areas, from IT to logistics, building SOSi into the global enterprise it is today. In 2011, he founded data science and software subsidiary Exovera, LLC, which primarily supports the intelligence community.
A hands-on philanthropist, Julian personally fosters a culture of service at SOSi. Under his leadership, the company actively supports a wide range of civic and nonprofit organizations that provide advocacy and assistance to former and active-duty military members, military spouses, and caregivers. In 2022, the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) recognized SOSi with a “Special Service Award”, citing Julian’s personal work mentoring veteran entrepreneurs and SOSi’s underwriting of an initiative by the PenFed Foundation to prepare growth-stage veteran owned businesses to raise investor funds.
Julian sits on the Executive Committee of the Professional Services Council (PSC), a leading advocacy organization for the Government Services industry, and the Board of Directors of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, which supports early arts education throughout the world. He previously served on the Executive Committee and was the Chairman of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and remains a member of YPO Gold today.
In 2020, Julian was named to the “Virginia 500 Power List” by Virginia Business Magazine. He is a three-time Executive Mosaic “Wash100” awardee and has been a finalist for several other prestigious awards including Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce “Large Business Executive of the Year”, Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” for the Mid-Atlantic region, and Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) “Cyber CEO of the Year”.
