RESTON, Va. (January 17, 2020) – SOS International LLC (SOSi) announced today that Chief Operating Officer, John Avalos, has been named to WashingtonExec’s “Top 25 Execs to Watch” list. The annual list highlights select leaders who continue to innovate, transform, and meet bipartisan mission-critical requirements while making the federal government more efficient, effective, and secure. The WashingtonExec article can be viewed here. Full excerpts from the interview have also been included below:
What were your most significant milestones/achievements in 2019?
Avalos: I led SOSi’s identification, operational due diligence, and integration of our most recent acquisition of Vykin Corp in July. The addition significantly strengthens our company’s IT and intelligence capabilities, particularly in cloud development, and supporting command and control (C2) and intelligence systems. It marked the fourth significant SOSi acquisition in four years.
We completed an overall corporate restructuring that will strengthen our customer relationships and better position us to leverage our capabilities across markets.
We expanded our global footprint into the Pacific, Southwest Asia, and Europe – and established a new line of business in the Middle East. About a third of our employees now work overseas.
We competed alongside the biggest contractors in the business to earn a position on SIA 3, the primary contract vehicle for providing intelligence analysis support to Department of Defense (DoD) warfighters, planners, and policy professionals worldwide. It was a massive win for our business. Not only did we enter a new tier of competition, but the award also firmly establishes SOSi as a trusted provider of intelligence services.
Our market growth also caught the attention of our industry peers. SOSi was recognized as a Top 100 Federal Government Contractor by Washington Technology. We were named one of the 75 fastest-growing companies in Greater Washington by Washington Business Journal. We also earned a spot on the Northern Virginia Tech Council’s esteemed ‘Tech 100’ list for the very first time. Perhaps no honor reflected our maturity as an organization better than being named the GovCon 2019 “Contractor of the Year” in the $300 million and above category by the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and Professional Services Council.
These are incredible milestones when you think that SOSi just celebrated its 30th anniversary this September.
How does your company differentiate itself from competitors?
Avalos: We are the largest private, family-owned, and operated firm in the defense and aerospace services industry. We have a broad breadth of capabilities – on par with organizations much larger than our own. We work with all the major departments that impact defense and intelligence and provide analysis, technology, language services, logistics, and training. We have market access to an enviable list of contract vehicles, and a geographic footprint spanning more than 20 countries around the world.
We are integrating several disparate capabilities developed internally with those gained through corporate acquisitions. For example, we merged several of our AI, software development, and cloud capabilities into a single technology development and innovation group to deliver new solutions for our federal government customers.
Culturally, we prioritize leadership, innovation, entrepreneurship, and a commitment to employees, customers, and their missions above all else. We are more nimble and bold than many of our peers, and we are willing to take on the complex projects that others won’t. “Challenge Accepted” is more than just our tagline; it is our mantra and a real differentiator.
What emerging technologies helped you advance federal missions?
Avalos: We are working closely with our federal customers to integrate leading-edge open-source intelligence and deep and dark web exploitation capabilities. We have incredible system integration and software development capabilities that have helped to field the most sophisticated implementation of PeopleSoft® Global Pay currently in production worldwide.
We are also leveraging our company’s language and technology expertise to pioneer new artificial intelligence (AI)- enabled machine translation (MT) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) solutions for the government market.
We are building discriminators in areas where both our expertise and customer needs align.
What will be your main focus areas in 2020?
Avalos: We will continue to have an aggressive acquisition and investment mindset. Integrating new technologies and discriminators into our portfolio remains a priority. I would also like to explore potential strategic partnerships with tech companies that are currently operating both in and outside the federal market.
We are also looking to expand our international footprint to push our corporate infrastructure out to our employees and customers around the world.
