Rising Star: Omid Ghaffari-Tabrizi

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A few years ago, Omid Ghaffari-Tabrizi left a job at a contracting law firm in sunny Florida on a heartfelt mission to help transform the federal government into an agile, responsive and forward-thinking IT buyer.

By taking the lead on the General Services Administration’s centers of excellence acquisitions team, he became the trailblazer for the agency’s efforts to make the centers’ acquisition packages the go-to resource for federal agencies while injecting agile methodology into all aspects of the program.

His managers say he has a shrewd ability to navigate the federal acquisition process and a personality that’s both friendly and industrious, adding that his passion for acquisition, collaboration and modernization has helped encourage more traditional employees to try new approaches.

As a prime example of his success, they point to the agency’s award of the $100 million Centers of Excellence Discovery blanket purchase agreement earlier this year. The BPA incorporates 22 vendors in the categories of change management, cloud adoption, contact center, customer experience, data analytics, information security and IT infrastructure optimization.

Thanks to Ghaffari-Tabrizi’s efforts, the Discovery BPA moves the centers away from traditional waterfall development by requiring agencies to take an agile approach to creating solicitations and demanding agile solutions from vendors as well.