ON THIS WEEK’S SHOW:

What is the DHS’s acquisition strategy? What are the key procurement and acquisition challenges facing DHS? How is DHS improving the operational performance of its acquisition function? Join host Michael Keegan as he explores these questions and more with Nick Nayak, Chief Procurement Office, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

GUEST BIOGRAPHY:

Nick Nayak has over 24 years of senior private, public and academic leadership experience. He has been a dynamic figure in the field of federal acquisition – helping to professionalize the federal acquisition workforce, implement methods to obtain acquisition savings, and recruit the next generation of acquisition professionals.

In 2011, Dr. Nayak issued the Department’s first Chief Procurement Officer’s Strategic Plan for Fiscal Year 2012-2014, which serves as a roadmap for connecting the DHS contracting workforce with the Department’s mission by instituting four priorities: quality contracting, quality people, quality program support, and quality industry-government communication. To advance these goals, Dr. Nayak and his team established a Procurement Health Assessment to ensure the procurement workforce remains on track in achieving the Strategic Plan’s objectives.

In February 2013, he released the Annual Progress Report for Fiscal Year 2012, the Strategic Plan’s companion publication, which highlights the DHS procurement workforce’s accomplishments and provides further direction on future priorities, objectives and initiatives. In addition, he initiated a customer satisfaction survey to gauge the Department’s delivery of quality service across all DHS contracting activities.

Within two years of Dr. Nayak’s service with the Department, the Office of Management and Budget, the General Accounting Office and the General Services Administration have recognized DHS as a leader in federal strategic sourcing, a program enabling agencies like DHS to leverage its buying power for commonly used products and services.

The Department has also garnered broad recognition for its commitment to providing maximum opportunities for small businesses. In 2012, the Government Technology & Services Coalition honored DHS as the Federal Small Business Champion of the Year for demonstrating a commitment and tangible results towards improving the business environment for small businesses in the federal marketplace. In addition, the Coalition for Government Procurement honored Dr. Nayak and the DHS procurement workforce with its 2012 Excellence in Partnership Award for fostering open communication between government and industry and effectively breaking down barriers to create a more collaborative procurement environment.

Before joining DHS, Dr. Nayak served as the deputy director for Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and in several other high-impact leadership positions, including director of Strategic Acquisition Initiatives, deputy director of the Office of Information Technology Acquisition, project executive for the IRS Commissioner’s Security Readiness Project, and director of the Treasury Acquisition Institute (TAI).

Dr. Nayak has a Ph.D. in Administration and Management, an M.S. in Management and a B.S. in Finance and Economics. He has served as an adjunct professor for several universities and taught over 45 undergraduate and graduate business courses. Dr. Nayak’s hobbies include playing tennis, where he has won more than 100 Washington metropolitan area amateur tennis tournaments and was rated as high as 5.0 on the United States Tennis Association’s rating system.

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