Pat Host 
- Ahmed Ayad, SMX senior vice president of growth, learned early how development work and military operations often intersect to create long-term stability
- Today at SMX, Ayad is focused on expanding and diversifying the company’s customer base while bolstering its core mission capabilities
- He sat down with ExecutiveBiz to talk DOW acquisition reform, novel cloud requirements and the evolution of capture strategies during his career
Ahmed Ayad learned early in his career how development work and military operations often intersect to create long-term stability. He began his professional career supporting U.S. Agency for International Development programs, gaining hands-on experience in developing and conflict-affected regions including Iraq and Afghanistan.
Over time, Ayad transitioned into directly supporting warfighter missions, advancing U.S. interests overseas while contributing to homeland security efforts. His appointment to chief growth officer at HII in 2023 marked a significant career milestone.
Who Is Ahmed Ayad?
Ayad is senior vice president for growth at SMX, where he is responsible for all aspects of growth and strategy.
What Does Ahmed Ayad Do at SMX?
Ayad is focused on expanding and diversifying the company’s customer base while strengthening its core mission capabilities. Ayad sat down with ExecutiveBiz for his first Spotlight interview to discuss SMX’s growth strategy for the next decade, novel Pentagon cloud requirements, how the company is adjusting to new acquisition reform initiatives and how capture strategies have evolved over his career.
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ExecutiveBiz: Where do you see SMX in 10 years and what concrete steps are required to reach that next stage of evolution?
Ahmed Ayad: SMX is a growing company with a history of delivering innovative technical solutions. Founded more than 30 years ago, we’ve achieved steady growth both organically and through acquisitions. We’re very well positioned in the current environment and have enjoyed a strong growth trajectory over the past several years.
Our long-term strategy is built around delivering outcomes, not hours, as we continue to identify new market opportunities, expand capabilities and consistently deliver value to our clients. The future is bright for SMX.
EBiz: How is SMX adjusting to the Department of War’s acquisition reforms, including the creation of portfolio acquisition executives who are more empowered, accountable and focused on speed to delivery?
Ayad: These reforms are pushing industry to create more differentiated offerings that provide greater value to clients. Combining missions under portfolio acquisition executives can create efficiencies for both government and industry.
When a solution is deployed within one organization under a larger portfolio, adjacent organizations can often benefit from that same solution. It becomes easier to scale capabilities across clients where trust, performance and value have already been demonstrated.
Additionally, consolidating missions enables the DOW to better optimize funding, resources and capabilities across portfolios. We view this as a positive shift. SMX is positioned to take advantage of these changes by pursuing market adjacencies and leveraging both our existing and emerging capabilities.
Another important trend is the government’s increasing preference for commercially-oriented and scalable solutions. Clients want differentiated solutions that require minimal tailoring and can be acquired quickly while avoiding lengthy acquisition cycles. Long before these reforms, SMX began delivering agile, outcome-based solutions that offer greater flexibility and cost-efficiency for government clients.
EBiz: What expertise defines SMX in the GovCon market?
Ayad: SMX offers a broad set of capabilities across multiple markets, with the majority of our work supporting the DOW. Our largest business unit is focused on global defense, where we support multiple Pentagon organizations worldwide.
We have deep expertise in manned and unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions supporting combatant commands. For example, we maintain a significant footprint with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command as well as programs supporting U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Southern Command. In these missions, we support ISR collection using aviation and maritime platforms, conduct data ingestion and analysis, and produce intelligence products that inform operational decision-making.
In addition, we have strong capabilities in cloud migration, cyber operations, systems engineering and software development. We also maintain long-standing partnerships with the Navy at Patuxent River, Maryland, and with Army program executive offices in Huntsville, Alabama.
Through acquisitions, we’ve expanded into financial analysis, data visualization and analytics, and also more recently into space and remote sensing data visualization in support of the. Space Force and Army. Together, these capabilities give SMX a highly-differentiated offering across the defense enterprise.
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EBiz: What new cloud requirements are you seeing from the Pentagon?
Ayad: We support a range of cloud migration programs across both federal and commercial clients. Within the DOW, there is growing demand for cloud adoption due to its flexibility, scalability and cost advantages compared to traditional on-premises data centers.
Some organizations are well ahead of the curve, while others are still catching up. We’re currently supporting Air Force cloud modernization efforts out of Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, among other initiatives, to help meet these evolving cloud requirements.
EBiz: What do you see as the most pressing national security threats today and how is SMX addressing them?
Ayad: Today’s national security environment is shaped by a complex mix of pacing threats and persistent transnational challenges. Near-peer competitors such as China and Russia continue to challenge the U.S. across multiple domains, while organized crime, human trafficking and global terrorism remain destabilizing forces worldwide.
In today’s operational environment, the defense industry, and SMX in particular, carries a profound responsibility: to deliver resilient and advanced capabilities that give the warfighter a decisive edge. This isn’t just a professional obligation for me, it’s deeply personal. During a deployment to Afghanistan, a Marine Corps captain told me, “We have to get it right every time, our enemy only has to get it right once.” That perspective has stayed with me and continues to shape how I approach our solutions and delivery.
At SMX, we tackle these challenges head-on by investing in capabilities that accelerate operations, strengthen security, and deliver a decisive advantage. This includes secure cloud modernization, AI-powered analytics and integrated digital solutions designed to enhance situational awareness, sharpen decision-making and optimize mission execution. By fusing cutting-edge technology with deep mission expertise, we enable our clients to anticipate and outpace evolving threats—ensuring readiness and resilience in every domain.
EBiz: What’s the most overlooked part of the bid process and how does SMX set itself apart from competitors here?
Ayad: The most critical and often underestimated part of the bid process is the capture phase. Success starts with a deep understanding of client requirements and developing differentiated solutions that directly address those needs. Simply trying to sell what you already have rarely works and often puts companies at a disadvantage.
Investing time early to understand priorities and shape solutions is essential. There’s a saying in industry: you don’t win an opportunity during proposal writing, you win it during capture.
EBiz: How has the capture phase evolved over your career?
Ayad: The capture process has changed significantly over the last two decades. The market is far more competitive today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Many capture strategies have already been tried, so teams must continue to innovate.
Differentiation now comes from a combination of technical solutions, highly-qualified personnel, deep mission understanding and strategic teaming partners. Capture strategies also must evolve based on changing government priorities, funding profiles and acquisition models—whether lowest-price technically acceptable or best-value approaches. Capture teams must constantly adapt to ensure strong and competitive offerings.
EBiz: Has your capture strategy changed with the government’s increased use of innovative contracting vehicles like other transaction authorities?
Ayad: Absolutely. OTAs and commercial solution offerings force companies to think differently about innovation, speed and cost-effectiveness. They encourage leveraging existing or commercialized solutions that require minimal customization rather than building everything from scratch. In research and development-focused efforts especially, success often comes down to having a truly-differentiated technical solution paired with the right pricing strategy.
