Ayesha Rahman

I am in charge of corporate strategic initiatives at. Savantage, a privately held software and consulting firm with approx. $35 million in annual revenues. As an ERP financial system COTS vendor, it competes directly against Oracle and SAP in the Federal financial system market. Its proprietary enterprise financial software is an Oracle and SQL-based ERP COTS software suite of applications, designed for use by Federal government agencies, to support end to end accounting business processes such as budgeting, general ledger, financial reporting, procure to pay, revenues and collections, reconciliations, assets, project costing, business analytics, etc.

I report to the founder/CEO, and work closely with other senior executives, internal stakeholders and external partners. My role spans multiple domains and has evolved over the years. Highlights from my experience are below:

• Successfully led several major Federal ERP software regulatory compliance certification efforts, managing software development and functional teams of up to 30 FTE's. The successful certification results, against financial system requirements similar to SOX requirements, enabled the company to continue to offer its financial system ERP COTS software products in the Federal market as a software vendor, generating over $400 million in revenues to date. The financial system requirements cover areas such as internal controls within end to end accounting business process flows, timeliness and accuracy of financial transactional data, data security and integrity within applications and for integrations with other business systems (such as payroll and travel), user access management and segregation of duties, cloud and infrastructure security, and others.

• Serve as the company's key executive liaison with Treasury and OMB leadership within the Federal government, to stay up to date on emerging and new regulatory and policy guidelines as an ERP software COTS vendor, and provide feedback as an industry leader.

• Successfully led capture, software implementation teams and provided executive oversight, for multi-million dollar projects at various Federal agencies, including Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Treasury, Department of Homeland Security, and others. Examples include a financial system ERP implementation with 5,000+ system users supporting agencies with $20+ billion annual budget, a government-wide financial reporting and consolidation solution to generate financial statements for the entire US Federal government based on data feeds of over 200 agencies, and a financial system to record all premiums, interest and claims at the loan transactional level for approx 1 million housing loans for the Federal government's reverse mortgage insurance program.

• Collaborate with Business Development and Proposal teams, as well as SME's and partner organizations, to support new business opportunities by formulating innovative solutions for customers, leading software demonstrations and presentations to C-level executives. Successful contract awards range from $1 million to over $40 million dollars.

• Provide executive oversight over key R&D initiatives, to incorporate regulatory compliance, technology infusion and innovation, as well as features prioritized by users, in company's ERP software suite, as well as creation of new modules/ products. Recent examples include creation and implementation of process automation bots for customers, and adoption of Oracle APEX, Oracle's AI-powered low-code/no-code platform, into Savantage's ERP COTS software suite. I co-authored a blog entry published in Oracle APEX's global blog about the pioneering use of Oracle APEX in Savantage's financial system ERP COTS software in 2023, in its Asset Management module.

• Lead government relation efforts on Capitol Hill, advocating for favorable policy positions for the company. I provide executive oversight for lobbyist firms and government consultants. I am responsible for both strategy and execution, in terms of drafting roadmap and key messaging, and monitoring progress.

• Lead corporate marketing and PR initiatives, including website, collateral, social media, engagement through professional organizations at conferences and exhibits, press releases, etc.

• Lead litigation efforts related to government contract award protests, working closely with law firms.

I am a board member for Shared Services Leadership Coalition (SSLC), a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the government’s implementation of shared services business models to improve government efficiency and effectiveness, bringing an active community of government and industry leaders together.

Through SSLC, I have contributed to white papers and thought leadership for government-wide initiatives, and moderated workshops and events with broad executive level participation. I also co-chaired a government-wide Advanced Tech Working Group in 2024, with participants across industry and government, to research and deliver recommendations on the potential adoption and use of new emerging technologies in optimizing and modernizing business operations for the Federal government. This presentation was facilitated and published by National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA).

• Led financial system system implementation projects for commercial and non-profit customers, leading cross-functional teams of up to 10 FTE's.

• I started as an Associate, and was promoted to Senior Associate, in the firm's Business Assurance practice. As a Senior Associate, I led teams of associates for annual financial audits of high technology companies in Washington DC metro area.