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On today’s show, Fred and Julie meet with Murtaza Ahmed, Chief Growth Officer Civilian, Health and SLED at SAIC.
Watch the video of this podcast on YouTube here.
Find Murtaza on LinkedIn.
MURTAZA’S TIP: “Don’t fall in love with your own capabilities — fall in love with the customer’s problem.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: Murtaza, it’s great to have you here. As many people who listen to the show know, every year the Institute for Effective Professional Selling has a big award event. In 2021, we gave your current CEO, Toni Townes-Whitley, who was at the time at Microsoft leading their public sector, she was our Lifetime Award recipient. It’s great to have you. I’m excited to talk to you.
Give us an insight onto you. Tell us what you do at SAIC. Then tell us about your career, what led you to SAIC. I know you spent some quality time at AWS. AWS is a big member, big partner of the Institute for Effective Professional Selling. We’ve had about a dozen leaders all the way up through David Levy on the Sales Game Changers Podcast. Tell us about you, tell us what you do at SAIC, and how’d you eventually get there?
Murtaza Ahmed: I’ve been with SAIC two years now, and I currently lead our growth for the Civilian Business Group. Within SAIC, we have five business groups. Essentially, I tell people, everything non-DOD is what falls within the civilian space. My role is to lead our growth and strategy for our Civilian Business Group.
Fred Diamond: Tell us a little bit about your career. How did you get to SAIC?
Murtaza Ahmed: As far as my career is concerned, it actually started right out of college with Lockheed Martin, a classic path into the federal contracting world. It was a great place to learn the fundamentals, big missions, complex systems, and really high expectations. Over time, I found myself gravitating more towards growth roles. I was participating in proposals, I was participating in pricing strategy. I started leaning more and more towards growth business development strategy and figured out how to build winning teams, winning work, and really shape where a company is headed.
During this time, I was working with SAIC, competing with SAIC, and really worked with SAIC in a couple different manners prior to joining SAIC. When I was at AWS, I partnered with them on a few efforts. I remember being very, very impressed. They showed up prepared, thoughtful, really focused on the mission, and it stood out. Around the same time, a former colleague of mine, someone I trust, had just joined SAIC and kept telling me how different the culture was. It was collaborative, value driven, and not just talk. You could feel it in how the people were really working together.
When the opportunity came to lead the Civilian Business Group’s growth side, it felt like the right move for me. I knew the kind of work they were doing, I knew the impact they wanted to have, and I felt like I could help accelerate that. For me, it’s always been about being close to the mission and helping teams compete and win in a way that’s smart, strategic, and sustainable.
One of the things that I remember most clearly from that AWS and SAIC partnership was a session where we were trying to align a very technical cloud solution to a real world problem at a health agency. The SAIC team didn’t talk tech first. They talked mission. That struck with me and it’s a mentality I’ve carried with me ever since.
Fred Diamond: We’ve interviewed many people from the public sector markets on the Sales Game Changers Podcasts, and it always comes down to mission. Government agencies, public sector, state, local, federal, education, they always are about the mission. It’s not profit. It’s about serving the citizens, serving the customer, serving whomever they’re serving to achieve things to make life and the world better for citizens, not just in the United States, but all across the world.
You mentioned the word partnership. What does an ideal partnership look like to you? What type of companies do you partner with? You mentioned when you were at AWS, you were partnered with SAIC. Now you’re at SAIC. What types of companies do you like to partner with?
Murtaza Ahmed: That’s a great question. For me, the ideal partnership starts with a mindset. Our business group leader, Srini Attili, talks about don’t fall in love with your own capabilities, but fall in love with the customer’s problem. Everything we do at SAIC starts with the understanding of the mission. What is the customer really trying to solve? What’s standing in the way? Once we are clear on that, our job becomes bringing together the right combination of people, technology, and expertise to deliver the best outcome, and that’s where the partnerships are coming in. We don’t try to do everything ourselves. We intentionally work with companies that complement or improve what we are bringing to the table. That includes everything from traditional system integrators, our competitors, OEMs, to cloud hyperscalers, like AWS and Google, and emerging technology startups.
We also have an initiative called SAIC Ventures. We are taking it a step further in that. We are actually investing in companies we believe can solve real world problems. We are not just writing a check, we are mentoring them, we are coaching them, introducing them to our clients, and helping shape their offerings so they are aligned to the actual mission. It’s about building an ecosystem that connects all the cutting-edge technology to real mission needs and doing it in a way that’s thoughtful, curated, and driven by outcomes. To give you an example, one of our venture-backed partners developed a lightweight AI tool to automate parts of a compliance process that used to take weeks. We helped them tailor the product for federal use, got it in front of the right clients, and now it’s part of a broader solution we offer to our clients. That’s what partnership looks like when it’s done right.
Fred Diamond: There’s a lot of value in the knowledge that SAIC has. Having worked with customers for decades, understanding their mission, understanding their systems, I love that quote, falling in love with the customer’s problem, and that’s a great way not to focus on you, but to focus on why you’re even in business. Just curious, what does SAIC look for from your partners?
Murtaza Ahmed: When we talk about partnerships, for me, it’s very much a two-way street. At SAIC, we are not just looking for vendors or subcontractors. We are looking for true collaboration. What we value most in a partner is alignment around the mission. We want to work with companies who get the customer’s challenge that are just as committed as we are. We look for partners who bring differentiated value, whether it’s technical expertise, niche capabilities, customer intimacy, or an innovative product that fills a gap. But just as important as what a partner brings is how they show up. Are they responsive? Are they transparent? Can they operate with speed and agility? Do they collaborate well under pressure?
One of our strongest partnerships came out of a high stakes recompete. The partner didn’t just bring tech, they brought perspective. We also value partners who are very forward-leaning, who are thinking about what’s next. Lastly, I would say is culture matters. We look for partners who share our values, who are focused on the long-term outcomes, not just short-term wins. When you’re building partnerships of that, with that kind of foundation, you are not just winning work, you’re also delivering impact. It’s not black and white, okay, what are we looking for in a partner? A lot of things, but what it comes down to is, can we work together? Are we working towards the same mission? It becomes very, very important for us.
Fred Diamond: We’re doing today’s interview in May of 2025, and the federal government marketplace is going through some significant and major transformations right now. For people listening, I guess the title is business development. You guys are always focusing on developing new business. What is your advice for BD professionals, business development professionals, to be successful right now? It’s a really interesting time. There’s a lot of challenges going on, not just in the world, but in our marketplace. What is your advice for the BD professionals out there?
Murtaza Ahmed: The federal market is in the middle of some major shifts right now. We are seeing budget constraints, longer procurement cycles, evolving priorities, and more accountability around results and efficiency. It’s not business as usual. My advice, it really comes down to something actually our CEO, Toni Townes-Whitley, says often, heads down, heads up, hearts open. Heads down, stay focused, know your accounts, stay close to your clients, and put in the real work. Heads up, be aware of the environment. The cycles we have been used to are being challenged, and you’ve got to understand the big picture, so policy, funding, and market dynamics.
With hearts open, lead with empathy. Clients are under a lot of pressure. We are seeing all kinds of reductions going on everywhere. They don’t need pitches right now. They need solutions. We have to be that problem solver for them and not just a salesperson. This is the time to think differently, be creative, help your clients look around the corner. I’ve seen some of the best ideas come from unexpected places, including junior team members who just saw a smarter way to do something. We all have to encourage that, and we have to share that, because I think now more than ever, we need new thinking to move these missions forward.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great answer. A lot of people listening to today’s Sales Game Changers Podcast, the sales and the BD world have changed dramatically for a whole bunch of different reasons. But I love when you just said before about the hearts open and the empathy, because there’s been unbelievable transformation with our customers. There’s a tremendous amount of reductions in force, there’s a lot of budgets being cut, and the customers are still mission driven. That’s one thing that comes up all the time.
We know this for people who serve the federal marketplace, and all the public sector markets out there, the customers are all driven by a mission. Like we said before, it’s not growth, it’s not profit. It’s making the world a better place for citizens. Keep them safe, keep them healthy, allow them to move about, transport easily, eat better, higher quality food, drink cleaner water. All those things, they’re all mission driven, and the customer’s being challenged with being able to figure out ways. I love when you just said that it’s the mission of SAIC to understand that so that your solutions can be even more valuable.
Talk a little bit about the relationships with your customers. Again, like we just were alluding to, they’re going through all this transformation and they’ve had decades of relationships with SAIC and companies similar to yours. What are they asking for? What do they expect from SAIC right now?
Murtaza Ahmed: The relationship that we have with our clients is built on something really fundamental, trust. Many of the agencies, like you said, we work with, have been SAIC customers for decades. They know we understand their mission, and they expect us to show up, not just as a contractor, but as a trusted advisor as well. What they’re expecting from us right now is honestly no different than what they’ve always expected, clarity, commitment, and results. What has changed slightly, not that it wasn’t a requirement before, but the requirement now has changed slightly with the focus on efficiency. They need that efficiency now, smarter ways to deliver more with less. That’s something that we are laser focused on.
I was recently in a meeting with a client where we laid out a modernization roadmap, and instead of leading with tech, we led with outcomes. What is that thing that matters to them? Here’s how we’ll help you reduce your backlog, increase your throughput, keep your mission secured. That is what resonates with our clients. Because right now agencies need partners who will listen first, then act, and they trust us to bring forward that full solution, and we don’t take that responsibility lightly at all.
Fred Diamond: We have a lot of sales professionals and business development professionals who listen to the Sales Game Changers Podcast or read the transcripts. What skills do you suggest that they work on right now so that they can grow their careers?
Murtaza Ahmed: I do get that question a lot, and I think it’s more important now than ever. The role of a business developer or a growth professional has evolved, like we just talked about. We as BD professionals need to develop strategic thinking. We need to know the landscape. It’s not just about that deal. It’s about the budget, the policy, the timing. The best BD professionals aren’t just chasing deals, they’re shaping them.
Second is communication. Learn to influence. Learn to listen. Learn to simplify complex value in a way that is resonating. Third, I would say, is understanding of technology. You don’t need to know how to code, but you need to understand what’s possible. Whether it’s AI, cloud, zero trust, we have to know the basics so we can have meaningful conversations. Finally, I go back to empathy and resilience, that isn’t easy work. But if you care about the mission and you commit to being a real partner, not just internally, but with the clients, you will find success. I bring it down to three short phrases, like, be mission first, client forward, and team aligned. I think that’s the mindset we all need to move forward.
Fred Diamond: I agree. That’s great. Once again, I want to thank you, Murtaza, for all the insights and ideas that you brought to us. Give us a final action step for people listening to today’s show. Something specific that they should do right now to take their sales or BD career to the next level.
Murtaza Ahmed: I would go back and mention about the mission first. Every proposal, every partnership, every strategy session, it all ties back to a mission that impacts real people. In times like these where the environment is uncertain and change is constant, that focus becomes even more important. I would say to the people earlier in their career or stepping into their growth roles for the first time, stay curious, stay humble, stay mission-driven. The best opportunities come when you are listening more than you are speaking, and when you’re focused more on solving than selling.
Fred Diamond: Those are great. Actually, the great sales professionals and BD professionals, it’s not about them. It’s about the customer. I love that statement. Fall in love with your customer’s problem.
Once again, I want to thank Murtaza Ahmed for being on today’s Sales Game Changers Podcast. My name is Fred Diamond.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo