Paula K. Watts is the CEO and Founder of the Government Procurment Innovators (GPI). GPI provides business coaching to start-ups and existing small businesses who are navigating the Federal acquisition process. Ms. Watts leverages her experiences as a small business owner and a previous 8(a) government contractor to lead GPI's staff in coaching and training small businesses. Ms. Watts’s expertise has successfully guided several 8a firms in obtaining multi-million dollars contracts. As expert on the procurement and management of government contracts, Ms. Watts has conducted over 800 seminars and workshops on small business start-up, business expansions, and developing winning strategies when marketing to the Federal government.
As a former Business Opportunity Specialist (BOS) with the U. S. Small Business Administration, Ms. Watts’s primary duties included providing hands on support to an average of 40 firms participating in SBA’s 8a Business Development Program. She was responsible for ensuring annually each firm’s compliancy with the regulations of the 8a BD program. Ms. Watts was also responsible for processing all mentor/protégé and joint ventures agreements and ensuring eligibility requirements before agreements were submitted to SBA’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Ms. Watts worked closely with firms in linking 8a sole source contracting opportunities.
Formerly the President and CEO of Innovative Technology Group, Inc. in Silver Spring, Maryland and has more than 25 years of experience in program planning, budget development and management, project management, contract administration, technical and proposal writing, Ms. Watts has managed consulting contracts in excess of $15 million.