← GovDiscovery AI Podcast with Mike Shanley
GovDiscovery AI Podcast with Mike Shanley
Ep 33: USAID & Small Businesses: Kimberly Ball, Director, OSDBU
00:32:51
Kimberly Ball, Director of USAID's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization joins Mike Shanley to discuss small businesses and localization, success in using small businesses, how to connect with OSDBU, and what's...
Loading summary
Transcript106 lines
- [00:02]
A
Welcome to the Aid Market Podcast where foreign aid partners connect to learn about key funding trends and market insight. The podcast is co hosted by Aid Connect Data, the pipeline and Market intel software for USAID Partnering and Connected International, the leading USAID partnering support consulting firm. Now here's your host, Mike Shanley.
- [00:28]
B
Welcome to the Aid Market Podcast. We have a exciting show today. Kimberly Ball, the director of USAID's Office of Small Business I'm sorry of Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business utilization, known as OSDABU, with more than 20 years of experience at USAID, is joining us to share about USAID's work with small businesses around the world. USAID OSDBU coordinates the small Business Program and is the initial point of contact at USAID for all categories of US small businesses. Prior to joining Osdabu within USAID, Kimberly worked as a contract specialist in USAID's Management Office of Acquisition and Assistance. During her 10 year stint there, she supported the Global Health Bureau, European Eurasia Economic Growth and Trade, EGAT Democracy Conflict Humanitarian Assistance, and she also worked as a Contracting Officer and team leader supporting various divisions in the DCHA Bureau. So she has a lot of experience at USAID and has been and is now the Director of osdbu. So with that, Kimberly, welcome to the Aid Market Podcast. It's really great to have you here. Appreciate you taking some time to share the important work you all are doing with our audience.
- [01:45]
C
Thank you Mike. I'm really happy to be here. It is my first podcast, so I'm excited to be joining you for my first ever podcast and really looking forward to our conversation today.
- [01:56]
B
Wonderful, wonderful. Well, with that, Kimberly, for those not familiar, could you start off by talking about osdbu? What does your office do and what's your role at usaid?
- [02:07]
C
So osdbu, the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, is, as you said in the intro, the first point of entry for US Small businesses. I want to be clear as well that we work only with US Small businesses and that is mandated by law. There is an office like mine in each of the 24 CFO act agencies and our job is to really make sure that small businesses have a fair opportunity to work with the agency so that we want to make sure that when we're issuing solicitations and contracts that they are that small businesses are able to bid on them and propose as well. We view small businesses here at USAID as very important small business as very important partners and we want to make sure that we're engaging them in the work that we do we value their expertise and their experience, and we want to make sure that we as an agency are benefiting from that.
- [03:02]
D
Great.
- [03:03]
B
And can you talk about a little bit about what are, what does that look like? You know, maybe on a day to day basis internally, what are some examples of the types of activities you and your colleagues work on as part of supporting small business utilization at usaid?
- [03:19]
C
So I would say a couple of things. So one, we are internally focused. You know what, let me start with external first. We're externally focused.
- [03:26]
D
Right.
- [03:26]
C
So we do a lot of outreach events, both those that we host ourselves and those hosted by other organizations.
- [03:33]
D
Right.
- [03:33]
C
For example, the National 8 Conference, the Women's Chamber of Commerce. We attend events with some of our federal colleagues. Like we're frequently at State Department events, things like that, because we're always trying to look for new small business partners. At the same time, though, we're doing a lot of work internally to make sure that when those partners come to usaid, there's actual work for them.
- [03:54]
D
Right.
- [03:54]
C
So it is those two things. It is outreach and what we also call in reach. So working with the bureaus, the independent offices, the missions, to make sure that when they're looking at what their contracting requirements are, that they're considering small business in that process. Right. Whether that means doing things like industry days so that they can share with the small business community and others what their requirements are, whether that's market research. You'll frequently see things from us on SAM.gov that are requests for information or sources, sought notices so that the agency has an opportunity to survey the market to make sure that there are small businesses out there who can partner with us. Now, as an office, we both support our bureaus and independent offices, or maybe I'll just say operating units in their work, doing that. But also because at least here, domestically, they're required to send what we call a small business review to our office so that we have an opportunity to actually look at what they're putting out. And so we can make sure. Right. That's our responsibility to make sure that the agency has appropriately considered small business. Sometimes that means doing a full small business set aside. Sometimes it means doing a partial small business set aside. It means subcontracting.
- [05:05]
D
Right.
- [05:05]
C
But the question is, how can small business participate in whatever that specific award the agency is seeking? So I would say that we do a lot of that. Yeah. Maybe I'll just leave it there for now.
- [05:18]
D
Great.
- [05:18]
B
And we can get into a little bit more of that later in the show. One topic that I'm very interested to hear from you on is localization. That's obviously been a priority for going back several administrations and various iterations currently with administrator Samantha Power, one of her priorities. Could you talk a little bit about how your office sees the localization and supports that and sees the interaction or the role maybe for small businesses in the localization agenda?
- [05:47]
C
Sure, Mike. And you noted in the intro that I've been here for a number of years, so I've seen localization and local solutions and some of the other previous iterations that this was the same goal.
- [05:58]
D
Right.
- [05:59]
C
So you know, as a member of SID and as somebody who's active in this community, that our agenda is always to work ourselves out of a job. But the question becomes what is that really look like?
- [06:08]
D
Right.
- [06:08]
C
And who's making the decisions? And are we having conversations with the countries and with the local organizations where we're working?
- [06:16]
D
Right.
- [06:16]
C
So they have influence because there is certainly what we see as being appropriate, but there's also what they see as being appropriate. And as it's their community, we want to make sure that we're honoring and respecting that voice. And so that means that we are trying to work with more local organizations, but that also means very different things. Right. So it does mean sometimes when we're doing our assistance or contract awards, are we looking at local organizations and whether or not they can contribute? Sometimes it means different things about how we're holding the government to government conversations. Where it really relates to small business, though, really is about that, the contracting piece. And you know, I will say this, that small businesses who operate in this community, they're frequently already working with local organizations just as part of their structure and part of how they go about doing business. This is probably also true with large businesses, but I would say it's probably even more so more true with with small businesses because they're going to have a smaller footprint in country, meaning they're going to be more dependent on those relationships that they have with their local partners to make sure that they're appropriately staffed. So I would say that for small business, localization is something that they've historically done. Now the question though, becomes a little bit more of how do we make sure that the agency is viewing, in a way, and our missions and bureaus, et cetera, are viewing it in a way that allows small businesses to remain full partners. And I would say a couple of things to that. One, we were in Ghana maybe a year ago just doing small business training.
- [07:45]
D
Right?
- [07:46]
C
That's one of the things we do you ask me what our day looks like? We do a lot of training for our contracting staff, but also for our programmatic and technical staff to make sure that they understand both the responsibilities around using small business as it relates to federal law, but also what you get out of it.
- [08:01]
D
Right?
- [08:01]
C
The innovation, the creativity, those kinds of things that small businesses bring to the table. So we were in Ghana doing a training for the staff there. And while we were there, we also did a site visit with one of the small businesses working in country. It was actually really an interesting site visit and it was really exciting for us to be able to be on the ground. My office is heavily domestically focused, so being in the field is a little bit new for us. So I would say that we met with a small business. The lead person that we dealt with it was a woman named Mercy, who was a local Ghanaian woman who ran this project that we were looking at. And it was essentially financing and technical assistance for local farmers.
- [08:43]
D
Right?
- [08:44]
C
So they did things like teaching the farmers how to, you know, teaching them new tools to help them increase their yield. But they also, you know, they also collaborated with the farmers and on their behalf, sort of as a collective, negotiated prices in the restaurants and in the hotels and at the markets on their behalf. It was a really great example, example about how U.S. small businesses are helping local organizations to improve the work that they do. And I would say, arguably at a level, because these were small farmers, these are not people who wanted to do this work directly, but yet they benefited from it. Right? So small business was able to do that. The other really exciting thing about that trip is that Mercy agreed to come to our small business training. It wasn't initially part of the training, but she came in and she really talked about the work that was being done through the small business for these local organizations. And because she was, again, and she was able to bring her local perspective to it as well. And I think that really opened up the minds of a lot of the COs in the room and the CORs and the AORs about what this actually looks like and what localization means and how US small businesses can help build capacity and how they can help partner with these local organizations. You know, I think it was truly impactful in a really sort of meaningful way to present the information separately from us, just saying, hey, this is what you need to do because it's the law, or, you know, we've got these goals to reach. But to have this person standing in the front of the room and saying, this is what it actually Looks like when small and local organizations work together, it was really powerful.
- [10:16]
B
That's great, Kimberly. Thanks for sharing that. Could you maybe share some other examples of either how as to BU has supported small businesses internally at usaid. I know you can support with internal connections there and. Or maybe touch on. So it sounds like, I assume this was an established partner. They already had an award they were working on. What if there's a new small business listening today? How can they affect actively reach out to or engage with your office and benefit from the resources your team puts together.
- [10:47]
C
Okay, well, so our office is probably really easily accessible. I won't even say probably. We're easily accessible. We answer our phones. Right. So you can always reach out to us. And maybe I'll correct that slightly. Maybe don't call, maybe send an email.
- [11:02]
D
Right.
- [11:02]
C
Just because it's easier these days. I think post Covid everybody has switched a little bit more to email. But we have an email address, it's OSDBU1. So we have a person who monitors that mailbox and then they will direct you to the appropriate person. And that's if you don't know who you need to talk to.
- [11:18]
D
Right.
- [11:19]
C
We also have a list of our small business specialists on our website and that list shares what their portfolios are. So for example, if you know that you want to work in Tanzania, then the person that you would talk to is Marcus Moon on my staff. Right. So if you have a sense about what you're interested in, if you're more domestically focused and you want to, you, you want to work with our management bureau, which is where our contracting officer are, which is where our CFO is, where our CIO is. Right. If you want to do it work cybersecurity, that kind of thing, then that person is Kevin Davis also on the list. So you can email these people directly. Or I think the easier thing to do is really osabu1said.gov because again, it gets you to a central point and that person will direct you appropriately so you know that you're going to the right person. Also, it's helpful because, you know, if people are out for various reasons, there's always somebody monitoring that email. And so you're always going to get a response. So I think we're probably at a good 95% on that. You know, certainly let me know if, if you're reaching out to that mailbox and you're not getting a response. But that is our, our way of doing it just to make sure. And again, I think here shortly, we probably don't have it up quite yet, but here shortly we'll be putting up a list of our outreach events that people can participate in. So they will be both virtual and in person. And then we'll also let you know when we're attending, as I said, other people's events. So you know where you can find us.
- [12:40]
D
Right.
- [12:41]
C
So for the next couple of days beginning tomorrow will be at the Congressional Black Caucus annual leadership, their alc, forgive me for forgetting the acronym, but we'll be at their event for the next three days. So if you want to come by and talk to somebody from OSDBU or just somebody from the agency, because we will have other agency staff there as well, then that's where we'll be for the next three days.
- [13:03]
B
And those are just great opportunities to connect with Kimberly's team in person. What about, could you share your advice for when partners reach out? We'll say it's a new partner, hasn't worked with USAID before but is listening to the show and says, you know, I think we could really support USAID's mission. We're a U.S. small business. How you know, you mentioned how so the email or find the direct contact. But what should they share when they reach out? You know, if they did they see a procurement on the business forecast that they thought they might be a good fit for. What information is useful because obviously you all are, I imagine are inundated with emails and communication. How can they, how can they best help you, your team do your job? What information's good to share? What's the good ask? Should they ask for a follow up call or you know, ask for a connection? Any advice that you could share I think with, with new small businesses would be great.
- [13:59]
C
Okay, so one of the things that I will say is really great about USAID is we share a lot of information.
- [14:04]
D
Right.
- [14:04]
C
I know you've had a couple of people on the podcast who've probably talked about work with USAID.gov which is a great place to go and get some initial information about the agency. You know, honestly I do think it's a little bit more assistance focused, but it still has really good contract information as well. Things like the business forecast. USAID does a tremendous job of making sure that we put out there what it is we're buying.
- [14:28]
D
Right.
- [14:29]
C
We do really well with our cdcss, which is the strategy for the various countries. So every country that we're in and we're in, I don't know, somewhere between 80 and 100 at any given moment is going to have a strategy, a CDCs that they put out, that strategy is going to tell you what they're planning to do for five year period, right. What are they spending their money on, what is important to them? Because USAID does a lot of work in a lot of different places, but we don't do everything. We do every place we work.
- [15:01]
D
Right.
- [15:01]
C
So it's important, I think, to know what is it that we're buying and where are we buying it.
- [15:06]
D
Right.
- [15:06]
C
You can also go to like USAID spending. I think there's just on our website just a vast amount of information about the kind of work we do. So one of the things that I say to small business audiences when I'm speaking to them in person is probably the first thing that you want to do is figure out where you want to work with us.
- [15:24]
D
Right.
- [15:25]
C
Is that overseas, is it domestic?
- [15:27]
D
Right.
- [15:28]
C
Have some sense of that kind of thing before you reach out and talk to us. Now we're going to talk to you either way, but if you come without this information, then we're going to turn you around and say, please go do some homework and then come back and talk to us again.
- [15:40]
D
Right?
- [15:41]
C
And I say, you know, where you want to work matters. Because we have, as you know, Mike, we are headquartered here in Washington, D.C. it is our only domestic location.
- [15:50]
D
Right.
- [15:50]
C
And here we're going to do those infrastructure things, right. We're going to buy our IT work, we're going to do the accounting work. All of those kinds of things that any agency is going to need to keep it running are going to be managed out of Washington. Also, though managed out of Washington are going to be our very large multiple award contracts that are issued domestically, but then the field is going to use them. Those are awarded here in Washington as well. So. Right. So really be thinking about what it is that where it is you want to work and then, you know, do a little bit of homework on that space.
- [16:22]
D
Right?
- [16:22]
C
You don't need to do as much homework domestically, but internationally you really need to do a little bit of work. And then I, you know, I want people to really think about, you know, what ties them to a particular place.
- [16:31]
D
Right.
- [16:31]
C
Are you in the diaspora?
- [16:33]
D
Right.
- [16:33]
C
Are you from Uganda? Are you from Ghana? Are you from South Africa? You know, are you from Peru? Do you have a connection on ground? Because you asked me about localization and we talked about that briefly. But you know, part of that is, do you still have a connection? Are you already doing business on the ground in a particular country? Because all of those Things are going to help as you come to USAID and say, I want to work with you.
- [16:56]
D
Right.
- [16:56]
C
Particularly if you're new to our space. Because one of the things we're going to ask you is what kind of experience do you have and how do you think that you can apply that experience here?
- [17:06]
D
Right.
- [17:06]
C
What we've seen in recent years is some DOD contractors coming over. They have obviously a lot of experience. Obviously they're very good. How do you apply that to the USAID context? Right, because the military context, the DoD context and the USAID context are not necess. They're similar, not the same. And so how do you take that experience that you already have and apply it here? So, I mean, I think those are some of the kinds of things that we're going to ask you about. You know, it really is about doing your homework. You know, one of the interesting things that, you know, one of my employees does, his name is Charles Acock. And Charles always says, take a look at the forecast.
- [17:42]
D
Right.
- [17:43]
C
And not just what forward facing, but what have we already bought. So in his mind, it doesn't even matter if the thing is already awarded if it's too far along for you to actually bid on. The point is that it helps us to understand what kind of thing you're pursuing.
- [17:59]
D
Right.
- [17:59]
C
So if there are active opportunities that you want to pursue, yes, come and talk to us about that. But if there are things that are no longer active, come talk to us about them anyway because it helps us to understand, you know, the services that you provide. And you're going right. Did I say too much here?
- [18:15]
B
No, that cumulus excellent. And I totally agree with Charles on that. What when we're working with small businesses or what we see what why USA is so interesting is because you have both those other federal partners that work with usa, but also organizations from the in the foundation space or from the multilateral bilateral, other bilateral donor space coming in. Well, we always share with clients is start understand USAID's idea. You know, don't go to your team and say, hey, here's the work we're doing. Is there any work for us? But go to them. Having read the CDCs and for those of you knew the CDCs, that's the country strategy. So you can do whatever country USAID you got into CDCs, you'll see it there. Look at the forecast. I think Charles's advice is great. Go back and look at past solicitations even on SAM.gov and at least know is USA paying for, you know, what what you do. And then look at that. What's that overlap of your past performance and where USA geographically and technically is, is. Is. Is located. So. Or I'm sorry, is funding activities. So that's, that's excellent.
- [19:17]
C
You know, the other thing I might say just on that point is we're repetitive. We buy a lot of the same things over and over again.
- [19:23]
D
Right.
- [19:24]
C
So you know that, you know our, our global health supply chain contract, right? That's not the current name of it, but we've had a couple of iterations of this, right? You talk about what has OSDBU done to sort of advance small business internally. We were the engine behind getting our monitoring and evaluation contracts set aside as total small business set asides.
- [19:46]
D
Right.
- [19:46]
C
Which has been huge for the small businesses that work in our space. We're on the third or fourth iteration right now. I think the third maybe with the fourth coming up.
- [19:56]
D
Right.
- [19:56]
C
So even though it's a contract that you can't join currently, know that because we're in the third iteration of it and there will be a fourth iteration, it helps you to understand what we've done and where we're going and that this is coming back around.
- [20:09]
B
On that note, so say someone does see something on the forecast that looks like a good fit, is that a good time to share their qualifications with with you? Does that help your team internally better share with your colleagues at USA that hey, there are, there is small business capability in the market for this opportunity.
- [20:30]
C
So I mean, I think it depends, right? If it's already identified as a small business set aside, you can certainly let us know it's something that you're pursuing, but you don't necessarily need our engagement.
- [20:39]
D
Right.
- [20:40]
C
If it's being identified as a full and open or if it says TBD and they just haven't decided yet, then I think that's the more important time to share your qualifications. Not just with us though, with the CO as well. Because the business forecast is going to identify the contracting officer for that requirement. And I will say that there was an occasion, I'm going to say recently, I don't know, maybe six months ago, where a small business reached out to the mission and to us saying, I think this is a requirement that should be set aside for small business.
- [21:12]
D
Right.
- [21:12]
C
And they had not considered small business at all and it was a field award. So we don't have the same rules overseas as domestically. So they didn't necessarily have to consider small business. But the small business reached out and they copied us. They had a Good enough reputation that the contracting officer reached back out to me and said, should we consider small business for this? Is this something small business can do? So I said, let's talk about it. You know, one of the guys on my team, I think it might have been Charles again, or maybe Marcus Moon. I want to make sure that I'm highlighting some of my really great people and so you know who they are. They helped them to conduct some market research. And so because the small business reached out and raised their hand and said, we can do this. And by the way, here are some other companies that can do it. They were open enough and again, based on the very good reputation of the small business, they were open to doing the market research. We did that. And ultimately it was a small business set aside. So that is the kind of, you know, we call those flip letters. Right. So it was sending a letter to the mission saying, please consider this. They did the work behind it, they talked to us. We were able to, to collaborate with them and make this happen.
- [22:23]
B
I think that's, that's a great example. So I want to hear too about as the director, looking forward, Kimberly, going into next year event, what are some of the priorities for your office? What are some of the initiatives or goals you have? We just love to hear about as you're looking into 2025, what are the things you want? Yeah, your team is going to be prioritizing.
- [22:45]
C
Well, I think we're going to prioritize the field. And for us that means oversees our missions around the world where we work. So if you look at how we're doing as an agency, you'll know that last year we got an A.
- [22:58]
D
Right.
- [22:59]
C
So that's great. But when you look at the numbers behind that, you know, maybe not as much. I'm still really proud of the work we're doing here in Washington. We're hitting like 23% of our total contract obligations are going to US small businesses. And that's what the government wide goal is. Right. USAID always has a lower goal because of our overseas work. Domestically, we're hitting the government wide goal where we're not hitting that goal is in the field. So we really want to focus on increasing those numbers. You know, I say our domestic number was 23%. Our overall number was 14%. So that tells you how much lower the overseas number was. So we really need to focus on that, making sure that small businesses are getting those opportunities overseas. It's where many of them want to work, work. And so we're trying to make that happen. And we're doing that in a number of ways. We're doing these overseas conferences you and I were talking earlier. We've done them in South Africa, we did one in Bangkok. We're looking at doing one in Latin America, we're looking at doing one again in Africa. I think these opportunities to bring the small business community to the regions, to understand the work of the region, to be able to network with people from the missions. We're in Thailand, we had representation from 15 missions. So not just Asia, but also from Africa and Latin America. And having the opportunity to have folks meet people there on the ground.
- [24:27]
D
Right.
- [24:27]
C
We have one of our small business partners, Indie Vega, who she's with CGI. She does translation services. Her second ever contract with us was a $25 million BPA and she credits that to her attendance to a conference that we did in El Salvador. It was really an industry day for a requirement that was going on. And while that requirement was not quite right for her, the relationships that she was able to build by attending some of our events really made a difference. Now, obviously we can't promise that everybody's going to get a contract coming out of these, but I think the opportunity to meet people in person is really super helpful and to understand the context in the country. And I would also say, you know, we have small business goals and we're assigning those to the missions. And I think we're going to be, you know, just a tad bit more ambitious than we've been historically just to make sure that we are really incentivizing people to do this work. People have so much on their plates already. We want to make it, we do want to incentivize them, but we also want to make it easy for them to really reach out, work with us and work with small business. So I think, you know, historically we had one person who was doing this. Everybody who works with USAID and who wants to work overseas knows Tony Steiner because he was the one person, right? And it was a lot for tonight, Tony. And it meant that he was really detailed in some spaces and others not so much. And that's, you know, Tony was good, but one person can only ever be one person. So we've spread that work around the office to make sure that everybody is invested in this overseas work that we do. We have a foreign service officer in our office, which we've historically not had to help us understand the field context. As I said, we are mostly civil servants, we're mostly Washington based. So just to really help us really understand how they operate, understand when the best points of entry are right. When are we talking to them about their procurements? Right. We want to make sure that we're not too early, but we're not too late. How we really get ourselves involved in the process so that we can do that more appropriately. You know, other priorities are just increasing our small business numbers. We have a number of small businesses who have done tremendously well and that's a success for us. And it's a success for them, obviously. But what happens is now they graduate the small business program and we don't have quite as, as many as we used to. And I think we're very much in that space right now, right. Where we need to have more small businesses who are working with us. That's why we're out doing so much outreach, just trying to make sure that as, excuse me, as the existing ones grow, that there are more in the pipeline to come along behind them and we can continue this work. So now is a great time. If you're not already at usaid, it's a great time to come because we are looking for all categories of U.S. small businesses to join us. And then, you know, too, Mike, this is not actually a priority, but it sort of goes back to the. What is your day to day look like? You know, a couple weeks ago, maybe, maybe actually just a week ago, we had a small focus group on forced labor in the, in the contractor supply chain. This was, this is an issue that the agency is really taking very seriously.
- [27:34]
D
Right.
- [27:34]
C
We want to make sure that we are not working with people who are, are forcing labor as part of producing their product or their service or whatever.
- [27:44]
D
Right.
- [27:45]
C
So this is very important to the US Government. We did a focus group where we had just a small group, it was six to eight small businesses come in and talk about their own experience and how they ensure that this isn't happening in their own supply chains. You know, what are the challenges in doing this? How can the agency help them to do a better job, those kinds of things. We had our senior procurement executive with us. We had the senior executive who was managing the process. We had folks from our new DRG bureau come and listen to small business. I think it was just another. I mean, I think it's a couple things, right? But for me, the most important is it's an opportunity for small businesses to be able to share their expertise. Because I think every time we're able to do that, we help other people understand the value that small businesses bring to the table. So it isn't just about, you know, maybe telling this success story or that success story, but it's sharing your technical expertise that helps people understand the value that you bring to the table. TABLE.
- [28:43]
B
Kimberly, thank you so much. And, and just love to hear that this is a great time for small businesses to reach out to USA to be engaged to. Yeah. To engage with your team. So I know we only have a short time left, maybe over. Could you share a little bit about. You touched on a few of these events, but maybe over the next year or so. What are the types of in person and virtual events and conferences that your team might typically host in a year cycle? Michael and just so we can all be on the lookout for, for those announcements in the coming weeks and months.
- [29:17]
C
So I think, you know, a couple things. As I, as I mentioned, we'll be doing some, you know, we're looking at doing some more overseas conferences, but we're getting, in a lot of ways, we're getting back to basics. And by that I mean the agency used to do a lot of how to do business with USAID events specifically for small business. So we're going to get back to doing those again with the focus on different bureaus and independent offices.
- [29:42]
D
Right.
- [29:43]
C
So how to do business with the bureau for management at usaid, that kind of thing. I told you about the story with the flip letter that was actually in Rwanda. And after that, the CEO who was engaged, his name is Ben Lawrence, he came to us and said, I'm really excited about this work with small business. I'm going to be in Washington with my mission director. Could, could we do a fireside chat? So we did. He worked in collaboration with someone on my team, Marcus Moon. We had their, the Rwanda mission director, Keisha Effiem, come and sit down and really talk about small businesses and what they need to know when they're working overseas.
- [30:24]
D
Right.
- [30:25]
C
Because it's one thing to get the contract, but now that you have it, if you haven't worked in a particular country, what does that actually look like? It was a really great event, partially because we actually got the mission director to come, partially because that particular mission director is a former contracting officer. And so she had, you know, a lot of different contexts and a lot of different background to be able to share. So we want to do more of that kind of thing, but more engagement, more opportunities for you to hear from us directly, learn about the various operating units of the agency. We want to do more networking events so that you can actually meet people face to face. We'll do. We'll continue virtual. Obviously this is, this is sort of the normal way of doing business at this point, but we want to make sure that we also are seeing you live and in person person right so we can shake hands. One of my favorite things about working in small business has always been having that conversation with the small business and really understanding how they might fit within the agency.
- [31:18]
B
Thank you so much and having spoken at and attended overseas your overseas conferences year in person. They are a highlight of the calendar year, a must attend event and I'd say one of the greatest opportunities to engage directly with USAID staff. So Kimberly, thank you very much to you and your team, Marcus, Tony, Charles, the the rest of your colleagues working tirelessly to support small business utilization at usaid. And we of course always look forward to amplifying and sharing your events and and supporting your team's mission however we best can. So really thank you. Sincerely, really appreciate you taking some time to share the important work you and your team at AS do do every day. We'll share the link in the show notes for but if you're looking for oo, the acronym is osdbu, you can do USA OSDABU and get to their website there and you can reach out to Kimberly directly on LinkedIn as well. So Kimberly, thank you again for your time and really appreciated the conversation today.
- [32:21]
C
Thank you so much Mike. I really enjoyed it as well. Thank you.
- [32:25]
B
Have a great day. Bye.
- [32:26]
C
You too. Bye.
- [32:30]
A
Thank you for tuning in to the Aid Market podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and connect with Mike Shanley on LinkedIn to stay updated on the latest USAID funding trends.