One on One with Ombrella's Laurie Simon

Simon: I was previously an independent consultant, also doing work for Microsoft, since 1999. Prior to that I worked for a large financial institution and helped develop software in that arena. So my background was a software developer and since then it expanded to doing more project management, which eventually created Ombrella.

Consulting: What is your employee model?

Simon: We have 27 consultants. The way that our business model works—and it seems to be working out great—is we support the W-2 and the 1099 model. So from a W-2 perspective, we have four employees, and I expect that would grow to 12 next year. And the rest are 1099 consultants who work remotely between California and Washington. The plan is to eventually even that out so we're about 50/50.

Consulting: Was the women-owned/women-friendly theme the intention behind Ombrella's creation?

Simon: Absolutely. I was an independent consultant out in the field, and I found that [there wasn't a] company that would support women in technology, so part of my business plan and which I am still advocating is supporting women in technology. Women are very busy and [are] looking for different types of employment, and a little bit more flexibility than they can get a large corporation. So I've definitely set up our business model to support that.

Consulting: Many consulting firms have retention issues when women feel torn between work and family. How are you addressing that?

Simon: I'm absolutely addressing that issue, and that's why it's been such a successful business model. We help find projects that will meet their objectives and also their goals. So we have a lot of women who may want to work during the school year and then not work during the summer. What we do is we try to find projects that will meet those guidelines. So as we're going through the logistics and meeting with our clients, we're looking for projects that maybe have a shorter duration, maybe a six-month duration, or we know that the scope is going to be that we'll be finishing up in June or July. Each project is pretty much mapped to the consultant's desire. It doesn't always work out that way, but we try our best to make sure that that's available.

And then when a [consultant's] ready to come back, we ask them to touch base with us and we re-evaluate their goals and we re-evaluate their timelines and move forward to find a project that will meet those guidelines. [Ombrella] is a safe place for women in technology to come to and also not be afraid to say, "I have kids in soccer—can we work around and be flexible with my lifestyle?"

Consulting: What challenges are you seeing?

Simon: There's a lot of competition out there, and we are trying to take this company to the next level to be able to be different from the others. I think that having worked under one of the Big 5 companies, I know that I as a woman did not have the support from that company that I needed—or the opportunities to grow within those companies. So I think as a small, women-owned company, it is very desirable for women to come to Ombrella so they can have a good salary and also be able to move up in the company at a faster pace than they would at one of the Big 5.

In the procurement arena, what we're seeing is that a lot of the federal packages are bundled. So they're in large, large increments where you have to bid on a $100 million project. So that's not feasible for a small business. So we did ask the Senate offices to unbundle some of those federal contracts. The other [procurement challenge] is they need to strengthen the small business subcontracting. I would be more than happy and more than willing to work under some of the other companies like SAIC and some of the other companies that win these large contracts, but the subcontracting process is very convoluted. There's not one set process for that.

[In addition], 20 years ago there was a law passed that the federal contract agencies would hold out five percent for women-owned businesses, and what we've found is that only 3.4 percent have been awarded to women-owned companies, so there's no accountability there. So we're driving a campaign right now that's called Give Me 5%, which is really making the federal government accountable for that five percent.

Consulting: Is that an initiative Ombrella is launching or is it on a larger scale?

Simon: This was through WIPP, Women Impacting Public Policy. I'm a national partner and also a leader for Washington and then the Southern California area. So we are driving a huge campaign with Give Me 5%. We're getting a lot of attention from the SBA and also the Senate as well.