Test & Evaluation | Flight Support Sector Lead

AVIAN; Lexington Park (MD); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employee-owned

Job summary

AVIAN is seeking a Senior Director to lead Test & Evaluation | Flight Support (TFS) Sector, overseeing TEMPO programs and subcontracts for naval aviation and DoD customers. The role requires managing a portfolio, leading Program Managers and team leads, and driving growth with a focus on delivery excellence.

The ideal candidate brings 10+ years in DoD, demonstrated leadership, and a proven ability to build trusted senior relationships with government and industry partners.

Qualifications

• Senior leadership experience in DoD/service contracts or defense programs.
• Track record of managing multi-program portfolios, budgets, staffing, and performance.
• Experience with talent development and customer engagement at senior levels.

Responsibilities

• Lead AVIAN’s TFS Sector performance, health, and growth.
• Direct PMs, TLs, and sector staff; set expectations and development plans.
• Maintain sector operating cadence, reviews, and risk management across programs.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Stakeholder management

DoD program leadership

People development

Risk and performance management

Education

Bachelor’s degree (business/engineering/related)

Tools

Forecasting & budgeting tools

Contracting & compliance systems

Job description

Overview

About the Role

AVIAN is seeking a Senior Director to provide senior leadership as its Test & Evaluation | Flight Support (TFS) Sector Lead. This Senior Director-level leader will be accountable for the performance, health, strategic direction, growth, and culture of a portfolio that includes the Test & Evaluation Management of Programs & Operations (TEMPO) prime contract—AVIAN’s largest program—and multiple subcontracts supporting naval aviation, flight support, and test & evaluation (T&E) customers.

The TFS Sector Lead will directly lead assigned Program Managers (PMs), subcontract Team Leads (TLs), and other sector personnel. This leader will establish the operating rhythm, accountability, cross-functional collaboration, customer-engagement approach, and talent-development practices needed to deliver strong outcomes for customers and employee-owners.

This is a high-visibility enterprise leadership role for an experienced DoD services leader who can manage a complex portfolio; build trusted senior relationships with Government customers, prime contractors, and industry partners; develop a capable leadership bench; protect delivery performance and customer confidence; and turn market insight into disciplined growth.

Join a Company Where You Can Make a Real Impact – and Own a Piece of the Future

Are you energized by the idea of helping a company grow smarter, serve our customers better, and connect more deeply? Do you thrive in an environment where your ideas matter, your voice is heard, and your work drives real results? If so, we’d love to meet you.

We’re a mid-sized, employee-owned company on a mission to create meaningful value for both our employees and our customers. That means we’re not just looking for someone to fill a seat — we’re looking for someone who wants to build, innovate, and evolve with us.

Our company primarily serves the Navy and other Department of Defense clients, offering a dynamic environment where your expertise will make a difference.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the strategic direction, performance, health, and growth of AVIAN’s TFS Sector in alignment with AVIAN’s enterprise strategy, annual operating plan, long-range objectives, and employee-owner culture.
• Own portfolio-level delivery performance, customer confidence, workforce continuity, financial performance, risk management, technical capability, quality, past performance, and strategic relevance across assigned programs and subcontracts.
• Directly lead, develop, and hold accountable assigned PMs, TLs, and other sector personnel; establish clear expectations, priorities, decision authorities, performance standards, development plans, and succession coverage.
• Establish and lead a disciplined sector operating cadence, including portfolio reviews that address program performance, financial outlook, staffing and succession, customer health, risks and issues, contract transitions, recompetes, growth opportunities, and decisions requiring sector or enterprise action.
• Maintain a working understanding of assigned contracts and subcontracts, including customer mission, scope, contract type, funding and backlog, staffing plans, key personnel, deliverables, prime- and subcontractor relationships, options, recompetes, financial assumptions, and material risks.
• Use financial, operational, staffing, funding, and performance data to understand, challenge, and manage sector economic performance; identify adverse trends early; direct corrective action within delegated authority; and elevate material risks, tradeoffs, and decisions promptly.
• Partner with Accounting and Finance, Contracts, Project Controls, Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, Security, Quality, Business Development, and other AVIAN leaders to validate forecasts, staffing plans, funding assumptions, subcontractor commitments, contractual obligations, cost and pricing inputs, and margin expectations.
• Serve as AVIAN’s senior TFS representative to Naval Test Wing Atlantic (NTWL), Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), supported program offices, prime contractors, teaming partners, industry organizations, and other authorized stakeholders.
• Build and sustain trusted relationships with senior Government customers, prime contractors, teaming partners, and industry stakeholders; maintain insight into customer priorities, funding conditions, emerging requirements, satisfaction drivers, performance risks, and growth opportunities.
• Lead high-stakes customer, partner, and internal discussions; create alignment around facts, decisions, commitments, ownership, and follow-through; and serve as the senior escalation point for material portfolio matters.
• Lead sector-level planning and oversight for new awards, recompetes, option exercises, extensions, major scope or funding changes, performance-recovery actions, leadership transitions, and contract closeouts.
• Ensure material contract transitions have clear ownership, appropriately scaled transition plans, staffing and recruiting strategies, customer-engagement approaches, financial forecasts, risk-management practices, milestones, and decision points.
• Make sector-level staffing, resource, and investment tradeoffs within delegated authority, and present clear options and recommendations when decisions involve material pricing, compensation, hiring, subcontracting, bid-and-proposal resources, contractual exposure, or enterprise-priority conflicts.
• Build a resilient leadership bench by identifying high-potential leaders, developing successors for critical roles, providing coaching and stretch opportunities, and reducing dependency on individual contributors or leaders.
• Foster a high-accountability culture grounded in AVIAN’s Trust, Transparency, and Teamwork values, disciplined execution, constructive challenge, early escalation, continuous learning, innovation, and employee ownership.
• Partner with AVIAN Business Development to execute an integrated TFS growth plan, identify priority customers and target opportunities, improve AVIAN’s competitive position, and support disciplined opportunity qualification and capture decisions.
• Provide customer insight, operational expertise, staffing and transition input, partner recommendations, technical subject-matter expertise, past-performance evidence, and executive engagement for approved capture, proposal, and recompete efforts.
• Lead recapture strategy and capture planning for TFS recompetes and follow-on opportunities, ensuring AVIAN identifies and addresses customer, competitive, contractual, staffing, financial, transition, partner, and capability risks early.
• Protect and expand existing work through organic growth, customer intimacy, disciplined account development, strategic partnerships, and delivery excellence.
• Operate as an AVIAN enterprise leader; collaborate with other Sector Leads and functional leaders; share customer intelligence, staffing information, lessons learned, technical expertise, and growth opportunities; and prioritize enterprise outcomes over individual-sector optimization.
• Ensure sector personnel comply with applicable contract requirements, AVIAN policies, authorized customer direction, security and quality requirements, timekeeping and labor-charging expectations, ethics standards, and other relevant controls.
• Provide concise, decision-ready sector assessments, financial outlooks, risk evaluations, and recommended actions to the President and AVIAN leadership.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, management, finance, engineering, operations, a technical discipline relevant to AVIAN’s work, or a related field.
• Active U.S. DoD Secret security clearance, with the ability to obtain and maintain Top Secret eligibility as required to support the TFS contract portfolio.
• 10+ years of progressively responsible experience in DoD, federal government, defense contracting, aviation, test & evaluation, flight support, program management, or a closely related operational environment.
• 5+ years of progressive leadership experience, including direct supervision of Program Managers, Team Leads, managers, or other professional personnel, with demonstrated ability to establish accountability, develop leaders, communicate clearly, build stakeholder alignment, and make sound decisions in complex operating environments.
• Demonstrated experience in test & evaluation, naval aviation, flight support, unmanned aviation, counter-unmanned systems, or a comparable DoD mission-support environment.
• Demonstrated experience in Government-contracting environments and leading complex Government contracts, task orders, subcontracts, programs, or portfolios, with responsibility for delivery performance, customer commitments, staffing, quality, contractual compliance, and performance risk.
• Demonstrated financial and operational acumen, including experience using budget, funding, staffing, schedule, performance, or other relevant data to identify risk, make sound trade