Get ready for an exciting conversation with Brian Lindholm, the founder and Managing Principal of FedSavvy Strategies, and a true expert in the world of market and competitive intelligence.

With a career spanning roles in capture, business development, and proposal management, Brian is renowned for designing and running Black Hat reviews—helping companies outmaneuver the competition in government contracting. In this episode, we’ll dive into his unique journey from a naval officer to building FedSavvy Strategies from the ground up, and how his deep expertise is transforming the way businesses approach intelligence in the federal marketplace. Plus, we'll explore his love for hiking, craft beers, and strategy games, and learn how he balances it all with family life. Tune in for insights, stories, and some fun along the way!


0:00 Intro
2:34 How Did You Get Here?
4:23 Highlights of Brian’s Government Contracting Career
6:24 Traditional Black Hat
8:48 How to Pull a List of Competitors if You Don’t Know Who They Are?
11:54 Effects of COVID
13:24 Strategic Market Intelligence
16:58 AI + Market Intelligence
20:36 Ghosting
20:52 You Can Do Everything Right and Still Loose
29:02 Win Themes
29:18 Building the Solution
35:21 Two Pieces of Advice
37:29 What is your Superpower?

Brian Lindholm is the founder and Managing Principal of FedSavvy Strategies. He guides the firm’s services and development and has done so since the founding in 2012. His career has spanned a myriad of roles from capture, business development, proposal management and all things market and competitive intelligence. The market and competitive intelligence career has also involved completely standing up corporation functions to do market and competitive intelligence work. He’s best known for designing and running Black Hat reviews. His career started as a naval officer (Supply Corps) with both sea and ashore assignments. He is a MBA graduate of George Mason University and he earned a Bachelors of Science in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Brian loves hiking with his dogs, trying out craft beers and new foods (too much!), dabbling in strategy games (board and electronic) and spending time with his wife and son whenever possible.