Speaker

Dawn T. Gresham is currently serving as the Director of Acquisition Policy of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of the Secretary (OS), Enterprise Services Acquisition (ES-A) who is designated the Head of Contracting Office (HCO) by the Senior Bureau Procurement Official. Prior to being Director, Ms. Gresham served as the Chief for the Office of Security Contracts of the U.S. Marshal Service within the Department of Justice. Previously, Ms. Gresham was a Chief for the Assisted Acquisition Service within the Division of Acquisition Management for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Currently, Ms. Gresham leads a mixed team of Federal and contractor staff for a shared services acquisition operation with annual obligations of approximately $600M and 4.5k contract actions. She is the lead Federal official overseeing Acquisition Policy, SmartPay (SP3) management, Acquisition Workforce Certification and Development, Audit and Risk Management, Quality Assurance, Warrant Program, IT Change Control and Data Standardization, Acquisition Compliance and IT systems support to a client base of approximately of approximately 45 contracting personnel and over 400 CORs, 60 Program Managers, 800 GOVCC Holders, and Requisitioners from OS Offices and 8 DOC Bureaus. Along with business development, debarment/suspension, FOIA operations, change management, innovation management, RPA development, training, process improvement, energy conservation, industry engagement, outreach to underserved communities, and small business support.

Ms. Gresham holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Information Technology from Drexel University Lebow College of Business, a Master of Legal Studies (MLS) in Cybersecurity and Information Privacy Compliance from Drexel University Thomas R. Kline Law School, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Sciences with a concentration in Retail Marketing from James Madison University. Ms. Gresham is also a doctoral candidate at Marymount University in the College of Business, Innovation, Leadership, and Technology (BILT) and her scholarly interests focus on business improvement techniques and technologies which inform decisions that produce high-quality results.

Ms. Gresham is certified by the Federal Acquisition Institute as an information technology and a Level 3 contracting and project/program management professional. She also holds the Department of Defense Cybersecurity for Program Managers and Resilience Credentials. She has taught several professional development courses in-house and through associations like the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) on Federal Contract Management, Acquisition Compliance and Innovation, Diversity and Inclusion, Global Privacy Law Issues, and on workforce management topics.