{"id":6773,"date":"2025-04-03T14:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T14:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/?page_id=6773"},"modified":"2025-04-14T18:39:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T18:39:06","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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About Lauren Wittenberg Weiner<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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I was perfectly happy in my White House job when my about-to-be fiance got a call from his old boss.\u00a0 Would he like to move to Italy for a job with the US Navy?\u00a0 Suddenly, I found myself married (in 4 days!!), quitting my dream job, and heading off to start our married life in Naples.\u00a0 We had just watched <\/span>Under the Tuscan Sun<\/span><\/i> and I was excited to live among the rolling hills of Italy.\u00a0 But little did I realize, Naples is decidedly NOT Tuscany.\u00a0 We landed and almost immediately came upon an overflowing dumpster on fire.\u00a0 <\/span>It was a literal dumpster fire,<\/span><\/i> and it just got worse from there.\u00a0 I was told that military spouses\u2013 which they considered me now\u2013 were not allowed to apply for or obtain a professional-level job while stationed in Italy. <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"WWC\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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That didn\u2019t sit well with me, and eventually I ended up getting a contract role doing policy analysis for a Navy customer (in Anti-Terrorism\/Force Protection, which I could barely spell when I got the request to help) and WWC Global was born.\u00a0 Initially, we grew organically by hiring the incredible military spouses to do projects for the Navy, first in Naples and then in Sicily, Bahrain, and Spain.\u00a0 Later, we continued a strong growth trajectory by hiring other amazing staff around the world to work with the military, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and across other Federal agencies.\u00a0 Over the course of about 13 years, we grew the firm to 100 full-time employees and $15 million in annual revenue.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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We knew we were facing a big transition for the firm\u2013 something known in the government contracting industry as the \u201cValley of Death,\u201d where previously-small businesses grow out of small business status and have to compete against the big firms instead of the other small businesses.\u00a0 We knew we had to win at least one BIG contract before we found ourselves in the Valley of Death, so we could play against the big firms.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"WWC\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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And boy, did we win.\u00a0 We won a $200 million contract to support training and exercise for the United States Special Operations Command\u2013 the headquarters service for Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and other elite military operators.\u00a0 It was the largest award ever to a woman-owned small business in Special Operations Command HQ history.\u00a0 We followed that up two years later with another $200 million in additional contract awards across the Federal space.\u00a0 Suddenly, we went from $15 million in annual revenue to $100 million and over 350 direct employees (plus another few hundred subcontractors).<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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We built this improbable firm over the years, when everyone around us were telling us we couldn\u2019t possibly do what we were doing (even as we actually DID it).\u00a0 We did it by knowing the rules better than anyone else, and using that knowledge to find our own unique path to success.\u00a0 We did it, in other words, by getting <\/span>Unruly.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Exceptional\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Wittenberg\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Beyond our success in business, I built a successful-if-chaotic life as a wife and a mother to two really great (and naturally Unruly) kids, who both play competitive hockey all over the country.\u00a0 I became the primary caregiver to my two aging parents\u2013 one with advanced Alzheimer\u2019s, the other with Parkinson\u2019s and osteoporosis and glaucoma (which is a particularly bad combination of balance issues, vision issues, and brittle bones\u2026).\u00a0 I don\u2019t have work\/life balance worked out, by any stretch, but I have found a reasonable equilibrium that generally works (until it doesn\u2019t, and then it is time to re-tweak).<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About Lauren Wittenberg Weiner I was perfectly happy in my White House job when my about-to-be fiance got a call from his old boss.\u00a0 Would he like to move to Italy for a job with the US Navy?\u00a0 Suddenly, I found myself married (in 4 days!!), quitting my dream job, and heading off to start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6773","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6773"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6963,"href":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6773\/revisions\/6963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurenwittenbergweiner.com\/staging\/2056\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}