Top 25 Most Influential People in U.S. Government Procurement and RFPs

Dissertation Title: From Lowest Price to Highest Public Value: Reimagining Government Procurement and RFP Evaluation

Last Updated: February 2026

Overview

This document profiles the 25 individuals who have most significantly shaped the theory, law, policy, and practice of government procurement in the United States and internationally. These individuals were selected based on their scholarly contributions, policy influence, institutional leadership, and relevance to the dissertation’s central thesis: that procurement should be evaluated on the basis of public value, not merely lowest price.

The profiles are organized into four categories, ranked within each by importance and experience in the RFP field:

1. Academics and Scholars (Entries 1–13)
2. Government and Policy Leaders (Entries 14–19)
3. Legal Practitioners and Thought Leaders (Entries 20–22)
4. International Scholars and Experts (Entries 23–25)

A combined Overall Ranking across all categories appears at the end of this page.

About This Directory

This page serves as a curated Scholar Directory – a map of who works on what in procurement research. It profiles the researchers and practitioners who are shaping the field of procurement source selection, spanning academics studying evaluation mechanisms, policy makers who write the rules, legal practitioners who litigate and interpret them, and international experts who provide comparative perspective. Each entry includes research focus tags to help readers quickly identify expertise areas and trace intellectual connections across the field. A Research Connections section at the bottom maps how each scholar’s work relates to the five papers in this dissertation.

Academics and Scholars

1. Steven Kelman

Current Title: Weatherhead Professor of Public Management (Emeritus), Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Steven Kelman is the scholar most directly responsible for the intellectual foundations of procurement reform in the United States. His 1990 book Procurement and Public Management argued that excessive rule-based procurement – including rigid reliance on lowest price – constrained managerial discretion and undermined government performance. From 1993 to 1997, he served as Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, where he led the implementation of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA) of 1994 and the Federal Acquisition Reform Act (FARA) of 1995 – the most significant procurement reforms in a generation. These reforms expanded the use of best-value tradeoff analysis, commercial item procurement, and past performance evaluation. His subsequent book Unleashing Change (2005) documented these reforms as a case study in organizational change.

2025 Update: Kelman retired from teaching at Harvard Kennedy School in 2025 after more than 40 years. His retirement is symbolically significant as it coincides with the most dramatic procurement reform since his own era at OFPP – the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (EO 14275, April 2025). Despite retiring from teaching, Kelman continues to publish actively – articles appeared on Nextgov/FCW in May, July, and September 2025, and he maintains his consulting practice. The IBM Center for the Business of Government published reflections on his tenure.

Key Publications:

• Procurement and Public Management: The Fear of Discretion and the Quality of Government Performance (1990)
• Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Change in Government (2005)
• Columns and research on procurement reform, digital government, and innovation

Relevance to Dissertation: Kelman’s work provides the primary historical and intellectual context for the shift from lowest-price to best-value procurement. His OFPP tenure represents the most important practical implementation of value-based procurement reform in U.S. history.

Research focus: procurement reform, source selection, public value, digital procurement

2. Ralph C. Nash, Jr.

Current Title: Professor Emeritus of Law, George Washington University Law School

Ralph C. Nash, Jr. is, alongside John Cibinic, Jr., the founding figure of government procurement law as an academic discipline in the United States. He founded the Government Contracts Program at GW Law in 1960, directed it from 1960 to 1966 and again from 1979 to 1984, and has authored or co-authored virtually every major treatise in the field. The Nash & Cibinic textbook series – covering formation, administration, cost-reimbursement contracting, competitive negotiation, and intellectual property – constitutes the canonical body of knowledge in government contract law. Since 1987, Nash has co-authored The Nash & Cibinic Report, a monthly analytical publication that has become the most widely cited source on government contract law and policy developments. The Government Procurement Law Program he built at GW has trained generations of procurement attorneys, contracting officers, and policy makers. The “Nash & Cibinic Professor” title at GW Law (currently held by Schooner) was created in his honor.

Key Publications:

• Formation of Government Contracts (multiple editions, with Cibinic and later Yukins)
• Administration of Government Contracts (multiple editions, with Cibinic & Nagle)
• Competitive Negotiation: The Source Selection Process (with O’Brien-DeBakey)
• The Nash & Cibinic Report (monthly, 1987–present)

Relevance to Dissertation: Nash’s treatises define the legal and procedural framework within which procurement evaluation operates. His work on source selection and competitive negotiation is indispensable for understanding how evaluation criteria are structured and applied.

Research focus: procurement law, source selection, contract management

3. Steven L. Schooner

Current Title: Nash & Cibinic Professor of Government Procurement Law, George Washington University Law School

Steven L. Schooner is one of the most prominent scholars in U.S. government procurement law. Before joining GW Law in 1998, he served as the Associate Administrator for Procurement Law and Legislation at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) in the Office of Management and Budget, and as a trial and appellate attorney in the Commercial Litigation Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Schooner’s research spans federal procurement law, defense acquisition, sustainable procurement, comparative procurement systems, and public service ethics. He is perhaps best known for articulating the fundamental objectives of a government procurement system – competition, integrity, transparency, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and best value – in his widely cited 2002 article “Desiderata.” He previously served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at GW Law (2006–2008 and 2023–2025) and received the 2024 Jacob Burns Award for Extraordinary Service. He serves as faculty adviser to the ABA’s Public Contract Law Journal and on the advisory boards of the Procurement Round Table and The Government Contractor.

2025 Update: Schooner has been a prominent public commentator on the DOGE-era disruption to government contracting, featured in AP, Bloomberg, and the Washington Post for procurement expertise. He described GSA as “a choke point for all agencies” and noted that despite current uncertainty, “The government contracting business will continue to be good in the future… it’s not going away.” He also discussed the prolonged uncertainty in government contracts created by rapid policy changes outside the traditional FAR rulemaking process.

Key Publications:

• “Desiderata: Objectives for a System of Government Contract Law” (2002)
• The Government Contracts Reference Book (with Nash, O’Brien-DeBakey, & Edwards)
• Extensive scholarship on sustainable procurement and defense acquisition reform

Relevance to Dissertation: Schooner’s “Desiderata” framework provides a normative foundation for evaluating procurement systems against public value objectives. His work on “best value” as a system objective directly supports the dissertation’s central argument.

Research focus: procurement reform, public value, defense acquisition, competition policy

4. Christopher R. Yukins

Current Title: Lynn David Research Professor in Government Procurement Law, George Washington University Law School; Of Counsel, Arnold & Porter LLP

Christopher R. Yukins is a leading authority on comparative and international procurement law. He holds a dual role as both a professor in GW Law’s Government Procurement Law Program – the oldest and most distinguished program of its kind, founded in 1960 – and as of counsel to the global law firm Arnold & Porter. His scholarship bridges U.S. federal procurement law, European Union procurement directives, anti-corruption strategies, and procurement reform in developing countries. Professor Yukins regularly advises and lectures for organizations including the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the International Anti-Corruption Academy (Vienna), the University of Turin, the University of Paris-Nanterre, Stockholm University, and Stellenbosch University (South Africa). He co-authored the fourth edition of Formation of Government Contracts with Cibinic and Nash, making him one of the stewards of the most important treatise series in government contracts. He has led studies commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) on procurement reform.

Key Publications:

• Formation of Government Contracts (4th ed., 2011, with Cibinic & Nash)
• Joint Public Procurement and Innovation: Lessons Across Borders (co-edited with Racca, 2019)
• Integrity and Efficiency in Sustainable Public Contracts (co-edited with Racca, 2014)

Relevance to Dissertation: Yukins’s comparative scholarship illuminates how different legal regimes approach the price-versus-value tradeoff. His work on joint procurement and innovation demonstrates how procurement design can optimize for outcomes beyond cost.

Research focus: international procurement, procurement law, procurement reform, competition policy

5. Jean Tirole

Current Title: Honorary Chairman, Toulouse School of Economics; 2014 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

Jean Tirole, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics for his “analysis of market power and regulation,” co-authored with Jean-Jacques Laffont the foundational A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation (1993). This book developed the formal principal-agent models that explain how information asymmetry between government buyers and private sellers affects optimal contract and evaluation design. Tirole’s work demonstrates that when the government cannot observe contractor effort or cost type, the design of evaluation criteria and contract incentives determines whether procurement achieves efficient outcomes. While Tirole is primarily an economist and theorist rather than a procurement specialist, his formal models provide the theoretical backbone for understanding why lowest-price evaluation is suboptimal when quality and effort are imperfectly observable – the core economic argument of the dissertation.

Key Publications:

• A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation (with Laffont, 1993)
• The Theory of Industrial Organization (1988)
• Nobel Prize lecture on market power and regulation (2014)

Relevance to Dissertation: Laffont and Tirole’s principal-agent models provide the formal economic theory explaining why price-only procurement evaluation produces suboptimal outcomes under information asymmetry.

Research focus: auction theory, procurement economics, contract management

6. Oliver E. Williamson (1932–2020)

Former Title: Edgar F. Kaiser Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (posthumous listing)

Oliver E. Williamson, who passed away in 2020, remains one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century for his development of transaction cost economics (TCE). His 1975 book Markets and Hierarchies and his 1985 masterwork The Economic Institutions of Capitalism established that governance structures – markets, hierarchies, and hybrids – are chosen to minimize transaction costs arising from asset specificity, uncertainty, and bounded rationality. Williamson received the 2009 Nobel Prize for “his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm.” For procurement, TCE provides the theoretical justification for why complex, relationship-specific transactions require governance mechanisms (such as multi-criteria evaluation and relational contracting) that go beyond simple price competition. When assets are specific and uncertainty is high, governance costs matter, and lowest-price evaluation ignores these costs.

Key Publications:

• Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications (1975)
• The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting (1985)
• The Mechanisms of Governance (1996)

Relevance to Dissertation: Williamson’s TCE framework is the second major theoretical pillar of the dissertation (alongside Moore’s public value theory). It explains why the characteristics of procurement transactions – not just price – should determine governance and evaluation structures.

Research focus: transaction cost economics, procurement economics, contract management

7. Khi V. Thai

Current Title: Professor of Public Budgeting and Public Procurement, Florida Atlantic University

Khi V. Thai is the most influential figure in establishing public procurement as a distinct academic field of study. He founded the Journal of Public Procurement – the first peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated exclusively to public procurement research – and created the International Public Procurement Conference (IPPC), which has become the premier global forum for procurement scholars and practitioners. His International Handbook of Public Procurement (2009) was the first comprehensive reference work to treat public procurement as an interdisciplinary field spanning law, economics, public administration, and management. In addition to his academic contributions, Thai has provided consulting services to the Inter-American Development Bank, USAID, the United Nations, and multiple national governments. He received the 2008 Distinguished Service Award from the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing (NIGP), recognizing his contributions to the professionalization of public procurement.

Key Publications:

• International Handbook of Public Procurement (2009)
• Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Public Procurement
• Founder, International Public Procurement Conference

Relevance to Dissertation: Thai’s institutional contributions created the scholarly infrastructure for procurement research. The Journal of Public Procurement and the IPPC are essential platforms for the dissertation’s literature review and dissemination.

Research focus: international procurement, procurement reform, procurement economics

8. Mark H. Moore

Current Title: Hauser Professor of Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard Kennedy School; Herbert A. Simon Professor of Education, Management, and Organizational Behavior, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Mark H. Moore is the creator of public value theory – the primary theoretical framework for this dissertation. His 1995 book Creating Public Value argued that public managers should focus on creating “public value” from assets entrusted to them by the public, using a “strategic triangle” that balances value creation, political legitimacy, and operational capacity. His 2013 follow-up, Recognizing Public Value, refined the theory with attention to measurement and recognition of value creation. While Moore’s work is situated in public management broadly rather than procurement specifically, his framework provides the most compelling theoretical basis for arguing that procurement should optimize for multi-dimensional public value rather than single-dimensional cost. The strategic triangle has been adopted by public managers globally as an analytical tool for understanding what they are trying to achieve and what kinds of capabilities they need.

Key Publications:

• Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government (1995)
• Recognizing Public Value (2013)
• Public Value: Theory and Practice (co-edited with Benington, 2011)

Relevance to Dissertation: Moore’s public value theory is the dissertation’s primary theoretical lens. The strategic triangle provides the framework for reconceptualizing procurement evaluation as a public value creation exercise.

Research focus: public value, procurement reform

9. Nicola Dimitri

Current Title: Professor of Economics, University of Siena; Life Member, Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge

Nicola Dimitri is a leading economist whose work bridges auction theory and practical procurement design. His co-edited Handbook of Procurement (2006, with Piga and Spagnolo) is the most important single volume applying economic theory to public procurement, covering scoring rules, reserve prices, quality assessment, and multi-contract tendering. Dimitri earned his undergraduate degree in Statistics and Economics from the University of Siena, a master’s degree in Statistics from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in Economics from the University of Siena. He served as Chair of the Department of Economics and Deputy Rector at the University of Siena. From 2003 to 2008, he served as Economic Advisor to Consip, the Italian national procurement agency, giving him direct experience applying theory to practice. His research on how reserve prices affect participation and competition in procurement auctions, and on reconciling auction theory with practical procurement challenges, is directly relevant to the dissertation’s design of value-maximizing evaluation mechanisms.

Key Publications:

• Handbook of Procurement (co-edited with Piga & Spagnolo, Cambridge University Press, 2006)
• Research on reserve prices, scoring rules, and competition in procurement

Relevance to Dissertation: Dimitri’s work connecting auction theory to procurement practice provides the economic foundations for multi-attribute evaluation. The Handbook of Procurement is essential reading for the dissertation’s theoretical framework.

Research focus: auction theory, procurement economics, source selection, competition policy

10. Giancarlo Spagnolo

Current Title: Professor of Economics, University of Rome Tor Vergata; Senior Researcher, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), Stockholm School of Economics

Giancarlo Spagnolo is one of the most prolific and influential economists working on procurement. He holds a PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics and an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge. He was the founder and head of the Research Unit at Consip, Italy’s national procurement agency, before moving to full-time academia. His research covers collusion in procurement, reputation mechanisms, whistleblower protection, debarment, and the role of bureaucratic competence in procurement outcomes. A 2020 paper with Decarolis, Iossa, and others demonstrated that more competent bureaucrats achieve significantly better procurement outcomes – a finding directly supporting the dissertation’s argument for value-based evaluation by skilled evaluators. Spagnolo is a Research Fellow at CEPR (London) and ENCORE (Amsterdam), and has published in the RAND Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Theory, European Economic Review, and other top outlets.

Key Publications:

• Handbook of Procurement (co-edited with Dimitri & Piga, 2006)
• “Bureaucratic Competence and Procurement Outcomes” (with Decarolis, Iossa, et al., Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 2020)
• Research on collusion, reputation, and incentives in procurement

Relevance to Dissertation: Spagnolo’s empirical work on how bureaucratic competence affects procurement outcomes directly supports the argument that value-based evaluation requires – and rewards – skilled acquisition professionals.

Research focus: procurement economics, competition policy, auction theory, contract management

11. Francesco Decarolis

Current Title: Full Professor of Economics, Bocconi University; ENEL Foundation Chair on Global Competitiveness and Transition in Energy Markets

Francesco Decarolis is a rising star in the economics of procurement, bringing rigorous empirical methods to bear on questions of auction design, corruption, and contractor performance. He earned his PhD from the University of Chicago (2009) and holds the ENEL Foundation Chair at Bocconi. He has coordinated two European Research Council (ERC) projects: RepCor (Reputation and Corruption in Procurement, 2016–2021) and CoDiM (Competition in Digital Markets, 2021–2025). His research on first-price versus average-bid auctions in Italian procurement demonstrated how auction format affects both competition and contractor performance – a finding with direct implications for procurement evaluation design. He is an associate editor of The Review of Economic Studies and Econometrica, two of the most prestigious journals in economics.

Key Publications:

• “Bureaucratic Competence and Procurement Outcomes” (with Iossa, Spagnolo, et al., JLEO, 2020)
• Research on auction design, corruption, and competition in procurement
• ERC projects on reputation and corruption in procurement

Relevance to Dissertation: Decarolis’s empirical work provides causal evidence on how procurement design choices affect outcomes, supporting the dissertation’s argument for intentional, value-oriented evaluation design.

Research focus: procurement economics, auction theory, competition policy, digital procurement

12. Clifford P. McCue

Current Title: Professor, School of Public Administration, and Director, Public Procurement Research Center, Florida Atlantic University

Clifford McCue has been central to developing the empirical research base for public procurement in the United States. As Director of FAU’s Public Procurement Research Center, he leads education, training, and technical assistance initiatives that bridge academic research and practitioner needs. McCue’s research focuses on procurement performance measurement, organizational roles in purchasing, and the comparative analysis of public and private procurement systems. His 2024 work on advancing procurement performance measurement frameworks – conceptualizing both efficiency and effectiveness – is directly relevant to the dissertation’s argument that evaluation criteria should capture multiple dimensions of value. McCue was honored with the 2008 Spirit of NIGP Award for his contributions to public procurement, including his leadership of the FAU Public Procurement Research Center and his role as a textbook author for NIGP’s educational programs.

Key Publications:

• “Advancing the Practice of Public Procurement Performance Measurement” (2024)
• Research on procurement organizational roles, performance measurement, and comparative procurement
• NIGP educational materials and textbooks

Relevance to Dissertation: McCue’s work on procurement performance measurement provides methodological grounding for operationalizing public value in procurement evaluation. His efficiency/effectiveness framework offers a practical way to move beyond price-only metrics.

Research focus: procurement reform, public value, contract management

13. Gustavo Piga

Current Title: Full Professor of Economics, University of Rome Tor Vergata; Chair, International Master in Public Procurement Management

Gustavo Piga holds a PhD in Economics from Columbia University and is one of the most active European scholars working at the intersection of economics and procurement policy. He chaired Consip, Italy’s national procurement agency for goods and services, from 2002 to 2005, giving him firsthand experience managing large-scale centralized procurement operations. His research spans public procurement, macroeconomics, and public debt management. Piga co-edited the influential Handbook of Procurement (2006) and is co-editor of the European Journal of Public Procurement Markets. He chairs the International Master in Public Procurement Management and the Bachelor degree in Global Governance at Tor Vergata, training the next generation of procurement professionals. He has served as a member of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Parliamentary Budget Office.

Key Publications:

• Handbook of Procurement (co-edited with Dimitri & Spagnolo, 2006)
• Co-editor, European Journal of Public Procurement Markets
• Research on centralized procurement, procurement efficiency, and fiscal policy

Relevance to Dissertation: Piga’s combination of academic rigor and practical experience running a national procurement agency makes his perspective invaluable. His work on centralized procurement and efficiency provides empirical grounding for value-based approaches.

Research focus: procurement economics, international procurement, competition policy

Government and Policy Leaders

14. Kevin Rhodes

Current Title: Administrator, Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), Office of Management and Budget

Kevin Rhodes was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 7, 2025 as the 16th Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, the first Senate-confirmed OFPP administrator since 2019. As OFPP Administrator, Rhodes serves as the government’s chief acquisition officer, responsible for developing and overseeing procurement policies governing over $700 billion in annual federal spending. His background includes 25 years of service in the U.S. Air Force, where he held senior leadership roles in acquisition, logistics, and operations, including Director of Acquisition at the White House Military Office and Program Manager for major defense programs. Before joining OMB, Rhodes served as Executive Vice President at Systecon North America. He has played a central role in the comprehensive overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation ordered by Executive Order 14275 in April 2025, which directed the elimination of outdated, duplicative, or non-statutory regulatory requirements – the most significant FAR reform in decades.

Key Contributions:

• Leading the FAR overhaul under EO 14275 (2025)
• Modernizing federal acquisition policy and workforce development
• NCMA Nexus 2026 keynote on transforming federal procurement

Relevance to Dissertation: As the current head of OFPP, Rhodes’s policy decisions directly shape the evaluation criteria framework that the dissertation examines. The FAR overhaul represents a live case study of procurement reform.

Research focus: procurement reform, defense acquisition, contract management

15. David A. Drabkin

Current Title: Chairman, Procurement Roundtable; Director, Public Contracting Institute; Fellow, National Contract Management Association (NCMA)

David Drabkin brings over 41 years of experience spanning government, industry, and policy advocacy in the procurement field. He served as Senior Procurement Executive and Deputy Chief Acquisition Officer at GSA, where he was one of the signatories of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, supervised the Federal Acquisition Institute, oversaw the debarment/suspension function and the Integrated Acquisition Environment, and managed GSA’s contracting function and workforce of over 1,800 contracting professionals. He also served on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee of the U.S. Senate and worked in acquisition at the Department of Defense. In the private sector, he held positions at Northrop Grumman Corporation and Dixon Hughes Goodman. As Chairman of the Procurement Roundtable and Director of the Public Contracting Institute, Drabkin leads organizations that convene senior procurement leaders from government, industry, and academia to address systemic challenges in the acquisition system.

Key Contributions:

• Leadership of the Procurement Roundtable and Public Contracting Institute
• FAR signatory authority at GSA
• Acquisition workforce development through the Federal Acquisition Institute

Relevance to Dissertation: Drabkin’s cross-sector experience and institutional leadership role make him a key interlocutor for understanding the practical challenges and opportunities of transitioning from price-based to value-based procurement.

Research focus: procurement reform, contract management, defense acquisition

16. Edda Emmanuelli Perez

Current Title: General Counsel, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)

Edda Emmanuelli Perez leads the GAO legal function that adjudicates bid protests – the primary administrative mechanism through which disappointed bidders challenge procurement award decisions. GAO’s bid protest decisions constitute a body of quasi-judicial precedent that profoundly shapes how agencies structure evaluation criteria and make award decisions. Agencies routinely design their source selection processes with an eye toward surviving potential GAO protests, which means the standards applied in protest adjudication effectively determine the boundaries of acceptable evaluation practice. In fiscal year 2025, GAO received 1,688 bid protest filings, and its decisions addressed issues including evaluation methodology, best-value tradeoff analysis, and the reasonableness of price/technical tradeoffs. Perez has publicly opposed proposals for “loser pays” fee-shifting in bid protests, arguing that existing procedures adequately balance efficiency and accountability.

Key Contributions:

• Leadership of GAO’s bid protest adjudication function
• Shaping precedent on evaluation criteria and best-value tradeoff analysis
• Policy advocacy on maintaining accessible protest mechanisms

Relevance to Dissertation: GAO bid protest precedent directly shapes how agencies balance price and non-price factors. Understanding this jurisprudence is essential for any proposal to reform evaluation criteria.

Research focus: bid protests, procurement law, source selection

17. Daniel I. Gordon

Current Title: Associate Dean for Government Procurement Law (former), George Washington University Law School

Daniel I. Gordon served as Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy from November 2009 to late 2011, following 17 years at the Government Accountability Office where he rose from attorney to Deputy General Counsel and Acting General Counsel. As OFPP Administrator, Gordon was responsible for policies governing over $500 billion in annual federal procurement spending. His tenure was marked by initiatives to strengthen the acquisition workforce through training, advance strategic sourcing, increase industry-government communication through the “mythbusters” campaign (which debunked common misconceptions about procurement rules), and improve oversight of contractor performance. After leaving OFPP, Gordon joined GW Law as Associate Dean for Government Procurement Law, contributing to the program that has trained more procurement professionals than any other institution. His combination of GAO legal expertise, executive branch policy leadership, and academic engagement gives him a uniquely multi-faceted perspective on procurement reform.

Key Contributions:

• OFPP “Mythbusters” campaign to improve industry-government communication
• Strategic sourcing initiatives
• Acquisition workforce training and development

Relevance to Dissertation: Gordon’s Mythbusters campaign addressed the cultural barriers to value-based procurement by clarifying what the rules actually permit. His career arc from GAO to OFPP to academia illustrates the institutional ecosystem the dissertation examines.

Research focus: procurement reform, contract management, competition policy

18. Anne Rung

Current Title: Former Administrator, Office of Federal Procurement Policy (2014–2016); previously Senior Vice President, Varis; previously Global Leader, Public Sector Division, Amazon Business

Anne Rung served as OFPP Administrator from September 2014 to September 2016, having previously served as Chief Acquisition Officer and Associate Administrator in the Office of Governmentwide Policy at the General Services Administration, and as Senior Director of Administration at the Department of Commerce. During her OFPP tenure, Rung championed category management as a transformative approach to federal procurement – creating category managers across ten commodity areas and launching GSA’s Acquisition Gateway. Category management represented a fundamental shift from agency-by-agency, lowest-price purchasing to government-wide strategic sourcing optimized for total value. After leaving government, Rung joined Amazon Business as global leader of its public sector division before moving to Varis as Senior Vice President. Her career trajectory from government policy maker to private sector technology leader reflects the growing intersection of procurement innovation and technology.

Key Contributions:

• Implementing category management across the federal government
• Creating the Acquisition Gateway
• Driving data-driven procurement strategies

Relevance to Dissertation: Rung’s category management initiatives represent a practical implementation of value-based procurement thinking, moving beyond individual lowest-price transactions to strategic portfolio management.

Research focus: procurement reform, digital procurement, contract management

19. Lesley A. Field

Current Title: Former Deputy Administrator, Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Office of Management and Budget

Lesley Anne Field served as Deputy Administrator of OFPP from July 2008, acting as Administrator four separate times during her tenure – ultimately running OFPP longer than most of her politically appointed principals. Her sustained leadership ensured institutional continuity and policy coherence through multiple administrations, including oversight of category management implementation, IT modernization procurement, and the government’s response to procurement challenges during sequestration and continuing resolutions. Field represents the institutional knowledge and career expertise that underpins effective procurement policy. Her ability to maintain reform momentum across political transitions demonstrates the importance of professional acquisition leadership – a theme central to the dissertation’s argument that value-based procurement requires institutional capacity and expertise, not just policy directives.

Key Contributions:

• Sustained institutional leadership of OFPP across multiple administrations
• Category management and IT modernization procurement
• Acquisition workforce development

Relevance to Dissertation: Field’s career exemplifies the critical role of career acquisition professionals in implementing and sustaining value-based procurement reforms. Her experience underscores the dissertation’s argument about workforce capacity.

Research focus: procurement reform, contract management, LPTA policy

Legal Practitioners and Thought Leaders

20. John Cibinic, Jr. (1929–2005)

Former Title: Professor Emeritus of Law, George Washington University Law School (posthumous listing)

John Cibinic, Jr., together with Ralph Nash, established the academic study of government contract law in the United States. He co-founded the Government Contracts Program at GW Law in 1960 and co-authored the treatise series that bears their names. His 1964 publication Cost Determination was the first significant scholarly work on cost accounting in government procurement, establishing a field of study that remains critical to understanding price evaluation in cost-reimbursement contracts. Cibinic co-authored The Nash & Cibinic Report from its founding in 1987 until his death in 2005. The publication continues under that name, reflecting his enduring legacy. His treatises on formation, administration, cost-reimbursement contracting, competitive negotiation, and intellectual property in government contracts constitute the canonical body of knowledge that every government contracts professional studies. The Nash & Cibinic Professor title at GW Law was created in recognition of the extraordinary contributions of both founders.

Key Publications:

• Formation of Government Contracts (with Nash)
• Administration of Government Contracts (with Nash & Nagle)
• Cost Determination (1964)
• The Nash & Cibinic Report (1987–2005)

Relevance to Dissertation: Cibinic’s treatises define the doctrinal framework within which procurement evaluation operates. His work on cost accounting and cost-reimbursement contracting is essential for understanding the limitations of price-only evaluation.

Research focus: procurement law, contract management, source selection

21. Vernon J. Edwards

Current Title: Independent consultant, author, and educator in government contracts

Vernon J. Edwards is one of the most respected practitioner-scholars in government contracting. His career began as a contract negotiator, contracting officer, and director of contracts for the U.S. Air Force, where he worked in multiple space system program offices. He later served as Chief of Construction Contracting for the Bonneville Power Administration (U.S. Department of Energy) and as a faculty member at both the GW School of Business and GW Law School’s Government Contracts Program. Edwards is the author of The Source Selection Answer Book, a practical guide that has become indispensable for contracting officers designing and executing source selection processes. He is a contributing author to The Nash & Cibinic Report and the founder and longtime contributor to Wifcon.com (Where in Federal Contracting?), the most active online forum for government contracts professionals. His articles have been published in The Government Contractor, Contract Management, the Defense Acquisition Review Journal, and cited in decisions of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Key Publications:

• The Source Selection Answer Book (2nd ed., 2006)
• Contributing author, The Nash & Cibinic Report
• Articles on source selection, evaluation criteria, and procurement reform
• Founder/contributor, Wifcon.com

Relevance to Dissertation: Edwards’s Source Selection Answer Book and Wifcon contributions provide the most detailed practitioner-level guidance on designing evaluation criteria – the exact mechanism the dissertation seeks to reform.

Research focus: source selection, procurement reform, contract management, LPTA policy

22. Karen L. Manos

Current Title: Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP (Washington, D.C.)

Karen Manos is one of the most accomplished government contracts attorneys in private practice. She is the author of Government Contract Costs and Pricing (Thomson-West, 2012), widely regarded as the definitive text on cost and pricing issues in government contracts. Her expertise spans civil and criminal fraud investigations, bid protests, False Claims Act litigation, defective pricing, Cost Accounting Standards, executive compensation, and corporate compliance. She has served as Chair of the American Bar Association Section of Public Contract Law, Chair of the National Defense Industrial Association Procurement Division, and Editor-in-Chief of the Public Contract Law Journal. She has authored nearly fifty articles on government contract law appearing in publications including the ABA Public Contract Law Journal, The Government Contractor, and The Nash & Cibinic Report. She was named a Law360 Government Contracts MVP, recognizing her as one of the most impactful practitioners in the field.

Key Publications:

• Government Contract Costs and Pricing (2nd ed., 2012)
• Nearly fifty articles on government contract law
• Contributions to the Public Contract Law Journal, The Government Contractor, and The Nash & Cibinic Report

Relevance to Dissertation: Manos’s expertise in cost and pricing provides essential technical depth for understanding how price evaluation works in practice – and where it fails to capture value.

Research focus: procurement law, contract management, bid protests

International Scholars and Experts

23. Sue Arrowsmith

Current Title: Professor Emerita of Public Procurement Law and Policy, University of Nottingham; Former Director, Public Procurement Research Group (PPRG), University of Nottingham (1998–2020)

Sue Arrowsmith is the world’s leading authority on public procurement law. Her treatise The Law of Public and Utilities Procurement is the definitive reference on EU and UK procurement law, and her scholarly output encompasses comparative procurement, the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, competitive dialogue procedures, and procurement regulation in Africa. She is a member of the UNCITRAL Procurement Experts Group and has served as consultant to the UK government, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the European Commission, the OECD, and the Law Commission of England and Wales. She was a member of the World Bank International Advisory Group on Procurement. Arrowsmith directed the Nottingham Public Procurement Research Group for over two decades (1998–2020), building it into the premier international center for procurement law research. Her work on the EU concept of “most economically advantageous tender” (MEAT) – which requires multi-criteria evaluation rather than lowest price – provides critical comparative perspective for the dissertation.

Key Publications:

• The Law of Public and Utilities Procurement (3rd ed., Vol. 1, 2014)
• Regulating Public Procurement: National and International Perspectives (with Linarelli & Wallace, 2000)
• The WTO Regime on Government Procurement: Challenge and Reform (co-edited with Anderson, 2011)
• Public Procurement Regulation in Africa (co-edited with Quinot, 2013)

Relevance to Dissertation: Arrowsmith’s work on EU MEAT criteria provides the most direct international comparator for the dissertation’s analysis of U.S. evaluation criteria. Her comparative perspective illuminates how different legal traditions approach the price-value tradeoff.

Research focus: international procurement, procurement law, procurement reform, competition policy

24. Elisabetta Iossa

Current Title: Full Professor of Economics, University of Rome Tor Vergata (on leave); Board Member, Italian Competition Authority (AGCM)

Elisabetta Iossa is a leading economist whose research on public procurement, public-private partnerships, and the provision of public services provides rigorous theoretical and empirical foundations for value-based procurement. Her appointment to the Board of Italy’s Competition Authority (AGCM) reflects the practical policy impact of her scholarship. Iossa is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR, London) and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE). Her published work appears in the Review of Economic Studies, RAND Journal of Economics, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Public Economics, and other top-tier outlets. Her 2020 co-authored paper demonstrating that bureaucratic competence significantly improves procurement outcomes in Italy’s road construction sector is one of the most important empirical contributions to procurement research in recent years. Her more recent work on firms’ legality and efficiency in procurement (2025) extends this line of inquiry.

Key Publications:

• “Bureaucratic Competence and Procurement Outcomes” (with Decarolis, Spagnolo, et al., JLEO, 2020)
• “Organizing Competition for the Market” (with Rey & Waterson, JEEA, 2022)
• “Firms’ Legality and Efficiency: Evidence from Public Procurement” (with Latour, 2025)

Relevance to Dissertation: Iossa’s empirical work on how institutional and organizational factors affect procurement outcomes provides strong evidence for the dissertation’s central claim that value depends on factors well beyond price.

Research focus: procurement economics, competition policy, international procurement, contract management

25. Mihaly Fazekas

Current Title: Associate Professor, Department of Public Policy, Central European University; Scientific Director, Government Transparency Institute

Mihaly Fazekas is a pioneering scholar who has transformed the study of corruption in public procurement through Big Data methods. He founded the Government Transparency Institute (GTI) in 2015, a think tank that uses quantitative analysis of large-scale administrative data to measure corruption risks, bid rigging, spending efficiency, and administrative quality in procurement. Fazekas earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he developed novel methods for measuring high-level corruption in Central and Eastern European procurement using administrative data. He served as Scientific Coordinator of the EU Horizon 2020-funded DIGIWHIST project, which measured corruption risks, administrative capacity, and transparency in procurement across 33 European countries. Together with the GTI and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, he won the IMF Anti-Corruption Challenge for his work measuring corruption and its costs. His research demonstrates that procurement outcomes are shaped by institutional quality, transparency, and competition – not merely by price.

Key Publications:

• Research on corruption risk indicators in public procurement
• DIGIWHIST project publications on procurement transparency across 33 European countries
• IMF Anti-Corruption Challenge winning methodology

Relevance to Dissertation: Fazekas’s work demonstrates that procurement integrity and institutional quality – dimensions of public value – can be measured and analyzed quantitatively. His methodology provides a model for the dissertation’s empirical approach.

Research focus: international procurement, digital procurement, competition policy, procurement reform

Summary Table (by Category)

Overall Ranking by RFP Importance

The following ranks all 25 individuals in a single list by overall importance and experience in the RFP and government procurement field, without regard to category:

Additional Individuals to Monitor

The following individuals were considered during the selection process and may warrant inclusion as the research progresses:

• W. Noel Keyes – Author of Government Contracts in a Nutshell; important educational contribution but less active in current scholarship
• James F. Nagle – Co-author of Administration of Government Contracts; important treatise contributor
• Michael Wooten – Former OFPP Administrator (2019–2021); initiated AI and robotics initiatives in procurement
• Moshe Schwartz – President, Etherton and Associates; former CRS specialist in defense acquisitions; prolific author of Congressional reports on procurement
• Kate M. Manuel – Former CRS specialist in procurement law; co-authored key reports on past performance evaluation and contract types
• Gabriella M. Racca – Professor, University of Turin; expert on joint procurement and innovation
• Michael Derrios – Executive Director, Baroni Center for Government Contracting, George Mason University; former State Department Senior Procurement Executive
• Gian Luigi Albano – Head of Division, Consip (Italy); leading practitioner-scholar on framework agreements and procurement design

Research Connections

The following maps how each scholar’s work connects to the papers in this dissertation:

Paper 1: Section 813 and the LPTA-to-Best-Value Shift (Difference-in-Differences)

This paper builds on the work of Kelman (procurement reform theory), Schooner (“Desiderata” framework for best-value objectives), Edwards (practitioner guidance on source selection design), and Field (institutional continuity at OFPP during the LPTA policy shift). It responds directly to GAO reports (2014, 2018) on LPTA usage patterns, connecting to Perez’s role in shaping bid protest precedent around evaluation methodology. The legislative context draws on the defense acquisition expertise of Rhodes, Drabkin, and Gordon.

Paper 2: Transaction Cost Economics as Moderator

This paper extends Williamson’s (1985) transaction cost economics framework to procurement evaluation, testing whether asset specificity and uncertainty moderate the effect of source selection method on outcomes. It builds on Brown & Potoski’s (2003) application of TCE to government contracting and connects to Tirole’s principal-agent models of procurement under information asymmetry. The empirical approach draws on Decarolis, Spagnolo, and Iossa’s work demonstrating how procurement design choices interact with contract characteristics to determine outcomes.

Paper 3: International Comparative Analysis

This paper complements the comparative public management scholarship of Pollitt & Bouckaert (2017) and the empirical procurement economics of Bandiera et al. (2009). It draws directly on Arrowsmith’s analysis of EU MEAT (most economically advantageous tender) criteria, Yukins’s comparative procurement law bridging U.S. and international systems, Thai’s work building international procurement scholarship, and Piga’s experience leading Italy’s Consip. Fazekas’s Big Data methods for measuring procurement integrity across 33 European countries provide methodological inspiration.

Paper 5: Scoping Review of Source Selection Research

This paper documents the research gap identified by Kelman (2002) – that procurement reform outpaced empirical validation – and by Thai (2001) – that public procurement lacked a coherent academic field. It surveys the full body of work represented in this directory: the legal foundations laid by Nash, Cibinic, and Schooner; the economic theory contributed by Tirole, Williamson, and Dimitri; the public value framework of Moore; the empirical contributions of Decarolis, Spagnolo, Iossa, and McCue; and the practitioner knowledge captured by Edwards and Manos. The review demonstrates that despite decades of individual contributions, no integrated empirical literature on source selection effectiveness exists.

This document will be updated as additional research identifies other influential figures. Current titles and affiliations verified as of February 2026 through web research. Social media links verified February 2026.