Out of the Shadows,
Into the Light.
Out of the Shadows, Into the Light.
Exumbra LLC is a federal growth consultancy in Leesburg, Virginia.
Exumbra helps federal contractors and IT resellers win through capture management and business development, stand up services businesses, get leaders unstuck on hard decisions with the Strategic Thinking Lab, and put AI agents to work inside their growth workflows.
$1B+
Managed-service and as-a-service contract ceiling captured
25+
Years in federal programs, capture and delivery
3
Delivery organizations and service lines stood up
18
AI agents running in daily operations
The problem
Federal growth stalls when leaders act on stories they have not tested, or do not decide at all. Most firms do not lack ambition; they lack a clear map and the discipline to prove it first.
Where federal growth work happens
The path
Exumbra's approach has three phases: Diagnose, Design and Build.
Map the business first: customers, contracts, vehicles, partners and how work really flows. Evaluate partners. Pick one or two pilots worth running.
Shape the offers, run the pilots, and fix what breaks while the stakes are still small. Decide what to automate and where agents earn their keep.
Scale what proved out. Sign the partners who performed and hire into booked work, not forecasts.
Ways in
Exumbra offers six ways in: capture management and business development, a federal services build-out, the Strategic Thinking Lab, a monthly growth retainer, a bench of specialists on call, and AI agents for growth workflows.
Federal services build-out Example
Growth plan
Hire into booked work, not forecasts.
Capture Example
Bid / no-bid check
Recommendation: bid, with conditions
Agent: Proposal Manager Pilot
Compliance matrix drafted
Business development Example
Pipeline by stage
Agent: Pricing Check Example
Labor rates checked
Bid / no-bid Bid
01
Find the right opportunities, qualify them fast, and position to win.
Phase Design, pilots running
02
Turn a product or reseller base into a services business that protects margin.
Step Testing beliefs
03
Get unstuck on a hard decision by testing the story behind it before you commit.
This month Priorities set
04
Senior growth support each month, on outcomes we agree together.
Bench Specialist on call
05
A roster of seasoned specialists on call to step in, deliver and fix what's stuck.
Agent Pricing Check, pilot
06
AI agents that do real work inside your business and growth workflows.
Agentic AI for business and growth
Exumbra designs and deploys AI agents into the workflows that drive growth: pipeline and capture, proposals, pricing checks, quality control, meeting prep, reporting and operations. Each one has a clear job, a clear owner and a clear stop. Anything that leaves the building waits for a human to approve it.
The agent drafts and checks; a person decides and sends.
The agent runs a workflow end to end, with human checkpoints.
Several agents coordinated and monitored as one system.
How engagements work
Every Exumbra engagement follows three steps: a conversation, outcomes agreed in writing, and a monthly readout of what moved.
Thirty minutes on where you want to grow and what is in the way. You leave with a clear next step, whether or not we work together.
We agree two or three outcomes for the month and put them in writing. Scope changes are agreed in writing before work starts.
A one-page readout each month: what was delivered, what moved, and what comes next. Stay month to month after the first quarter.
Questions buyers ask
Straight answers on federal services growth, capture management and AI agents, from Exumbra LLC.
Exumbra LLC is a federal growth consultancy in Leesburg, Virginia, founded by Rob Genkinger. It helps federal contractors and IT resellers build services businesses, run capture management and business development, and deploy AI agents into growth workflows such as pipeline, proposals, pricing checks, quality control and reporting.
Engagements range from a monthly growth retainer to a phased federal services build-out. Exumbra does not provide agency access, guarantee awards or write proposals on a client's behalf.
An IT reseller builds a federal services business by mapping its existing customers, contracts and vehicles first, then piloting one or two services offers with current buyers, proving delivery and margin, and only then signing delivery partners and hiring. Services that attach to products the reseller already sells are usually the shortest path.
Common failure points are hiring ahead of booked work, signing partners before they have performed, and pricing services without a funded delivery model. A staged plan with clear gates between phases reduces that risk.
Attach rate is the share of product sales that also include a related service, such as installation, configuration, support, managed services or professional services. In federal IT it is often measured by contract, task order or customer, and it shows how well a reseller turns hardware and software sales into longer service relationships.
Definitions vary by company, so agree on the formula before tracking it: for example, product orders with a services line divided by all product orders in the same period. Public federal award data can show attach patterns at agencies, but not a specific company's private sales history.
A federal capture manager leads a company's effort to win one specific government opportunity before and during the bid. The role covers learning the customer's needs, assessing competitors, shaping teaming, setting win themes and price strategy, and guiding the bid/no-bid decision, then handing a well-positioned opportunity to the proposal team.
Capture usually starts months before a solicitation is released. The capture manager often stays involved through proposal reviews to make sure the strategy carries into the written response.
Business development finds and qualifies opportunities and builds relationships across a market, filling the pipeline. Capture management takes one qualified opportunity and organizes the company to win it. In government contracting, business development decides where to compete; capture management decides how to win a particular bid.
Small firms often have one person doing both. The risk is that urgent captures crowd out the steady pipeline work that produces the next year of opportunities.
It depends on the starting point, but a staged build-out commonly runs in three phases: about three months to diagnose the business, several more months to design offers and run pilots, and a build phase after that to scale what worked. Timelines stretch when hiring or partner contracts get ahead of proven demand.
Exumbra plans around Diagnose (months 1 to 3), Design (months 4 to 9) and Build (month 10 on). Actual timing depends on contract vehicles, existing customer demand and how quickly pilots can be booked.
AI agents help federal capture and proposals by taking on structured, repetitive work: shredding solicitations into compliance matrices, tracking section owners and reviews, checking price volumes for errors, researching stakeholders from public sources, and reviewing drafts against style and accuracy rules. People keep ownership of strategy, pricing decisions and final submissions.
The best first deployments are narrow, with a clear input, a clear output and a person who reviews the result. Agents should not be the only check on facts or numbers in a federal submission.
AI agents can be used safely on federal proposals when the data, tools and approvals are set up for it. That means using approved systems for any sensitive or controlled information, keeping a person responsible for every submission, logging what the agent did, and checking every fact and number before anything leaves the company.
Rules differ by contract and customer. Information marked as controlled, or covered by specific contract clauses, needs an environment that meets those requirements. Exumbra designs agent deployments so that nothing is sent outside the company without human approval.
A small federal contractor should make bid/no-bid decisions with a short, consistent checklist: customer relationship and insight, fit with past performance, competitive position, teaming, price realism, and the cost to bid. Deciding early and declining weak opportunities frees time for the few bids a company can realistically win.
An independent second read helps when a team is emotionally invested in a pursuit. Recording the reasons behind each decision also makes later win and loss reviews more useful.
A federal growth retainer with Exumbra includes senior business development and capture support against two or three outcomes agreed each month, such as account plans, new agency entry points, pipeline qualification, partner events or bid/no-bid reviews. Each month ends with a one-page readout of what was delivered and what moved.
Scope is agreed in writing before work starts, and extra work is scoped and approved separately. After an initial period, retainers run month to month.
Start with a 30-minute conversation about where you want to grow and what is in the way. Email rob@exumbra.com to set a time. If there is a fit, Exumbra proposes two or three outcomes for the first month in writing; if not, you still leave with a suggested next step.
Exumbra takes a limited number of engagements so each client gets senior time.
About
Founder and Principal, Exumbra LLC
Rob Genkinger has spent his career on both sides of the federal services business: winning the work and building the teams that deliver it.
"Exumbra helped us to find the precise problem that we were struggling with. I hated thinking through it. It was great!"
Tell us where you want to grow. We will tell you honestly whether we can help, and where we would start.
Book a conversationWe take a limited number of engagements so each client gets senior time.
or email rob@exumbra.com
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