Baird Managing Director John Song Receives 2nd Wash100 Award for Helping Streamline GovCon M&A Deals
Executive Mosaic is proud to name John Song, managing director at Baird’s Global Investment Banking Group, as a 2025 Wash100 Award recipient. Song, who is also a co-head of the Baird Defense & Government Investment Banking practice, earned his second Wash100 recognition for paving the way for GovCon industry growth and development through M&A deals and investment efforts.
Don’t forget to vote for John Song as one of your 10 favorite GovCon leaders by visiting Wash100.com. The popular vote competition of the 2025 Wash100 Award runs through April 30.
This year marks the second time Song has won the prestigious Wash100 Award, which recognizes 100 of the most influential executives in the government and government contracting space for their impact, vision, past achievements and potential. The 2025 Wash100 list features a group of elite public and private sector leaders who have achieved great success in the past year and are in a position to do more in the future.
“John is back on the Wash100 list, and it’s well deserved. A trusted name in GovCon M&A, John and the team at Baird advised on major 2024 deals like KBR’s acquisition of LinQuest and CACI’s acquisition of Applied Insight, helping to shape the evolving government contracting landscape,” said Jim Garrettson, CEO of Executive Mosaic and founder of the Wash100 Award.
“Whether guiding high-impact transactions or co-hosting the annual Baird Defense & Government Conference—where Executive Mosaic was honored to be the main media invitee—John’s expertise and strategic perspective make him a key figure in the industry. It’s great to recognize him once again,” Garrettson added.
Streamlining M&A, Investment Deals
In recent years, Song has been at the forefront of numerous critical deals. With his leadership, Baird has served as the exclusive financial adviser to the biggest mergers and acquisitions and investment opportunities that helped shape the GovCon and federal markets.
In September 2023, Baird advised aerospace survivability technology provider Resonant Sciences on a deal that saw the company receive an undisclosed amount in investment from Cerberus Capital Management’s Supply Chain and Strategic Opportunities platform.
Cerberus’ strategic investment aimed to boost Resonant Sciences’ growth and product development strategies. Song said innovative companies like Resonant Sciences become more critical in advancing national defense capabilities amid the rapid evolution of the global threat environment.
In July 2024, Baird served as the exclusive financial adviser to KBR’s $737 million acquisition of engineering, data analytics, and digital integration firm LinQuest Corporation. The move was part of KBR’s initiative to explore revenue growth opportunities and increase its capabilities to meet the needs of its clients and the GovCon market.
“Both companies have a tremendous footprint across the national security space, especially within the space domain, and both companies have a strong commitment to providing leading-edge capabilities to the warfighter,” said Song.
Defense & Government Support Leadership
In the past year, Baird saw a surge in defense and government transactions come its way and as co-head of the Defense & Government team, Song led a fair share of these deals.
In February 2024, Song announced that the firm advised Arlington Capital Partners in BlueHalo’s acquisition of Eqlipse Technologies. BlueHalo, a capabilities provider in the space, C-UAS and electronic warfare and cyber sectors, and Eqlipse, a SIGINT and EW capabilities provider, are both Arlington’s portfolio companies.
Song and his team also worked with Chameleon Consulting Group in June on its merger with Clarity, a Capitol Meridian Partners portfolio company. Chameleon offers full-spectrum cyber operations systems to the intelligence community.
Meanwhile, he and his Global Investment Banking team worked on the sale of The Acacia Group’s portfolio company Applied Insight to CACI International in October. Applied Insight provides cloud-enabling systems to the national security community to help agencies modernize their enterprise structure.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Baird and John Song on achieving the most prestigious award in GovCon for the second time. His leadership has had a huge positive impact on the development and growth of the GovCon and government sectors.
Don’t forget to cast your vote for him at Wash100.com.