Lourdes Martin-Rosa

American Express OPEN® Advisor on Government Contracting

After more than ten years of lobbying in Washington, D.C. on behalf of small business & government procurement, Lourdes Martin-Rosa began to see that a void in representation existed for small businesses. She had traveled several times to argue for the rights of her clients and had won her fight. She had navigated through the maze of federal proposals and contracts and knew her formula would work for other small businesses. This is when Government Business Solutions (GBS) was born.
Lourdes founded GBS with the knowledge that the federal government is the single largest procurer in the world. Small business not only had a right to a piece of this pie, but by the government’s own standards, small businesses were entitled to a portion of this work. From her years of experience Lourdes learned two basic things small businesses needed to do: 1) as a small business you must have an “edge” in order to compete with larger more experienced companies and 2) you must take advantage of every tool the federal government offers small businesses, while making yourself known to the right people within the government…perseverance is everything.
As the American Express OPEN Advisor on Government Contracting, Lourdes coaches small business owners on how to get contract-ready and help find contract success. In partnership with American Express OPEN, she has helped create resources and guides that offer “mainstreet” shortcuts to all small business owners. “We are the ‘Cliffs Notes’ of the federal procurement industry,” Lourdes declares. These guides range from pursuing government contracts for the novice business owner to the more experienced government contractor wanting to explore other methods of winning government contracts.