Meet Our Leaders: Adam Fehd, CRO

At GovSpend, progress starts with the decisions and direction of our leadership team—those setting the vision, shaping our strategy, and ensuring we build solutions that truly serve our users. Meet Our Leaders features interviews with our executive team and department heads, offering insight into how they’re guiding our growth and helping us deliver smarter, more impactful solutions for the public sector.

The third interview of our series highlights Adam Fehd, a devoted “boy dad,” self-proclaimed lesser half to his partner, Claiborne, and GovSpend’s Chief Revenue Officer. A commercial leader with a passion for diagnostic selling and authentic client engagement, Adam’s leadership style is grounded in curiosity, humility, and practicing managing by walking around—being present, asking questions, and staying hands-on. Adam brings energy and empathy to the sales floor at GovSpend, helping teams connect more meaningfully with prospects and customers alike.

I began my selling career at 18 years old, needing to make some university and travel money. The internship I applied for turned out to be “work experience” and I politely asked if they had a “paid” version. They introduced me to the head of sales and I spent the next 22 years helping a FinTech company scale globally. The leadership team from that firm invested in GovSpend and later invited me to join and work for the founders.

AI is obviously HOT at the moment, and our product and technology teams have delivered client-demanded releases at a blistering pace. Our Meeting Intelligence solution continues to drive outsized value for our clients, alerting them of business risk, pre-RFP planning discussions, competitive sentiment, and more. We continue to be excited about our partnerships with Iris and Citylitics, who each bring unique data and solution sets to our joint customers.

We continue to see more and more “AI-first” competitors in both the SLED and Federal spaces, and while we are laser-focused on delivering deep AI insights and functionality, we are equally focused on expanding our unique, best-in-class data. It’s difficult for our AI-focused competitors to truly deliver a Gov-360 client relationship without the depth of the bid, historical spending, contract, and meeting data that GovSpend is known for. I like to say GovSend is, “data led, AI empowered.”

I’m a Simon Sinek guy, and his book Leaders Eat Last stays on my bedside table, reminding me to prioritize the well-being of my teams (and others across our company.)  Jocko’s Extreme Ownership was a great read given to me by our COO, Trip Colden, years ago. Lastly, one of my most valued personal possessions is a signed first edition of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, which belonged to my grandfather.

Personally, I am very family-focused; my better half holds me accountable and makes me a better father, partner, and leader. We have two young men that we are raising to be global citizens, and that’s a lot of work—but it is amazing to watch and nurture their development and interests. I love to spend as much time as I can with our parents, my brothers, and their families.

Professionally, I draw inspiration from our commercial team members. I love to see our sales teams dig deeply into and have success with the diagnostic process that I learned and adopted 15 years ago. Credit to Ilan Shannon and Jeff Thule for their coaching of the businesses I’ve been a part of. Seeing this approach work can be career-changing for many sales execs, and that’s inspiring.

Always ask questions, learn deeply about others, drill down, and get personal. In a modern world, it’s easy to lead with ourselves—but we learn more and build deeper relationships by asking great questions, recording the answers, and shaping our personal and business relationships based on those questions/answers.

Qualities that I value most are resilience, integrity, the ability to problem solve, and the aptitude to tell stories that relate to the customer.  I talk a lot about being an “authentic” seller—someone that our prospects would have a coffee with and continue to call for help after a deal is done.

While there always needs to be organizational structure, I work hard to have our sales organization feel and operate as “flat” as possible—empowering our front lines to collaborate more directly and bring their ideas straight to our product and technology teams. I’ve long been a believer that commercial leaders should regularly have “deal dirt” on their hands, and I strive to lead from the front—helping our SDRs and AEs on complex or stuck deals and being as available as possible. Innovation is driven by our customers, and I spend a good portion of my time in front of them, alongside our commercial teams. 

I love being outside, and I spend a lot of time riding mountain bikes and playing soccer with my sons. We also have two big dog “children,” and collectively there is a lot of energy in our household, so being in the woods and constantly moving is great for everyone’s soul and health!  We travel regularly as a family and like to spend as much time as we can in Europe, touring, skiing, and visiting friends.

Winston Churchill – resilient and strategic in the face of great crisis, triumphant and steadfast in his leadership. We lived in London for 8 years, which was an amazing experience. I am currently reading “Citizens of London” by Lynne Olson, about the Americans who stood with Churchill during WWII. I hope for a world where our global leaders are inclined and able to build the type of relationship that Roosevelt and Churchill built.