by Jessica Morris, CEO

Five years ago we launched Pluribus Digital — a rebrand signaling new ownership, a new vision, and a commitment to building modern digital products for public service missions. We are proud of what we have done in the last 5 years, continuing to find ways to grow and expand, while staying true to who we are and what got us to this point.

In February 2020, I was brand new to the role, and to the industry — and faced with the roller coaster ride that is govcon. I stepped into this role as CEO and the majority owner, after nearly 20 years as a federal employee. I cut my teeth fast — starting immediately with the realities of COVID and remote everything, combined with an exciting new prime contract win, and the opportunity to steer Pluribus forward. Success for our brand can be measured by our excellent customer feedback (CPARS), multiple recompete wins, and many trusted partnerships. It is also the people I’ve met — my competitors have also become my mentors and friends. Our leadership team teaching me, challenging me, and bringing their brightest ideas — for which I am extremely grateful and stronger for.

We chose the name Pluribus Digital — derived from the Latin phrase E pluribus unum — and can be found on top of the US Capitol building and nearly all US currency. It translates to “Out of many, one”. Pluribus as a name celebrates both the diversity of many individuals that make up the American public. It also references the colonies overcoming their differences and uniting around one federal currency.

I was not the founder of the company, so rebranding provided the opportunity to convey a new direction for the company, to consider the direction we were going toward, and what we stood for. Before this calendar year ends, I wanted to sit down and reflect on the lessons I’ve learned, the decisions we’ve made, and the successes we’ve had. Rebranding is complicated but proved ultimately worth it. I am extremely proud of the brand we’ve built.

We built 7 Principles in Action that would guide us in our decision making. Now, 5 years later, we look back on the principles to ensure they continue to guide us and the work we do each day reflects that.

Support the Mission. Despite so many changes in government in the last year, we remain more committed than ever before to building a brand around digital products that deliver a quality experience to the American public. We have supported impactful missions — helping people gain citizenship at USCIS; helping the public securely access government services at Login.gov; helping people get access to their bank account funds after a bank failure at FDIC; helping people find the vast catalog at the Library of Congress; helping Veterans access benefits at the VA; and most recently modernizing how the alcohol industry is regulated and pays taxes at the U.S. Treasury.

Support the People. Our product is our people. As a knowledge-driven organization, our success depends on whether our employees feel supported, equipped, and valued. That’s why we’ve invested in the tools, systems, and leadership structures that help our teams do their best work — from modern tools to a management model centered on clarity, coaching, and growth.

We’ve also taken a thoughtful approach to total rewards. This includes expanded benefits like parental leave, a clearly defined career model that shows employees how they can grow with us, and training and certification programs that support continuous development. Underpinning all of this is our commitment to fair, equitable, and market-informed pay practices, with transparency so employees understand how their compensation is built and how it compares. When we put people first, we enable them to deliver their best work for our government customers — every day. This is a part of our brand I can be especially proud of.

Lean Into Digital Services. Our renewed focus as Pluribus meant that we do work that improves government service delivery through technology. It was important to me that we build our future beyond traditional “govcon” and IT. We focused our capabilities (development, design, and delivery). We care deeply about building great products that meet real user needs and pride ourselves on being honest brokers with our customers.

Seek and Provide Feedback. As we’ve scaled, one of our most important investments has been building a strong mid-level leadership team. Relying solely on an executive-led model doesn’t work at scale. Delegation takes practice, discipline, compassion, and trust. By expanding our management layer, we ensure our vision is consistently shared while also bringing feedback straight from the practitioners into decision-making. This approach helps us move faster, stay grounded, and make changes that are a true value add for our people and the company as a whole.

Default to Open. We’ve made intentional moves toward pay transparency and equity, grounding our total rewards decisions in market data and clearly communicating how compensation and benefits are determined as mentioned above. Just as importantly, we close the loop on feedback with employees — sharing survey results, naming what we heard, and explaining how it informs our decisions.

That commitment to openness extends beyond total rewards. We share challenges and wins with our team during all-hands, and we actively learn alongside peers through communities like the Digital Services Coalition, Talent/Ops GovCon Collective and the Digital WOSB Alliance. We believe progress happens faster when we’re willing to share and learn together.

The same philosophy guides our work with customers. Wherever feasible, we encourage open-source collaboration through platforms like GitHub. While not everything belongs in the open, we’ve consistently found that transparency builds trust, strengthens partnerships, and delivers more value than holding tightly to a perceived competitive edge.

Nurture a Calm Culture. My operating motto is to “Scale with Grace”. We certainly must grow to be a healthy business, but I’m not a fan of hustle culture or growing for the sake of growth. A calm culture allows us to enjoy the journey and the destination. We’re not clock punchers and a calm culture is not about spa days — we’re professionals who want to build with intentionality. In practice that could mean working nights and weekends on a tech challenge or a major customer release, with the ability to rebalance work and life when the surge period is over. Scaling with grace means avoiding reactionary strategies that skid off the rails for the sake of growth. It’s important to preserve our culture while also committing ourselves to what we do best rather than stretching our people or our brand to be something we’re not. We’re a company that brings the best solution and process to our customers and often does things a little differently. Ultimately, good execution builds trust, trust leads to results.

Engage our Communities. Nearly a year into the role after certifying as a woman owned small business (WOSB) with the Small Business Administration, I realized that there was little to no discussion around set asides for Women Owned small businesses among digital services procurement. As a result, I reached out to the other woman owned businesses I knew. We spoke with federal officials to understand what we could be missing or why federal procurement officers weren’t opting for WOSBs in digital procurement. Anecdotally, we heard federal officials believed, “women don’t actually lead their own companies”, that agencies were already hitting their WOSB set aside requirements — just not through their IT contracts, or that they weren’t convinced there was enough WOSBs “out there” in their market research. A year later following those discussions, we formed the Digital WOSB Alliance with 12 founding companies to provide that market research. Three years later, there are over 60 woman owned, woman led digital services companies as a part of the Alliance.

That brings us to today. We’re grateful, especially this year with DOGE cuts, to have a diverse portfolio of customers with impactful missions. As we look back on the last five years, what stands out most is not just how much we’ve grown, but how we’ve stayed true to who we are. Our culture, our day-to-day decisions, and the way we show up for one another are clear reflections of the principles we set early on — and continue to live by.

We’re especially proud to be celebrating five years as Pluribus Digital at a challenging moment for our industry. Growth from 40 to 87 employees didn’t come with easy buttons, but it came with intention. By being clear about who we are and what we stand for, we stayed grounded, earned trust, and created space for meaningful wins along the way. As we look ahead, we do so with confidence — knowing that the principles that carried us through our first five years will continue to guide us in a changing landscape and into the next chapter.