Recorded live at VETS 26 in New Orleans, this episode features Tiphanie Forst, Founder & CEO of Frigata Health Strategies and a Principal at Deep Water Point. With 24 years across clinical, pharmaceutical, and healthcare IT — the past 20 focused on Military Health System modernization for the DoD and VA — Tiphanie has built a career on growth strategy, business development, and capture, helping drive multi-hundred-million- to multi-billion-dollar wins. At Frigata, she provides business development, sales capture, and proposal support, acting as the connector and "face of the company" for clients who can't be everywhere themselves: linking small and service-disabled-veteran-owned businesses to the government leaders, contracts, and teaming partners they need to win, and helping large primes get strategic by teaming smart rather than muscling in alone (she describes structuring a joint venture that landed a client among six awardees on a DHA contract).
The through-line is connection across worlds that don't obviously overlap — veterans, professional athletes, investors, and health tech. The daughter of a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, Tiphanie is deeply committed to the veteran and military-health space, and she draws a striking parallel between retiring athletes and transitioning veterans: both face a loss of identity and a need for new resources and support, especially around mental health. She's channeling that vision into a new venture, IconIQ, organized around growth, access, innovation, nexus, and a lifestyle/brand "studio" component — fitting for someone who's also a professional artist creating bold acrylic work under TWA – Art by Tiphanie Forst. It's a fast, energetic conversation about relationships as the real currency of federal business development.
In This Episode:
- 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
- 03:45 - Connecting Veterans with Business Opportunities
- 07:05 - Connecting Veterans to Opportunities in Business
- 09:49 - Connecting Small Businesses and Veterans in Federal Procurement
- 10:28 - Connecting Athletes and Media Innovation
Key Takeaways:
- Two decades in military health modernization. Tiphanie brings 24 years across clinical, pharmaceutical, and healthcare IT — 20 of them on Military Health System modernization for the DoD and VA — behind multi-hundred-million- to multi-billion-dollar wins.
- Business development and capture, done through relationships. Frigata Health Strategies offers business development, sales capture, and proposal support, with Tiphanie serving as the "face" for clients at conferences and in the community — valuable for firms without in-house BD resources.
- Strategic teaming beats brute force. She structured a joint venture that positioned a lesser-known large business as a prime and landed it among six awardees on a DHA geographic-service-provider contract — sometimes the smart play is teaming with a strategic small business.
- Helping small and SDVOSB firms break in. From SAM registration to GSA schedules to knowing which contracts and people to target, she helps businesses new to federal procurement find direction and get onto winning teams.
- The athlete–veteran parallel. Tiphanie connects professional athletes and transitioning veterans around a shared loss of identity and mental-health challenges — and channels athletes into federal/tech ventures and philanthropic efforts.
- Deep health-IT roots. Her background includes EHR modernization work with firms like Leidos and Cerner (acquired by Oracle), including efforts toward a single longitudinal health record spanning the DHA and VA — "birth to grave."
- A new venture, IconIQ. Her evolving brand organizes her work around growth, access, innovation, nexus, and a lifestyle/brand "studio" — "iconic connections for intelligent outcomes."
- It's all connection. Her recurring theme: missions, investors, athletes, and veterans "all tie together," and relationships are what actually move federal deals forward.
