Lauren Wittenberg Weiner

Lauren Wittenberg Weiner is an accidental entrepreneur who found unexpected success in the male-dominated field of military contracting by changing the rules of the game. Lauren started WWC Global when she could not get a job as a military spouse stationed overseas. What started as a way for Lauren, herself, to do some part-time consulting work until she could move back to DC and re-start her career, instead turned into one of the largest privately-held government contracting firms in Tampa Bay. Under Lauren’s leadership, WWC Global won the largest award ever to a woman-owned small business in US Special Operations Command Headquarters history, a $200 million contract to provide training and military exercise support with Special Operators (Navy SEALs, Green Berets, and others) around the world. Over the course of almost 20 years, she and her team built the company to almost $100 million in annual revenue before selling the company to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation (MPTN) in 2022. Since the original founding of the firm in 2004, WWC Global employed over 250 military spouses, and kept dozens of them employed through multiple military moves, some for over 15 years. Lauren also co-founded the very first non-profit organization, In Gear Career, focused exclusively on military spouse employment at the professional levels, which merged with the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program. Lauren also co-founded Homefront Rising, a program to train military spouses to engage in the political process as candidates and elected officials, political and policy staffers, and advocates. Lauren is an authentic leader, speaker, and mentor who routinely shows “behind the curtain” to the reality behind her success. In addition to her professional duties, Lauren has an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and a PHD in Psychology from Dartmouth College. She lives in Tampa Bay with her family, where she sits on the Board for Baycare Health System (a $5.2B not-for-profit), the Tampa Bay WAVE technology incubator, and the Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce. She is the primary caregiver for her aging parents and a loud and proud hockey mom.