Leadership
Steve Ikirt
Chief Executive Officer
Steve Ikirt is the Chief Executive Officer of 9th Way Insignia and a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel with more than thirty-five years of experience supporting mission-critical government operations. His career spans military service and senior civilian leadership roles focused on defense, cybersecurity, enterprise IT, and large-scale digital modernization.
Following his military career, Steve co-founded Information Innovators Inc., a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, where he helped grow the firm from a small startup into an organization of more than 1,000 employees supporting numerous federal agencies. Under his leadership, the company executed complex programs across defense, intelligence, and civilian agencies, ultimately resulting in a successful acquisition in 2017. At 9th Way Insignia, Steve leads the company’s strategic direction with a focus on cybersecurity, data platforms, and AI-driven automation that strengthen resilience, modernize legacy systems, and improve decision-making in high-consequence government environments.
Melissa Chapman
President
Melissa Chapman is a senior technology and operations executive with extensive experience leading complex, secure, and data-intensive programs for U.S. government clients. Her work focuses on enterprise data platforms, cybersecurity operations, cloud modernization, analytics, and automation in environments where reliability, scale, and mission assurance are critical.
Throughout her career, Melissa has operated at the intersection of technology, governance, and execution—helping organizations modernize legacy systems while maintaining continuity of operations and managing risk. She has led initiatives involving enterprise data warehouses, cybersecurity compliance and continuous monitoring, analytics platforms, and AI-enabled automation, often in highly regulated and operationally demanding settings. Melissa is known for building disciplined delivery organizations, strengthening change and configuration management, and aligning technical solutions with real-world mission outcomes. She brings a pragmatic, systems-oriented perspective to modernization, emphasizing that secure data, skilled teams, and sound governance are essential to delivering lasting impact.
Nancy Van Balen
Chief Growth Officer
Nancy brings broad technical experience, proven management skills, and a solid track record of growth. For over 25 years, she has guided identification, pursuit, and delivery of reliable, citizen-centric services to government organizations. Nancy is driving our growth strategy, leading solution architects and proposal experts in developing impactful and sustainable solutions to address critical customer program IT and digital challenges.
Nancy is active in the federal acquisition community, especially focused on optimizing war fighters’ experience as they transition to civilian life, ensuring they can access the full spectrum of care offered by the VA.
Philip Vincenzes
Chief Technology Officer
Phil has over 40 years of executive leadership experience. He has led teams delivering a wide range of technology solutions supporting national security, defense, financial management, and prevention of military suicides. He helps clients acquire and integrate emerging technology capabilities, especially for design and development of visually compelling analytical and knowledge-based solutions. Phil’s solutions have been recognized by governments, academia, and journalists worldwide.
At 9th Way Insignia, Phil leads strategy, innovation, and development of technology solutions for our Federal clients. He’s leading research and application of emerging technology solutions, including artificial intelligence, automation, and advanced analytics.
Kimberly Cole
Chief Performance Officer
Kimberly Cole brings more than 25 years of leadership experience to her role as Chief Performance Officer at 9th Way Insignia. Her career has centered on building strong teams, developing leaders, improving how organizations work, and helping people and programs perform at their best.
As CPO, Kim leads the company’s enterprise approach to performance, aligning people, programs, processes, data, technology, governance, and financial decision-making to strengthen execution, customer delivery, and business outcomes.
Kim brings a practical, people-centered approach to performance, grounded in clear expectations, strong leadership, disciplined execution, and accountability at every level. Her background in law enforcement, complex investigations, task force work, hostage and crisis negotiation, instruction, and executive leadership gives her a distinctive perspective on leading through complexity, strengthening teams, and driving results.
John Stortz
Executive Vice President, Operations
John has 26 years of industry experience. He started his civilian career in government contracting after leaving the Army. Before 9th Way Insignia, John worked as a Client Delivery Executive. He’s a proven Subject Matter Expert in IT Infrastructure and Security Management. Leveraging his extensive program management expertise, John has been instrumental in driving 9th Way Insignia’s growth and success.
John prides himself as a Husband, Father, and Soldier. He credits his achievements to great people he has worked with. John is dedicated to ensuring 9th Way Insignia maintains its small company values as we grow into a large business.