About

Dragon Forge is a boutique consulting firm focused on the U.S. Federal market. We consult on a wide range of topics:

  • Opportunity Identification: Finding opportunities your company is ideally suited to pursue.

  • Opportunity-to-Win Strategy: Winning you work.

  • Mergers and Acquisition: Helping you inorganically grow by identifying acquisition targets with ideal market position for your business.

  • Due Diligence: Ensuring what you plan to buy and what you buying are the same thing.

  • Strategic Planning: Optimizing your business to compete in the Federal market.

  • Market Development: Getting you into agencies where you want to work.

Our model

We believe every client problem is unique and no single person has a monopoly on knowledge.

We bring together the best experts that fit your business challenges and objectives.

Drawing from a wide array of talent in defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and civilian agency experience, we deliver experts who know your client set inside and out.

Meet the Team

  • Mariah Smith

    CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER and CO-FOUNDER

    Mariah Smith is the CEO of Dragon Forge Consulting. She is responsible for client delivery, strategic planning, and thought leadership. With over 20 years of experience, she has occupied multiple roles in the artificial intelligence industry, Congressional relations, and law enforcement. As the Director of Operations for Accrete.AI, she oversaw the business enterprise for one of the few successful dual-use technology start-ups. Her portfolio of Congressional support includes serving as a Congressional Analyst for the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, CENTCOM Liaison for the Senate and House Armed Services, Appropriations Committees, and as Congressman Steve Israel’s military legislative assistant. She also serves on the Board of Directors for No One Left Behind which assists former interpreters and U.S. government employees eligible for the Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa programs. She is also a councilwoman for Stephens City, Virginia.

    She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and acquired an Masters in Security Management from Webster University.

  • Brian Drake

    CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER and CO-FOUNDER

    Brian Drake is the COO of Dragon Forge Consulting. He is responsible for the back office, consultant recruiting, and implementing the strategic vision of the CEO. He served over a decade as an Intelligence Officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). His last assignment was leading the intelligence briefing team for the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary, the Undersecretary for Policy, and other “E Ring” principals. He was DIA’s first Director of AI where he drafted the agency’s AI strategy and oversaw a $20+ million AI investment portfolio.

    In 2021, he was named by Federal Computer Week as one of the Federal 100 for his work. As an analyst he led multiple teams countering threats from state and non-state actors across technology, counterintelligence, and counternarcotics topics. He previously was a Manager with Deloitte Consulting and a management consultant with Toffler Associates specializing in strategic planning, business development, collaboration consulting, technology, and innovation for commercial and government clients. He also worked as a military platforms and policy analyst for Systems Planning and Analysis and as a nuclear weapons programs analyst for DynCorp. He also founded and served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Defense Intelligence Memorial Foundation; providing scholarships to children of Defense Intelligence Officers who were killed in the line of duty.

    He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Mercer University and a Masters from Georgetown University.