Ferdinand L. Risco Jr. didn't arrive at this work through a course or a career pivot. He arrived through three decades of doing the hard thing in demanding environments — leading soldiers, running public agencies, managing billion-dollar compliance systems, and sitting on the side of the table where the decisions actually get made.
Ferdinand began his military career as an enlisted soldier in the United States Army — serving across all three components: active duty, reserves, and the National Guard. He later earned his commission as an Infantry and Logistics Officer, graduating as a Distinguished Military Graduate.
The military didn't just teach him leadership. It became the operating system he carries into every engagement. How to think under pressure. How to plan with incomplete information. How to execute when the margin for error is zero. How to take care of the people in his charge.
For more than two decades, Ferdinand operated within government — overseeing procurement compliance, running supplier diversity programs, and determining which small businesses gained access to hundreds of millions in contract opportunities. He didn't study the system. He ran it.
What he saw from that seat changed him. Capable businesses — businesses with real talent, real services, and real potential — were consistently losing. Not because they weren't qualified. Because nobody had ever shown them how the inside worked. Nobody told them what evaluators actually looked for. Nobody gave them the strategy behind the submission.
As agency CEO he led nearly 1,000 employees, managed a nine-figure budget, erased a $13 million fiscal deficit in a single budget cycle, secured the largest federal grant in his agency's history, and generated $221 million in annual regional economic impact.
That realization became a calling. When Ferdinand retired from public service, he didn't leave the work behind. He brought it with him — and turned thirty years of institutional knowledge into a system that works for the businesses government was always supposed to serve.
B2G Coach was the beginning. The ecosystem that followed — BizCoach, Go Phoenix, PhoenixECG — was the expansion of a single belief: that small businesses deserve more than motivation. They deserve structure, systems, and someone who has been on both sides of the equation.
Book a discovery call. Ferdinand will tell you exactly where your business is, what's missing, and what it will take to build what comes next.