Talent Network Membership Terms

These Membership Terms govern your membership of the Talent Network operated by Peoples Partners and Associates, LLC, a limited liability company organized in Maryland ("PP&A", "we", "us"). They apply from the day you join and for as long as your membership lasts.

They do not govern any particular piece of work. Work you accept is governed by a separate engagement document, described in section 10.

Your use of this website is also governed by our Terms of Use, and our handling of your personal information by our Privacy Policy. Where those documents conflict with these Membership Terms on a question of membership, these Membership Terms control.

The Talent Network is a roster of independent experts. PP&A maintains it so that when we bid for work, or a client asks us to staff a project, we can identify members whose experience fits and put them forward.

Membership means three things. We hold the professional information you give us. We may propose you for work in the ways section 5 describes. We may invite you to take part in work we win.

Membership is free. We charge nothing to join, nothing to remain on the network, and nothing to be proposed for work. We never take a share of what you are paid.

Membership is not exclusive. You may belong to other networks, work for other firms, and accept any work you wish, subject only to section 12.

We do not promise you work. We make no representation about how often you will be approached, what kind of work you will be offered, or whether you will be selected for anything we propose you for. Most competitive proposals do not win, and a proposal that does win may be staffed differently than it was bid.

You do not promise us your time. You may decline any approach, for any reason or for none, and declining does not affect your standing on the network.

Membership does not make you an employee, agent, partner or joint venturer of PP&A. Section 9 sets this out in full.

Your profile is the professional information you give us: your name, contact details, location, biography, photograph, employment and project history, education, certifications, languages, sector experience and years in each, security clearances, citizenship or work authorization, availability, and the rate you are willing to work at.

You warrant that it is true, accurate and complete, and that it is not misleading by omission. This matters more here than on an ordinary professional website: we put this information in front of clients and, for federal work, in front of the United States government. When we do, we are representing to them that it is accurate.

You agree to keep it current, and to correct anything that becomes inaccurate as soon as you reasonably can. We may ask you to confirm that your profile is still accurate from time to time, and we may ask you to confirm it before you are proposed for a specific piece of work.

We may verify what you tell us. That may include confirming your employment history, education, certifications and clearances, directly or through a third party, and checking public records. We are not obliged to verify anything, and our not doing so does not reduce your responsibility for accuracy.

If your profile turns out to be materially inaccurate we may correct it, suspend your membership, withdraw you from a proposal, or end your membership under section 14.

You grant PP&A a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use your name, photograph, biography, curriculum vitae, employment and project history, credentials, clearances and sector experience for the following purposes, and no others:

• (a) Proposals and bids. To name you as a proposed team member in any proposal, bid, quotation or tender, and to submit your CV and qualifications with it. This applies for as long as you are a member and is not limited to any one opportunity.
• (b) Client-facing materials. To include you in capability statements, qualification packages, team descriptions and pitch materials prepared for a specific client or prospective client.
• (c) Matching. To search, rank and shortlist the network internally, and to discuss your suitability with a client or prospective client before you are formally proposed.
• (d) General marketing, only with your separate agreement. To name or feature you in PP&A's own public marketing, on our website, or in published materials not prepared for a specific client. We will not do this unless you have separately agreed to it, and you may withdraw that agreement at any time.

We will use a current version of your CV, prepared from the information you have given us, and we will not alter its substance. We may reformat it to meet a client's or an agency's required layout, and we may shorten it to meet a page limit.

You may ask to see the version of your CV we are submitting before we submit it, and we will provide it.

This licence lasts as long as your membership, and ends when your membership ends, except that we may retain and continue to use material already submitted in a live proposal or an awarded contract, and material we are required to retain under section 13.

You acknowledge that PP&A, its clients and government agencies are entitled to rely on your professional information when deciding whether to propose, select or contract with you.

You may not use PP&A's name, logo or trademarks without our written consent, and you may not list PP&A's clients on your own CV, website or professional profiles. Section 7 treats client identity as confidential.

Membership is the permission. Once you are on the network we may name you in proposals as section 4 describes, without asking again each time. We do not need a fresh authorization for each bid, and your being named in one proposal does not limit us to that one.

The reason is practical. A proposed team is a statement of the capability we can field, and government procurement treats it that way. Teams shift between the proposal and the award as scopes change, as timelines move and as work is won or lost. Asking you to re-authorize every bid would slow that down without making it any more accurate.

We will tell you each time we name you. You will know which proposals you are part of, and we will tell you the outcome.

We may ask about your availability. For a specific piece of work we may send you a request naming the work, the role and the period, so you can tell us whether you are free and confirm your rate. That is a question about availability and interest, not a request for permission. Answering no means you are not available for that work. It does not remove you from the network and does not affect anything else.

Tell us if you become unavailable. If you take a commitment that would stop you performing work you have told us you are available for, or if you agree to be named by another bidder on the same solicitation, tell us promptly. We may have a duty to tell the client or the agency, and we can only do that if we know. This is the most important thing you can do for us.

Where a solicitation asks for more. Some solicitations require a signed letter of commitment, a letter of intent, a conflict of interest certification or a confidentiality undertaking from each named individual, in a form the agency prescribes. That requirement comes from the agency, not from us. Where one applies we will tell you what it says before you sign it, and you are never obliged to sign a document that misstates your position.

Nothing here is an offer of work. Being named in a proposal carries no fee and no commitment on either side. If the work is won and we want you on it, we will offer you an engagement, and section 10 explains what governs that.

Federal work carries eligibility rules that reach individual consultants, not only firms. You agree to the following, and to keep each of them current.

Disclosure. You will tell us about anything that could reasonably create a conflict of interest, or the appearance of one, in work we might propose you for. That includes your current and recent employers and clients, financial interests in organizations active in the sectors you work in, roles you hold with any government or agency, and close family relationships that could create a conflict. Disclose it even if you believe it does not actually impair your objectivity; the judgment is not yours alone to make, and an undisclosed conflict is worse than a disclosed one.

A continuing duty. If any of that changes, tell us. If a conflict emerges during a proposal or an engagement, tell us at once.

Representations. You represent that you are not suspended, debarred or proposed for debarment from federal contracting, that you are not otherwise ineligible to perform the work you are proposed for, and that you will tell us immediately if that changes.

Government service. If you hold or take a position with any government or government agency, tell us. Some roles make participation inappropriate or unlawful, and we would rather know first.

Citizenship and work authorization. Some work is restricted to United States citizens or lawful permanent residents. Where you declare a status to us, you warrant it is accurate.

If a conflict cannot be managed, we may withdraw you from a proposal or an engagement. That is not a judgment about you and does not affect your membership.

What you keep confidential. In the course of membership you may learn things that are not public: the identity of our clients and prospective clients, that we are bidding a particular opportunity, the contents of a solicitation, our approach, pricing and win strategy, who else is on a proposed team and on what terms, rates, and information belonging to a client or a third party. You agree to keep all of it confidential, to use it only for the purpose we gave it to you for, and not to disclose it to anyone without our written consent.

Concretely: do not list our clients on your CV or your professional profiles, do not say publicly that PP&A is bidding something, and do not discuss one member's rate or role with another.

What we keep confidential. We owe you the same. We will not disclose your rate, your CV, your clearances, your work authorization, your personal contact details or any document you give us, except to a client or agency for a proposal or engagement under the licence in section 4, to our professional advisers, where you have told us we may, or where we are required to by law. We protect your information with at least the care we apply to our own confidential information.

What is not confidential. Information that is already public through no fault of the person disclosing it, that you already lawfully held, that you develop independently, or that you lawfully receive from someone free to disclose it.

Nothing here restricts a lawful report. Nothing in these Membership Terms prohibits or restricts you from lawfully reporting waste, fraud or abuse to a designated investigative or law enforcement representative of a federal department or agency authorized to receive such information, including an Office of Inspector General, or from making any other disclosure protected by law. Any confidentiality obligation you may have that conflicts with this paragraph does not apply to that disclosure.

These obligations continue after your membership ends, for as long as the information stays confidential.

Some federal work creates a restriction on what the people who performed it may do afterwards. An expert who evaluates proposals for an agency, or who performs a definitional mission or a study that shapes a later procurement, is commonly barred from working on the resulting project. The rule protects the integrity of the analysis, and it is imposed on us by the government rather than chosen by us.

Where an engagement carries a restriction like that, we will tell you what it is, what it covers and when it ends, at the time we offer you the engagement and before you accept. You are free to decline the engagement. If you accept it, the restriction binds you on its stated terms, and we will record it so that we do not later propose you for something you are barred from.

These Membership Terms impose no restriction of this kind by themselves, and membership alone never restricts what work you may take.

You are an independent contractor. You are not an employee, agent, partner or joint venturer of PP&A, and nothing in these Membership Terms creates any of those relationships.

Specifically: you have no authority to act for PP&A or to bind it; you may not describe PP&A or any client as your employer; you decide how to perform any work you accept, and we specify the objectives and the result rather than the means; you are not eligible for any PP&A employee benefit, including workers' compensation, health, disability, retirement, holiday, sick or vacation pay; you are responsible for your own taxes, including self-employment tax, and for any withholding, filings and contributions your status requires; and you are responsible for anyone you employ or engage to help you.

You hold yourself out to the public as an independent consultant or an independently established consulting business, and you hold any licences and permits your work requires.

Where we pay you, we will report those payments as the law requires, and you will provide the tax documentation we need in order to pay you.

Membership does not entitle you to payment, and nothing in these Membership Terms is an offer of work. Being named in a proposal is not an offer of work either, and carries no fee.

When work is available and you accept it, we will put a separate engagement document in place. It will state the scope, the role, the period, the rate, any limit on hours or spend, deliverables, and the flow-down terms our own contract with the client imposes. That document governs the work and the money. Where it conflicts with these Membership Terms in relation to that engagement, it controls.

The rate held on your profile is the rate you have told us you are willing to work at. It is a starting point for a conversation, not an agreed price. The rate for a piece of work is the rate in the engagement document.

Unless an engagement document says otherwise, PP&A contracts with the client and you contract with PP&A. We invoice the client and we pay you. You are not paid for time spent on proposals, interviews, profile maintenance, or work that does not proceed, unless we have agreed in writing to pay for it.

Membership itself requires no insurance.

Where an engagement requires professional liability, general liability or other cover, the engagement document will say so and will state the amount, which is usually set by our contract with the client. You agree to hold the cover it specifies for the period it specifies and to provide evidence of it on request.

PP&A does not provide insurance for members and is not an insurer. Any cover you need is yours to arrange.

If we introduce you to a client, we ask that the relationship continue to run through us for a period. This is the only commercial restriction in these Membership Terms, and it is deliberately narrow.

For twelve months after the later of the end of an engagement with a client and the date we first introduced you to that client, you agree not to provide the same or substantially similar services to that client, on that matter, other than through PP&A or with our participation on terms we agree.

It does not apply to a client you already had a relationship or dealings with before we introduced you, to work unrelated to the matter we introduced you on, to a position of employment the client offers you, or to work you win through a public competition open to all bidders.

For the same twelve months, you agree not to solicit PP&A's employees or other Talent Network members away from PP&A. General advertising not directed at them is not solicitation.

If a client asks you to work around us, tell us. We would rather find an arrangement that works than discover it later.

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it and what rights you have. It governs, and where this section summarizes it and the two differ, the Privacy Policy controls.

Two points specific to membership are worth stating here. First, the central purpose of the Talent Network is to share your professional information with clients and government agencies in proposals, which is a disclosure outside PP&A, made in the ways section 4 and section 5 describe. Second, information submitted in a proposal or under a government contract may have to be retained under rules we do not control, so ending your membership does not always let us delete everything.

You can ask us at any time to show you what we hold, to correct it, or to remove you from the network. Section 14 explains what happens then.

You may leave at any time, by telling us or by using the request in your account. We may end or suspend your membership at any time, and we will tell you when we do.

Ending membership does not end an engagement already under way. An engagement ends according to its own terms.

If you leave while a proposal naming you is live, tell us, so that we can tell the client or the agency.

When your membership ends we stop proposing you, and the licence in section 4 ends, subject to what that section says about live proposals and required retention. We remove your profile from the network, keeping only what we must for legal, contractual and record-keeping purposes.

Sections 3 (as to information already given), 4 (as to material already submitted), 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15 and 16 survive the end of your membership.

The Talent Network is provided as it is. We do not warrant that it will be available without interruption, that you will receive opportunities, or that any proposal naming you will succeed.

Neither of us is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue or lost opportunity, arising out of membership.

Our total liability to you arising out of your membership is limited to the fees we have paid you in the twelve months before the claim arose, or one thousand dollars if we have paid you nothing.

For our part, we will not seek to hold you personally liable in damages for your performance of services, so long as the claim does not arise from your breach of these Membership Terms, your negligence or wilful misconduct, or an inaccuracy in the information you gave us.

You are responsible for loss we suffer because information you gave us was inaccurate or misleading, because you disclosed confidential information in breach of section 7, or because you failed to disclose a conflict under section 6.

Governing law. These Membership Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to its conflict of laws rules.

Disputes. We will each try in good faith to resolve any dispute by discussion first. Any dispute that cannot be resolved that way will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Maryland, and we each consent to their jurisdiction. Either of us may seek injunctive relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect confidential information.

Changes. We may change these Membership Terms. If a change is material we will tell you by email before it takes effect, and we will post the new version here with a new effective date. Changes apply from the date they take effect and do not change an engagement already agreed. If you do not accept a change, you may end your membership under section 14.

Entire agreement. These Membership Terms, with the Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy and any engagement document, are the whole of what is agreed between us about your membership, and replace any earlier understanding about it.

Severability and waiver. If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest continues in force. Not enforcing a provision on one occasion does not waive it.

Assignment. You may not transfer your membership. We may assign these Membership Terms to a successor to our business.

Questions. Write to us at our contact page.

Version effective as of September 21, 2026