BAE Systems named Larry Prior, previously Executive Vice President of Service Sectors, Chief Operating Officer (COO) last month.
In his new role, Prior will drive operational productivity, agility, cost efficiency and effectiveness throughout the business.
Ellen McCarthy, CEO of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), provided an antidote of Prior’s inherent leadership and problem-solving skills as a junior officer.
“I will never forget when I first met him. He was in the Marine Corps. He must have been a Lieutenant, a very junior officer. I remember him and some of his friends traveling around Suitland on ROI …He was walking around with sheets of paper just showing people – he was as excited as a little kid with a brand new toy. He was very persuasive. To me, he was just a young analyst but obviously he was very persuasive to senior flag officers saying, ‘we should be looking at Iraq and Kuwait this way’. He was fun and I guess that is always what struck me – he was fun to work with. He had incredible charisma, very smart, clearly had great leadership skills.
In this case he was a junior officer who compelled senior officers to look at something in a different way. I would say that a lot of our success during Desert Storm was because of this young Marine, Larry Prior. That’s pretty amazing to me that at such a young age he could help win a war and I really believe it was him who did that,” Ellen McCarthy told WashingtonExec.