In addition to her duties as chief operating officer, Carey Smith was named Parsons Corp. president in November, one of her many significant 2019 milestones.
But prior to her appointment, Parsons completed its initial public offering, which resulted in the company’s stock price increasing by 55%.
“Our financial performance for the first three quarters as a public company has exceeded expectations, with highlights being strong book-to-bill, margin expansion and cash flow, coupled with solid organic growth,” Smith said.
Parsons continued its successful track record of acquiring and integrating companies with the purchase of GSystems in January and QRC Technologies in July. Parsons also completed the integration of Polaris Alpha, which it acquired in May 2018, and its space team celebrated a successful multi-manifest launch of a small space vehicle payload. Parsons performed the launch integration that enabled the small satellite delivery to orbit.
In addition, Parsons won its largest ever cyber contract, a $590 million Combatant Commands Cyber Mission Support contract with the General Services Administration.
And what sets Parsons apart is its core markets of cyber, space, missile defense, C5ISR and connected infrastructure based upon people, processes and technology.
“For our people, the primary differentiator is the Parsons culture focused on being the most agile, innovative and disruptive in our industry,” Smith said. “We are a company of innovators who collectively align around how we solve our customers most complex challenges and our processes are an enabler.”
In terms of innovation, Parsons is heavily engaged in the development, integration and deployment of emerging technologies across all warfighter domains. With thousands of technical subject matter experts in the areas of cyber, artificial intelligence, data analytics, space and cloud computing, the company develops technology solutions in direct support of its federal customers’ most critical missions.
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“Our most critical priority is to remain tightly aligned with our customers and understand their emerging mission needs and challenges,” Smith said.
Parsons will focus on staying on the leading edge of technologies in 2020 as it continues research and development investment in core markets including cyber, space and smart cities.
“On-time, on-cost and high-quality performance execution is also important across our full portfolio of programs,” Smith added.
Parsons will also provide guidance for the first time as a public company, and it’s important to Smith that Parsons achieves it.
And outside of Parsons, Smith looks forward to serving on the board of directors at Edison International and the Professional Services Council, where she serves as vice chair.