In a competitive government contracting market, companies work strategically, efficiently and receptively to grow — all while responding to business challenges during a pandemic, and sustaining best business practices and a talent-retaining culture. These mission-oriented companies serving federal agencies may vary in size and solutions but relate in strong financial leadership driven by missions and customer needs. And to excel in a thriving GovCon market, companies rely on a few things: mergers and acquisitions, strategic growth initiatives, strong operations and smooth integrations.
That doesn’t happen without financial leadership. For WashingtonExec’s Top Chief Financial Officers to Watch in 2022, we identified the best of the best in putting long-term growth, strategy and profitability first, based on their accomplishments, impact on internal financial and operational goals, and vision for the near-term future — bringing exactly what the GovCon community needs to empower competition and success.
Chuck Hicks
CFO & Chief Operating Officer, NCI Information Systems Inc.
Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the last two years have been a boon for NCI. The company won over $2 billion in new federal business, including the $807 million digital transformation initiative at the General Services Administration’s Office of Digital Infrastructure Technologies — the company’s largest contract in its 32-year history.
In 2021, NCI was awarded three additional contracts from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that focus on artificial intelligence worth $150 million. Last year, as both chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Chuck Hicks initiated a reorganizational effort across NCI to better support the new programs and better align to deliver AI solutions to government customers, which has streamlined operations and increased the company’s focus on delivering results to customers, especially AI.
Hicks said while NCI’s AI technologies are delivering impressive returns for federal clients, he’s equally excited about leading the company’s efforts to give back to its communities by revitalizing its “NCI Cares” initiative, and becoming the executive sponsor of NCI’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council to improve both the customer and employee experience.
“Chuck is a unique and gifted leader on our team, a person who has the ability to blend strong financial and operational leadership with a real talent to see things at the macro and micro levels,” said Paul Dillahay, president and CEO. “At the same time, his ability to lead and connect with team members at all levels and motivate them to achieve operational and performance excellence is impressive. Those skills are helping to take our operations and customer experience to another level.”
Why Watch
In 2022, Hicks’ team is heavily focused on the delivery of advanced capabilities to NCI customers with the new release of the Empower AI Platform. Hicks and his teams continue to be laser-focused on achieving the company’s vision and strategy of transforming into a full-service technology firm serving federal clients.
Hicks strongly believes AI can and will enable significant support to civilian and defense agencies whose missions can be greatly improved through “hyperautomation” and other AI technologies.
“We believe that AI — the single most transformative technology of our generation — must be the leading innovation in the defense of our nation,” he said. “AI is playing a critical role in advancing the transformation of modernization for our federal IT systems and operations and can strengthen our position around the world. With every implementation, we are honored to be part of a transformation that is helping the federal workforce become more efficient and productive for the American people.”
David Adams
CFO & Executive Vice President, CNSI
David Adams’ recent achievement as CFO was his significant contribution in the December 2021 acquisition of CNSI by Carlyle from private equity firm Alvarez & Marsal Capital Partners.
“Dave played a critical role in helping plan and execute the successful transaction with Carlyle this past December,” said Todd Stottlemyer, CNSI CEO. “His M&A and broad industry experience were instrumental to the success of the sale.”
CNSI’s acquisition was the largest dollar sale in AMCP’s fund. The team at CNSI closed 2021 with double-digit revenue growth and had consistently grown by double digits during AMCP’s ownership, reaching approximately $200 million in revenue by focusing on organic growth and exquisite execution for CNSI state and federal health care clients.
The team’s timely and accurate financial reporting was critical to CNSI’s acquisition last year, but that only tells half the story and is basic “blocking and tackling,” Adams said.
“The team continues to redefine what and how we do things to be able to scale with CNSI,” he said. “In addition to our successful year on the balance sheet, the CFO organization (finance and accounting, procurement, contracts and facilities) was one of the highest scoring CNSI teams in the company’s 2021 Gallup Employee Engagement survey. We live by our core value of ‘One Team, #ONECNSI.’”
Why Watch
In 2022, CNSI is heavily focused on its 5-year goal to achieve more than $1 billion in annual revenue through strong organic growth and strategic acquisitions.
The company’s journey to be the market leader in the public sector health care technology space is well underway. The team will be very active in 2022 supporting significant organic growth and participating in strategic acquisitions.
“Our operations, technology and sales teams are clearly the driving forces behind CNSI’s financial achievements,” Adams said. “The CFO organization’s support of these functions ensures that CNSI continues to be a trusted partner to government agencies. We’re united in a common goal of exquisite execution as we empower the delivery of public sector health care.”
Bob Kwaja
CFO, Two Six Technologies
Two Six Technologies formed in 2021 as the combination of Two Six Labs, IST Research and Trusted Concepts, under global investment firm The Carlyle Group. TST experienced a total revenue growth of over 50% in 2021 compared to 2020, with headcount growth increasing from 285 in February 2021 to over 500 in March 2022.
Bob Kwaja oversaw the integration of the three businesses and led the creation of a consolidated finance department to manage the new high-growth company. That included building new project finance and pricing departments, and expanding the accounting team to meet the growing requirements of the business.
“Our senior team greatly benefits from Bob’s leadership in all aspects of our operations,” said Joe Logue, TST CEO. “Bob possesses an ideal skill set of financial and M&A expertise combined with relevant operational experience in the cyber, defense and intelligence sectors.”
From early 2021 to today, Kwaja built foundational operational infrastructure for TST. Under his leadership, the company now operates common processes and systems, a process that included the consolidation of numerous separate timekeeping, forecasting, payroll and accounting systems.
2021 was a very important year for TST as it built the foundation of the company, including bolstering its management team, building out new systems, creating new departments and streamlining its processes while achieving significant top-line and bottom-line growth, Kwaja said.
“All our accomplishments over the past 18 months wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of our exceptional employees, especially the TST leadership team and our hard-working finance organization,” he said. “I am very fortunate to be part of such a great and supportive organization.”
Why Watch
2021 was all about building out the finance organization and creating common systems. The focus in 2022 will be to continue to train, improve and streamline processes across finance and the entire organization. Kwaja’s primary focus in 2022 is to continue to assist the company in realizing the revenue synergies from the three acquisitions, specifically building out a consolidated and integrated pricing model for TST’s proprietary product lines.
Susan Lynch
Senior Vice President & CFO, Vectrus
Susan Lynch is helping guide the company forward following the merger agreement between Vectrus and Vertex on March 7. This merger creates a company with revenues exceeding $3.4 billion, adjusted EBITDA margins of more than 8%, a backlog of greater than $11 billion and over 330 locations.
Lynch also integrated two significant acquisitions in 2021 which resulted in approximately 28% year-over-year revenue growth and 9.5% organic revenue growth — all while implementing a global enterprise resource planning system.
Why Watch
The focus for Lynch and her team in 2022 will be closing the Vectrus/Vertex merger, building one unified team and delivering on the merger’s synergies and plans. The combined company will provide opportunities for greater contract, customer and geographical diversity; broader scale; and more opportunities for employees to grow and succeed.
The combined company will be well positioned to provide its customers with more integrated and comprehensive solutions with significantly improved margins and a backlog that has visibility for at least three years into the future.
“It’s an exciting time to work at Vectrus and to welcome and combine the employees from Vertex with our family at Vectrus,” Lynch said. “As a global leader in mission essential solutions, our cultures and values are similar, and the primary focus of our workforce is making our clients’ missions successful.”
Adam Omar
CFO, Altamira Technologies Corp.
Under Adam Omar’s leadership, Altamira Technologies Corp. has become more resilient, agile and stronger following the challenges of the pandemic.
Despite these challenging years, Altamira has delivered the financial performance and compliance required by its customers, investors and lenders.
“I believe that as a CFO you must earn trust and confidence of all the stakeholders in order to be effective in the role,” Omar said. “This is achieved with knowledge, transparency and diligence in everything you do. I am a big fan of Albert Einstein’s quote, ‘The only source of knowledge is experience.'”
Why Watch
In 2022, Omar and his team are focused on both organic and inorganic growth in key markets, such as space and cyber, where they can leverage current capabilities to expand. They are also continuing to develop talent and improve upon their infrastructure systems for efficiency and scale.
“Adam’s leadership as our CFO is critical,” said Altamira Technologies CEO Jane P. Chappell. “In addition, his understanding of the market, industry players and customers makes him an invaluable leader across the company.”
Robert Richards
CFO, BlueHalo
In Robert Richards’ first 13 months at BlueHalo, the company closed eight acquisitions — Brilligent, ATA, Fortego, Base2, DDES, IAI, Citadel and Asymmetrik. Over the course of 2021, his team implemented a new financial system, a new MRP system and integrated six companies into BlueHalo.
The large number of special projects completed in 2021 is a testament to the amazing talent and leadership throughout BlueHalo’s contracts, procurement, IT and finance organizations, Richards said.
“In addition, we have received phenomenal support from our partners at Unanet, Flowtrac, and BDO’s system implementation team,” he added. “Without this impressive team that I have the benefit of working with, these accomplishments would not have been possible.”
Why Watch
Richards’ initial focus for 2022 is to finalize the integration of process for BlueHalo’s recently acquired companies not yet in the financial system, which will be completed in the second quarter of 2022. From there, his team will focus on leveraging its talent, tools and systems to drive down accounting close cycle, automate manual processes and improve the quality of its rolling forecast process.
The contributions of Richards and his organization to BlueHalo serve as the foundation upon which the company builds, said BlueHalo CEO Jonathan Moneymaker.
“Acquisitions and their associated integrations have been an important tool for us as we accelerate achieving our strategy but layering on explosive organic growth from key program wins or well thought-out technology investments,” Moneymaker said. “His contributions touch every part of the broader organization. For me, I couldn’t ask for a better business partner. Robert is an authentic leader without ego, whose counsel I depend on and trust as we continue to build something unique and very special in the national security market.”
Lori Becker
CFO, Arcfield
Any time a major transaction occurs — IPO, merger, acquisition, divestiture — all eyes turn to the CFO. For Arcfield, one of the newest players in the game after its separation from Peraton, appointing an exceptional CFO was a necessity.
Its selection in Lori Becker was strategic and intentional. Becker is a seasoned executive with a proven record of transformative financial and operational excellence in government contracting and technology sectors.
Prior to joining Arcfield, Becker was CFO at Sierra Nevada Corp., where she served as an executive adviser to leadership on strategic business transactions. Earlier in her career, Becker spent nearly 15 years at Deltek, most recently as CFO, before taking on senior financial roles at various government contractors.
“I enjoy the challenge of standing up systems, defining processes, uncovering efficiencies and navigating the complex world of government contracting,” Becker said. “It’s an opportunity to start fresh, build it right from the start, and prime an organization for ultimate success.”
Why Watch
All eyes are on Arcfield in 2022 as the company gets its footing and sees what happens next. The company is focused on building and executing an organic and inorganic growth strategy while remaining steadfast in its commitment to delivering technology-differentiated mission solutions for its customers.
Warren Kohm
CFO, Red River
Warren Kohm, a seasoned executive with over 25 years’ experience in finance operations and leadership roles, joined Red River in January. He previously served as vice president of finance and as corporate controller at Alion Science and Technology, where he rebuilt the company into a premier company before the sale to Huntington Ingalls Industries in summer of 2020.
Why Watch
In 2022, Kohm and his team are focused on making Red River the premier combo play in value-added reseller and in services with government and commercial clients.
“I pride myself on building strong teams that are able to perform at a level to drive precision and excellence in what we do,” Kohm said. “The executive I have looked up to and had worked with for many years always said, ‘Lead by example and always do the right thing’ . . . great words to live by.”
John Kavanaugh
CFO, Peraton
When CFO John Kavanaugh joined Peraton in May 2021, he quickly established a disciplined, results-oriented finance culture focused on growth and accountability.
He migrated the finance operations of three heritage companies into a single system, streamlined indirect rate structures and harmonized all accounting and business policies to enable the company to operate with a unified face to customers — One Peraton. This was done while supporting strategic M&A activities, including the ViON as-a-service acquisition and Arcfield divestiture.
“I am humbled and honored to lead an extraordinarily talented group of finance professionals at Peraton, ” Kavanaugh said. “This is a testament to their dedication and outstanding performance.”
His steady hand and driving force guided a transformative year for Peraton in 2021. As a result of his team’s collective effort, the company experienced an increase in growth, profitability and cash-flow performance.
Why Watch
The previous year’s successes provided Peraton with a strong foundation for the future. In 2022, Kavanaugh plans to unleash the power of the company’s fully aligned infrastructure, deeply talented workforce and values-based culture to expand its leadership positions across the industry.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with John over many years,” said Peraton Chief Communications and Engagement Officer Matt McQueen. “His unrelenting focus on the fundamental operating metrics drove revenue growth, cost containment and cash cycle efficiency, allowing Peraton to successfully support our customers’ missions of consequence in a truly differentiated way.”
Rich Sawchak
CFO, Hypori
Rich Sawchak has been driving growth in technology companies for over 20 years. Since joining Hypori in October, he’s been working to continue his successful track record with a 2022 plan to grow the company by over 100%.
Upon arrival, Sawchak applied his deep experience in financial leadership and operational excellence to revamp the finance and business operations teams and establish a platform for growth through enhancements in employee engagement and sales operations. Sawchak leads Hypori’s finance, contracts, HR, recruiting, legal and business affairs, where he’s leveraging his success in the public sector to accelerate Hypori’s growth beyond federal into commercial verticals including the defense industrial base.
In his first few months, Sawchak opened two new offices for the company — headquarters in Reston, Virginia, and a technology hub in Austin, Texas. He’s guiding the company’s facility clearance process, which is part of Hypori’s drive to have its recently rebranded product, Hypori Halo, IL5 and FedRAMP High accredited to broaden the support of existing Defense Department and new customers across the government.
Why Watch
Hypori plans to increase its staff by 70% this year, make significant investments in ramping up its customer success process and add over 20 engineers focused on cloud-native product architecture and optimization in a multi-cloud environment.
“Hypori has aggressive goals,” Sawchak said. “I’m making sure we build the right infrastructure and organization to handle exponential growth, and balance customer success and employee satisfaction.”
Sawchak plans to make Hypori an employer of choice. He has already implemented improved benefits and employee equity plans. He’s also been planning an all-employee event since he joined.
“Hypori has a ‘people-first, tech-focused’ culture,” he said. “As a young company that launched and doubled in size during the pandemic, most of our employees have never met their coworkers face to face. Getting everyone together in person is the best way to build camaraderie and unite us as a team.”
Mark Cabrey
Senior Vice President & CFO, NT Concepts
Mark Cabrey is a driving force behind NT Concepts’ transformation into a high-growth technology company focused on data-driven services and enterprise IT supporting national security programs.
Over the past 18 months amid the uncertainty of the pandemic, he championed multiple projects to prepare NT Concepts to compete and win in the full and open market by instituting best practices around financial and business operations, all while refreshing the organization’s vendor portfolio.
“Mark’s leadership shows us that as CFO, he is focused not only on managing our financial outcome but more importantly managing overall risk, driving continuous improvement, taking care of our people, and ensuring 100% integrity within the company,” said Michele Bolos, NT Concepts founder and CEO.
And his efforts have paid off. With more than $60 million of recent wins in the intelligence space, the company continues to expand its data science and advanced AI/ML operations footprint in mission critical environments.
Why Watch
In 2022, NT Concepts has no plans for slowing down and is preparing for more rapid growth.
On the back of its recent wins, the company is future-focused on quick and efficient program startups using cross-functional prepare-to-win sessions prior to contract awards. A huge part of this mission-ready approach is the talent piece, a challenge given the turbulent “Great Resignation” labor trend.
Cabrey and his team are already developing highly competitive benefits and total compensation packages more aligned to the current market, as well as other talent initiatives.
“Our people-first culture enables our customer success,” he said. “This year is about finding bold and creative ways — really thinking outside the box — to attract the right cleared talent to join our top-notch delivery teams to deliver innovative, impactful solutions for our intelligence and defense customers.”
Dawn Pinto
CFO, Critical Mission Solutions, Jacobs
Over Dawn Pinto’s career, she has worked with large, diverse teams that standardized systems and challenged non-value-add activities. And she’s leveraged technology to further analyze results, support the business and drive improved financial performance.
In relation to Jacobs’ 90-day check-in and overview of its recent ERP conversion, which is the first segment to go on the long-term solutions for all of Jacobs, Kevin Berryman, Jacobs CFO, said:
“I am thrilled that Dawn has joined Jacobs, and she has added value from day one. She is a great business partner — the type of CFO that is needed in today’s fast-moving environment. Dawn is strategic, operationally savvy and collaborative and people focused. Her obvious leadership skills will be critical as we partner to deliver against our new ambitious strategic plan.”
Why Watch
As CFO, Pinto is focused on managing all aspects of Jacobs’ business units’ finances including accounting, investor relations, internal audits, digital IT and enterprise business services.
As Jacobs moves forward into 2025 carried by its new strategy, a new business unit is being formed where Pinto will be the CFO. Divergent Solutions is operationalizing and delivering innovative, next-generation cloud, cyber, data and digital solutions across the company to enable customers and partners globally. Her team will continue to ensure financial resources, strategies and operations support to internal and external stakeholders as they work together to continue to create a more connected, sustainable world.
Tamara Jack
CFO, LMI
LMI achieved a company-high $419 million in revenue in 2021. As part of these efforts, LMI’s average opportunity size increased to approximately $7 million last year. It also acquired and fully integrated Suntiva, a business transformation and technology company committed to assisting government leaders with digital, workforce and business process transformation solutions designed to improve performance.
This acquisition expanded LMI’s customer access in public health and defense, particularly the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Agriculture Department. The acquisition increased LMI’s ability to bring its corporate capabilities to bear on mission sets of strategic national importance within the federal health and defense markets.
For LMI CFO Tamara Jack, being successful in this regard starts and ends with an amazing team.
“Members of LMI’s finance and law department are all committed to our growth, our mission and making a difference every day,” she said. “I am also very lucky to work with an incredible senior leadership team at LMI — on a daily basis we are focused on empowering our talent and delivering long-term success for LMI, our employees and customers.”
Why Watch
Jack’s focus is to help LMI reach its growth goal as part of the “LMI 2025” growth strategy. This strategy is to fully support and maintain LMI organic growth, while supplementing it with strategic M&A, acquiring capabilities and market access that will help solve its customers’ most complex problems.
Kathie Powers
CFO, Riverside Research
Kathie Powers’ biggest achievement this year was twofold: reengineering a solid company and business financial reporting file that hits all the key metrics to be successful in monitoring and achieving plans; and reimagining a monthly rolling forecast to track progress in achieving the annual plans.
“Kathie’s strong financial acumen enables the success of our business while delivering the greatest value to our customers,” said Alka Bhave, Riverside Research chief operations officer.
Why Watch
In 2022, Powers’ team is heavily focused on bringing in a software package that can support rapidly changing revenue streams.
“Riverside Research Institute continually surprises me on the depth of technology and research the technical staff performs on contracts and IR&D,” Powers said. “The people are some of the smartest I have come across in over 35 years in GovCon. The CFO team continually achieves the requirements we are tasked to figure out. We are frequently asked to financially identify how to treat many of the technology developments. I have an amazing team and appreciate the talent we have in the department.”
David Mutryn
CFO, Maximus
David Mutryn is proud to have led Maximus through a truly transformational period over the past two years. This includes two large acquisitions in its U.S. federal business in 2021 totaling nearly $1.8 billion combined.
Mutryn and his team also raised capital through a $2.1 billion credit agreement and led Maximus through its first corporate credit rating process.
Mutryn achieved a seamless transition into the CFO role after working closely for years with former CFO Rick Nadeau, which provided important stability and continuity to the organization and its shareholders at a time when it undertook significant acquisitions and experienced strong organic growth, said Bruce Caswell, president and CEO of Maximus.
“David’s combination of technical acumen, experience, judgment and collaborative working style make him a great colleague and tremendous asset to Maximus and our customers,” Caswell added.
Why Watch
In 2022, Mutryn and his team are heavily focused on helping Maximus navigate through multiple integrations and significant organic growth as they support federal, state and global clients.
“I’m honored by this recognition and very grateful for the strong and resilient leadership team at Maximus,” he said. “It is a very exciting time for the company.”
Diane Nguyen
CFO, Microsoft Federal
Diane Nguyen joined as CFO of Microsoft Federal in the middle of the pandemic and at a critical time of digital transformation for its customers. Her initial focus was building out the finance team.
The majority of the team onboarded within eight months, and many came from a long history of government contracting experience. The team also includes key legacy Microsoft team members to strike the right balance between depth of experience in doing business with the federal government, and critical knowledge of Microsoft’s technology, products and services.
“There is a strong bond and a true sense of camaraderie as this team has come together on our Microsoft Federal journey,” Nguyen said. “We are also very fortunate to be supported by the MSUS and corporate world class finance teams.”
While building out the team, new systems and tools were implemented and processes developed to support the federal business in a collaborative environment outside of the Microsoft corporate infrastructure, all while maintaining the continuity of the well-established Microsoft Federal business and meeting high-growth expectations in fiscal year 2021.
In addition to a successful launch of the Microsoft Federal environment, the team also partnered with the business team as it shifted its approach to the market to bring all of the latest innovations in cloud services and artificial intelligence in Microsoft to focus on supporting customers’ missions.
Why Watch
During 2022, Nguyen and her team will make the transition back to a hybrid work model by leveraging the innovation and technology available in Microsoft to ensure a smooth transition, maximize productivity and maintain an inclusive working environment.
Another key initiative in 2022 is continuing to integrate Microsoft Federal into the newly formed strategic missions and technologies team effective as of October. The new SMT organization includes Microsoft Federal, Azure Space, telco and quantum and is designed to accelerate Microsoft’s key emerging businesses.
Nyguyen looks forward to contributing to the success of federal customer missions and helping them accelerate their digital transformations.
