2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Hall of Fame Honoree

Toni Townes-Whitley became one of two Black female Fortune 500 CEOs in 2023, when she joined federal contractor SAIC. An alumna of Princeton University, she previously served as president of Microsoft’s U.S.-regulated industries, president of CGI Federal and held management roles at Unisys.

At SAIC, she leads a company that reported $7.44 billion in fiscal 2024 revenue and employs about 24,000 people. Townes-Whitley also serves on boards for Nasdaq, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and Princeton’s Faith & Work Initiative. In October 2024, she was named to Fortune’s 100 Most Powerful Women in Business list.

FIRST JOB: After graduating from Princeton, I chose to join the Peace Corps, and it was a critically important experience for me. I learned about cross-cultural engagement and resilience. I learned so much about myself and the bias that I brought as an American to my amazing village in Gabon. I discovered that so many of the things I thought I was there to “fix” perhaps didn’t need to be fixed, and that I needed to evaluate situations more holistically.

MOST MEANINGFUL JOB: I would say my current role as SAIC CEO. When I joined last year, I came in with four major company pivots and worked with my team to develop an enterprise growth strategy and identify some of the country’s toughest national security challenges.
We’re setting a new bar as a next generation mission integrator, using our experience, expertise and ecosystem to embed technology and solutions in mission-critical environments.

WHY I CHOSE MY PROFESSION: I was drawn to government technology and the defense industrial base by the chance to leverage the power of next-gen solutions to evolve national security and secure critical infrastructure. I want the work that we do every single day to matter and have lasting impact. At SAIC, we address critical national imperatives facing this country, modernizing legacy technology, combining emerging capabilities and open data architectures, and bringing together partners to provide innovative solutions for mission critical operations.

HOW I GIVE BACK: I believe in our SAIC mission — leveraging diverse tech and diverse talent to serve and protect our world. I am committed to supporting initiatives that foster talent development, offer growth opportunities and provide tools to empower our future leaders. Not surprisingly, I support several nonprofit organizations, including The Women’s Center, which provides mental health counseling, support and education, and sit on the boards of Catalyst, which is dedicated to elevating women to the boardroom, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the largest national organization advocating for the Black college community, among others.

PROUDEST PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENT: Taking over the helm of SAIC has been my proudest professional moment, allowing me to work with an outstanding leadership team to build and shape an already strong Fortune 500 company into an exceptional one. Every day we’re focused on solving complex challenges for the warfighter, through experience, expertise and the development of our partner ecosystem, to strengthen national security. Seeing SAIC succeed, both its people and the company, is incredibly personally rewarding.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED: Have the courage to show up authentically and allow others to do the same.