2022 Virginia 500: Moving up

When I give my elevator speech about the Virginia 500, it usually starts this way: It’s like the Fortune 500, but instead of focusing on companies, it’s about people.

More specifically, unlike the Fortune 500, which ranks companies by gross revenues, this is a more subjective list. We strive to inventory the most powerful and influential leaders and executives in Virginia across 20 major sectors, ranging from real estate and manufacturing to higher education and government. We accept suggestions for the Virginia 500, but it is compiled based on research by our editorial staff, not through nominations.

Some of the list is determined by a person’s position — if you’re the governor of Virginia or the head of a Fortune 1000 corporation, you’ll find yourself on the Virginia 500. Other factors we consider include company revenue, the number of employees a leader oversees, the scope of their responsibilities, how newsworthy the executive is, and how prominent they are within their industry and/or community. We examine board memberships, as well as philanthropy.

When I discuss the Virginia 500, I also explain what it’s not: public relations or advertising. This is an editorial product, and our editors choose who makes the list, which leaders we write about and what we say about them. Though most people named to this list consider their inclusion an honor, a very small number don’t want to be listed. However, it isn’t an opt-out process.

For the sake of expediency and organization, we condense some industries into overarching categories. One example is the real estate section, which includes leaders from related industries such as architecture and engineering, construction and development.

We do not attempt to adjust this list for race, gender or geography. Our aim is to present a true picture of who holds the most power in business, government and higher education in the commonwealth. As such, this list skews largely white and male, though it is significantly more diverse than America’s top business leadership.

There are six Black CEOs (including two women) leading Fortune 500 companies this year, making up 1.2% of Fortune 500 leaders. By comparison, the Virginia 500 has 42 Black leaders (including nine women), composing 8.4% of the list. (About 14% of the U.S. population are Black or African people.) People of color make up 12.8% of the Virginia 500.

As for gender, there are 95 women leaders on the Virginia 500, making up 19% of the list. Comparatively, 44 women CEOs head up Fortune 500 companies this year, comprising 8.79% of top U.S. business leadership. (That’s up from 41 women Fortune 500 CEOs in 2021.)

It also shouldn’t come as a surprise that economic power in the Old Dominion is mostly clustered within the so-called “golden crescent” of Northern Virginia (representing 39.6% of Virginia 500 leaders), Central Virginia (28.9%) and Hampton Roads (19%).

Additionally, Virginia is not immune to national trends. This year’s Virginia 500 edition had a 24.2% turnover rate from last year, featuring 121 new leaders. While some are executives we have chosen to add for various reasons (such as recognizing lifetime achievements in the living legends section), many newcomers to the list have succeeded now-retired baby boomer executives or leaders who left for other jobs in a C-suite version of the Great Resignation.

For those of us who haven’t ascended to the lofty heights of those represented here, there is an aspirational joy to reading about the career journeys of the leaders in these pages.

After all, there’s always next year.