HII taps former DOD chief of staff as EVP

Eric Chewning, who was chief of staff for two acting defense secretaries in the Trump White House, became Newport News-based Fortune 500 shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc.’s executive vice president of strategy and development on Monday.

Chewning will guide corporate strategy and identify opportunities for growth, cross-division collaboration and potential investment. He reports directly to HII President and CEO Chris Kastner.

“HII is an exceptional defense partner, with a storied 135-year history of providing essential capabilities for America’s and allied warfighters. … I am honored and excited to join this driven and committed leadership team,” Chewning said in a statement.

Chewning was most recently the Americas co-lead for McKinsey & Co.’s aerospace and defense practices. From 2017 to 2019, he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial policy, and from 2019 to 2020, he was chief of staff for Mark Esper and Patrick Shanahan, who were acting defense secretaries.

Chewning enlisted in the Army after 9/11 and is a former military intelligence officer and an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran. Before enlisting, Chewning was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, where he focused on corporate finance and global industrial sector mergers and acquisitions.

He has an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, as well as a master’s degree in international relations and a bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Chicago. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

HII is the country’s largest military shipbuilder, and its Newport News Shipbuilding division is the nation’s only manufacturer of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. The company has 43,000 employees and posted $10.54 billion in annual revenue for fiscal 2022.