100 People to Meet in 2024: Rainmakers

These are the professionals who attract and grow businesses and funding, making the commonwealth wealthier.

Deseria Creighton-Barney

Fundraising campaign tri-chair, Virginia Tech
Chesterfield County

A 1986 communications graduate of Virginia Tech, Deseria Creighton-Barney aims to push 100,000 of her fellow Hokie alums into action to reach the university’s expanded 2023 fundraising goal of $1.872 billion, a nod to Tech’s 1872 founding. In some ways, Creighton-Barney never left Tech, where she serves on the Alumni Advisory Board of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and previously served on the Virginia Tech Foundation board of directors. The HR professional, who is starting her own consulting firm, is a past president of Tech’s Alumni Board of Directors, the first Black woman to hold that position. She’s also active in the 110-year-old Delta Sigma Theta sorority and public service organization.

Katie Cristol

CEO, Tysons Community Alliance
McLean

Starting in the 1960s, Tysons embarked on a development boom that took it from a rural crossroads into an edge city with office parks, corporate headquarters, malls, hotels, apartment buildings and Metro stations. Today, Katie Cristol leads an organization that is sparking the community’s rebirth as a new urban center. Cristol stepped down from the Arlington County Board of Supervisors this year to become the first permanent CEO of the Tysons Community Alliance, the nonprofit advocacy group that replaced the Tysons Partnership last year. Cristol has a passion for the way transportation connects everyone in the region and impacts housing and economic development. “It can really power dramatic opportunities for the residents of the region,” she says.

Dana Cronkhite

Economic development director, Dickenson County
Clintwood

In August 2022, Dana Cronkhite became Dickenson County’s economic development director, a newly created role. A county native, Cronkhite returned home with her daughter and husband after he retired from the Marine Corps. Her background in social work translates to economic development, she says: “Both … are about relationships and being able to advocate for what you need.”

The numerous development projects underway in the Southwest Virginia county include Kentucky-based Addiction Recovery Care’s first facility in Virginia, which is expected to open in the first quarter of 2024, depending on licensing and certifications. The 112-bed men’s addiction treatment facility will provide workforce training, which could be customized for an employer in the Red Onion industrial site being built across the road.

Tracy Sayegh Gabriel

President and executive director, National Landing Business Improvement District
Arlington County

Downtown Arlington has undergone significant transformation in the past five years, largely driven by Amazon.com’s HQ2 and substantial investments in residential and commercial development, parks and transportation. Helping to lead the change has been a “dream role,” Tracy Sayegh Gabriel says.

While HQ2 has opened two 22-story office towers, Gabriel says there’s still a need for balanced development of office and residential space, as well as the growth of local businesses.

The business improvement district puts on 200 events a year and plans to launch a National Landing Foundation to support the district’s evolving needs. “We see ourselves as the stewards for managing the incredible transformation underway,” she says. “It’s a unique opportunity because we are the fastest-growing area in the D.C. region.”

Sarah Jane Kirkland

Associate vice president for corporate partnerships, Old Dominion University
Norfolk

Sarah Jane Kirkland started as a ballerina in her native United Kingdom but soon left her hometown of Startford-upon-Avon, Shakepeare’s birthplace, to work on cruise ships. That’s where she met her husband, Stephen, who convinced her to move to Norfolk with him when they decided it was time to drop anchor. She worked on and off for the nonprofit Civic Leadership Institute and Carnival Cruise Line for several years, and in March started in a newly created position at ODU. There, she focuses on forming relationships with senior executives at corporations and nonprofits to develop partnership opportunities, such as internships, corporate research and development grants, and workforce development initiatives.

Kevin Leslie

Associate vice president for innovation and commercialization, Old Dominion University
Norfolk

Kevin Leslie has worked at various educational institutions in Virginia, specializing in health care technology, and has witnessed the growth of biomedical research in the state. In January he was named ODU’s first associate vice president for innovation and commercialization, and will assist students, staff and faculty with turning their innovative ideas and inventions into commercial products. “If you have a scientist who does something interesting in a lab, but maybe that could eventually be a product or a drug or device, we help them navigate the entire process of going from idea and protecting it to then shepherding it all the way out and helping to commercialize that,” he explains. Leslie previously was executive director of Hampton Roads Biomedical Research Consortium, a partnership among Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk State University, Sentara Health and ODU.

Duane Miller

Executive director, LENOWISCO Planning District
Duffield

In his senior year at what was then Clinch Valley College and now the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, Duane Miller interned with the LENOWISCO Planning District, where he’s now worked for almost 30 years. Originally from Fredericksburg, Miller fell in love with Southwest Virginia.

Infrastructure development is a priority for the district, which had over $30 million in active water and sewer projects in its region (Lee, Wise and Scott counties and Norton) in October, Miller says. In August, LENOWISCO partner Scott County Telephone Cooperative won a $25 million federal grant to help expand broadband districtwide.

One of the planning district’s many current projects is a study on the jobs impact of a small nuclear modular reactor, which Gov. Glenn Youngkin is bullish on building in Southwest. Miller estimates the report will be finished in early 2024.

Check out the other 100 People to Meet in 2024.