VICTOR CARDWELL
Hall of Fame member A former University of Virginia defensive back and high school athlete from Lynchburg, Cardwell has built a career in labor law. After graduating from Washington & Lee University School of Law, he worked at the Department of Labor’s Benefits Review Board before joining Woods Rogers, the Roanoke-based law firm (now Woods […]
WARREN THOMPSON
Hall of Fame member A Hampden-Sydney College and University of Virginia Darden School of Business alum who grew up in the town of Windsor in Isle of Wight County, Thompson started his company in 1992 after purchasing 31 Big Boy restaurants from Marriott Corp., his former employer. Today, Thompson Hospitality is the nation’s largest minority-owned […]
SHARON SMOOT
Smoot is a unicorn — a Black woman overseeing 4,700 employees in the highly technical field of manufacturing components for nuclear reactors. Named last summer as head of the Lynchburg-based federal contractor’s nuclear division, Smoot spent 30 years as a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy, ultimately serving as executive director for logistics, maintenance and […]
THOMAS HASTY
Although Virginia has had notable Black banking leaders — including Maggie Walker at the start of the 20th century — it’s still a business that has not had a lot of African American representation in the C-suite. In 1999, after working for BB&T, Hasty took control of his fate and became a co-founder of Suffolk-based […]
KEN AMPY
Growing up in rural Dinwiddie County, Ampy saw firsthand the power of community. After studying computer science at Old Dominion University, he built a career as a programmer analyst and developer for Dominion Virginia Power and Capital One Financial Corp. before launching staffing and consulting firm Astyra Corp. in 1997 in Richmond. Throughout, Ampy has […]
KEVIN M. WIDEMAN
In just over four years, Wideman has quintupled the annual revenues of his Fairfax County-based government contracting agency from $100 million to $500 million, expanding its workforce from 130 to more than 2,100 employees, and landing it multiple times on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing U.S. private companies. A Temple University electrical engineering […]
‘Just when I thought I was out’
Virginia Business’ 2022 Virginia CFO of the Year award winners represent large and small businesses and large and small nonprofits. Large nonprofit | Hossein Sadid, CFO and deputy director for finance and administration Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond After a couple of failed attempts, Hossein Sadid finally retired at the end of June from […]
Broadened horizons
Virginia Business’ 2022 Virginia CFO of the Year award winners represent large and small businesses and large and small nonprofits. Large business | Sal Mancuso, executive vice president and CFO Altria Group Inc., Henrico County A first-generation college graduate whose father immigrated to this country from Sicily, Italy, as a teenager, Sal Mancuso believes it’s […]
‘A seat at the table’
Virginia Business’ 2022 Virginia CFO of the Year award winners represent large and small businesses and large and small nonprofits. Small business | Cynthia Macturk, CFO Fahrenheit Advisors, Richmond When Cynthia Macturk wants to consult with professional peers, she doesn’t have to go far. “Here, I have an entire in-house network of wonderful CFOs,” says […]
Out and about
Virginia Business held its 17th annual Virginia CFO Awards banquet at The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond on June 16. Sponsored by Truist and Brown Edwards, the event honored 51 CFOs from around the commonwealth, nominated in four award categories, representing a variety of for-profit businesses, nonprofits and government agencies. (See Pages 59-64 for the full […]
EY names eight Virginians mid-Atlantic entrepreneurs of year
Eight leaders from six Virginia businesses have been named winners of Ernst & Young LLP’s Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2022. The winners, named in early July by the Big Four multinational professional services company, include: 10Pearls | Imran Aftab, co-founder and CEO, Vienna Aireon LLC | Don Thoma, founder and CEO, McLean ID.me […]
Taking the reins
To quote the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. … It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.” In Year Two of our Virginia Business Women in Leadership Awards, we received more than 300 nominations — exceeding last year’s nominations by more than […]