Sign In
Free Newsletter
13th annual Best Places to Work
This is the 13th year that Virginia Business has compiled the Best Places to Work in Virginia list in collaboration with Pennsylvania-based Best Companies Group. More than 200 companies applied for inclusion in the 2023 Best Places to Work in Virginia cohort. A hundred companies were chosen, divided into three categories: small (15-99 U.S. employees); […]
RICHMOND VINCENT JR.
“Being a CEO is attainable,” Vincent says. “You just have to have the confidence of knowing that you can do it.” That can-do attitude has taken Vincent steadily up the ranks at Goodwill Industries International chapters from Arizona to Mississippi to Virginia, where last spring he assumed the stewardship of a Goodwill serving 35 counties […]
VICTOR BRANCH
Hall of Fame member The first African American president of Bank of America’s Richmond region oversees almost 2,000 employees at 25 locations, but Branch began his career as a sociology major, earning his bachelor’s degree in the subject from William & Mary. He credits Mary DePillars, a longtime executive at regional banks (and wife of […]
FLOYD E. MILLER II
Before taking over the leadership of Metropolitan Business League, a nonprofit association that supports small, women- and minority-owned businesses in Richmond, Miller worked in human services, education and criminal justice and spent 17 years as director of urban programs for Special Olympics Virginia. Those seemingly diverse jobs shared one commonality: They all gave him the […]
AISHA BOWE
The daughter of a Bahamian immigrant who worked as a taxi driver in Michigan, Bowe was told by a high school counselor to become a cosmetologist. She decided instead to listen to her father’s advice and took a math class at a local community college. Somewhat to her surprise, she excelled and earned degrees in […]
CATHY T. WILLIAMS
In her two decades at the U.S. subsidiary of British heating and cooling supply distributor Ferguson plc, Williams has made the economic inclusion of women and minorities her mission. “I’m most proud of knowing I had a hand in their success,” she says of those that she has brought into the Ferguson fold of about […]
JOSEPH D. WILKINS
In Halifax County, where Wilkins grew up, people took care of one another, he says. That compassionate culture, plus seeing his father go through rehab after a car accident, inspired him to become a physical therapist. But Wilkins wanted to do more to help people be well and safe, so he went back to school […]
MARCIA CONSTON
Conston saw early on the value that education has for marginalized communities. She knew her goal was “to become someone to effect change in the lives of young people. And I knew that education would be the path to do that.” Conston began her career as a college administrator at her alma mater, Mississippi’s Jackson […]
ANGELA D. REDDIX
Getting ARDX up and running was not a 9-to-5 job. “It took saying ‘yes’ when others said ‘no,’” says Reddix, who founded her health care management and IT consulting firm in 2006. Her years of heavy lifting paid off, and ARDX has won more than $200 million in government contracts and is planning a $2.4 […]
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 […]
