BWXT promotes chief strategy officer to CFO

Robb A. LeMasters will be promoted to senior vice president and chief financial officer of Lynchburg-based nuclear components and fuel supplier BWX Technologies Inc. (BWXT) on Nov. 15.

“We are extremely fortunate to have someone internal to BWXT who is fully prepared to assume the role of CFO,” BWXT President and CEO Rex Geveden said in a statement. “Robb’s extensive background and capabilities have been integral to our revitalized strategy for future growth and our renewed focus on investor relations.”

LeMasters is currently BWXT’s senior vice president and chief strategy officer. From 2015 to 2020, he served as a member of the company’s board of directors and its audit and finance committee, and from 2017 to 2020, on its compensation committee as well. Before joining BWXT, LeMasters was a managing director at Blue Harbour Group, which was an investment firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a founding partner of London-based investment manager Theleme Partners LLP. Prior to that, he was a partner at London-based The Children’s Investment Fund Management LLP and a vice president in the Event-Driven/Relative Value Fund at New York City-based Highbridge Capital Management LLC. He had previously been a private equity analyst with Forstmann Little & Co., which was a New York City-based private equity firm, and he began his career as an analyst at Morgan Stanley in the mergers and acquisitions group.

LeMasters holds a bachelor’s degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

LeMasters will succeed David S. Black, who was with BWXT for 30 years. He became the company’s senior vice president and CFO in 2015. Black will remain with BWXT through April 1, 2022, working as a special adviser to Geveden.

“Congratulations to David on his extraordinary career with BWXT,” Geveden said in a statement. “He has been a tremendous asset to this company. In that vein, I am very grateful that David has agreed to stay aboard until April next year to assist with our CFO transition process.”

Fortune 1000 company BWXT provides nuclear solutions for security, clean energy, environmental remediation and others. BWXT has about 6,700 employees and 12 major sites in the U.S and Canada.