byline: M.J. McAteer

Some job applicants might have been intimidated by the opportunity to integrate three information systems into one due to a massive merger of Perspecta Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp.’s federal IT and mission support services and Peraton, a national security contractor.

Not Rebecca McHale.

Helping Peraton, which is set to move to Reston in September, undergo a significant transformation motivated McHale to accept her job as Peraton’s chief information officer in July 2021, after working as CIO for Fortune 500 global management consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.

Under her leadership, her team at Peraton successfully brought together 18,000 employees under one virtual roof.

“What was exciting to me was the opportunity to not just work for an organization that had an important mission I’m passionate about, but that we were really building something,” she says.

McHale attributes much of her professional success to a strong work ethic and mentorship partnerships. “I get as much out of mentor relationships — if not more — than they do,” McHale says. “It fills my tank.”

McHale advises her mentees to focus on providing value to an organization rather than seeking out a dream job title. She hopes to instill confidence in the next generation of leaders that’s void of doubt.

“The biggest obstacle working as a female in the C-suite is often myself and a tendency to second guess the value of my contributions,” McHale says. “I continually remind myself that, while my experiences and perspective are unique, they are also what allowed me to be part of the conversation in the first place.”

“I decided at age 10 that I was going to cure arthritis because my mother had it,” says Barbara Boyan, and, in the decades since then, Boyan has never really wavered in her search for treatments.

Although Boyan holds a doctorate in biology, she early on saw the value of mastering engineering concepts so that she could devise products that could make a difference in people’s lives. “Business makes ideas real,” she says. Her research led her to co-found multiple companies, and she is the holder of more than 24 patents.

About a decade ago, after a stint at Georgia Tech, Boyan became dean of Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Engineering. “No sane person would turn down the offer from VCU to build a school,” she observes. Although her executive duties did not allow time to teach classes, she still mentored more than 30 VCU doctoral and 50 master’s degree students. “Seeing their success was the favorite part of my job,” she says.

Boyan has never had time for hobbies, but she and her husband have helped raise several children and grandchildren, and a cohort of chihuahuas occupy their Richmond home.

Even at age 73, she isn’t done with scientific inquiry, and, on July 1, she became executive director of VCU’s Institute for Engineering and Medicine. Boyan has only one regret about her outstanding career — not finding a cure for arthritis. But she hasn’t given up.

Janet Gullickson initially didn’t think much about the importance of being named the first woman president of Germanna Community College in 2017, after having worked in higher education in Colorado, Minnesota and Washington state.

“I just thought, ‘Well, women should be in these positions,’” she says. “It shouldn’t be a big deal, but I guess it is.”

However, as a greater premium is placed on diverse leadership, Gullickson is glad to see more representation in institutions that have been historically led by white men.

Following the May 2020 murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd — which ignited activism around the nation — Germanna created a website called Black Minds Matter to connect students to resources and counseling. The college also began development on its Truth and Reconciliation Strategic Plan. “We really have made an effort in racial equity,” Gullickson says.

During her tenure, she also has helped develop partnerships with other institutions such as the University of Virginia, which waives application fees for Germanna transfer students seeking early admission. As of late May, Germanna was finalizing a similar partnership with George Mason University.

More recently, Gullickson has been involved in developing work-based learning programs for students to gain hands-on experience through paid internships. “We plan to have that rolled out for all of our students within the next year,” she says.

When Lori Garrett was studying architecture at the University of Virginia in the 1980s, she recalls, there wasn’t a women’s restroom near her classrooms.

“That changed shortly after I graduated,” Garrett says. “But clearly, in the ’80s, it was very male-dominated.”

Garrett went on to oversee the design of buildings at colleges and universities across Virginia at Richmond-based architecture firm Glavé & Holmes, where she was the manager of the 57-year-old firm’s Higher Education Studio before being named president in January.

“Instead of nurturing my specific people in the higher education studio, [my duties are] now spread a little bit more across the firm and specifically to our leaders on the leadership team,” she explains.

About a decade ago, Garrett formed a committee for staff to strategize how to achieve work-life balance and support each other in the process — an initiative she says was “born from my own struggles.”

She reflects on how “everyone has different seasons in their life,” but balancing parenthood with work can be a challenge, especially for working women. Building confidence, balance and empathy have been outcomes of the group, Garrett says.

“And ultimately that’s going to make for not only a more fulfilled individual, but somebody who can actually work better to innovate more [and] can empathize more.”

Virginia529 helps families in the commonwealth afford higher education for children by participating in long-term, tax-advantaged saving programs. And as chief operations officer of the independent state agency, Carolyn Bishop helps oversee its $60 billion in assets distributed across more than 2.5 million accounts.

The job is about much more than just managing money, though. Bishop also manages human resources for all areas of the agency’s operations, including finance, IT and administration. “The best advice I ever got was to lead people first,” says Bishop, who adamantly supports the right of the 85 people on staff at Virginia529 to have “a holistic balance of life and work.”

She counts herself fortunate to work with strong women leaders at Virginia529. They not only know their stuff, she says, but they are warm and caring. Bishop has paid their helpful approach forward by creating a leadership academy and a mentorship program within the agency to help its employees rise to their potential. “Mentoring is my favorite thing,” she says.

A former administrator for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and Powhatan County, Bishop has spent her entire career in public finance. As a woman, she sometimes felt like a bit of an outlier. But she adopted the philosophy of believing in herself and in “the potential to lead from where you are. Leadership,” she says, “has been the foundation of everything I’ve wanted
to do in life.”

From her local government service to building statewide networks of people and organizations, Susan Horne knows how to connect people.

Horne has been involved in Lead Virginia since its inception — first as a member of its steering committee and as a board member and then as a member of its second class in 2006. In 2007, she became the statewide leadership development organization’s president and CEO.

“A group of us around the commonwealth recognized that leaders across Virginia had little understanding of their shared interests and common challenges,” Horne says. “A nonpartisan approach to building a diverse yet cohesive network of leaders with shared perspectives could offer a 360-degree perspective of the challenges facing Virginia and uncover opportunities to uplift every region.”

The nonprofit connects leaders around Virginia to learn with and from each other about challenges and solutions facing the commonwealth’s different regions. Alumni include leaders in various industries around Virginia, including Helios HR CEO Kathy Albarado, Faneuil Inc. President and CEO Anna Van Buren and Kevin Allison, Virginia Commonwealth University’s associate vice president for strategy and development.

Horne’s work with Lead Virginia builds on her past experience as a member of the Leesburg Town Council and her time as president of Leadership Fairfax, a regional program similar to Lead Virginia. She enjoys having played roles in helping to connect people, but ultimately, it’s her role as a mother that makes her most proud.

“My absolute proudest accomplishment is raising two accomplished and wonderful young women,” she says.

In 2011, Amy McDaniel Williams learned she had breast cancer. The hard-driving finance lawyer realized she needed to slow down and take care of herself.

“The diagnosis made me realize that every day is a gift,” she says.

In 2015, she created a supportive fitness community for cancer survivors, launching Amy’s Army of Cancer Warriors, which organizes cycling events to fundraise for cancer research at VCU Massey Cancer Center, which helped her during her own battle.

While Williams says she wasn’t a natural athlete while growing up, she started competing in marathons and triathlons in her 40s.

“I am an endurance athlete, one of the slowest out there, and when I finish a race, invariably someone shouts, ‘You are still smiling!’” she says. “I have an uncanny ability to find happiness no matter what.”

At work, Williams, who has been a partner at Hunton Andrews Kurth since 1999, represents borrowers and lenders with structuring and closing transactions involving a variety of assets, including residential loans. She is primarily focused on the secondary market for mortgage loans and assists mortgage companies with the process of selling, bundling and securitizing loans.

“I am passionate about helping make mortgages for homeownership more affordable,” Williams says. “I feel very lucky that I truly love my work and my clients.”

Tracy Fitzsimmons thinks regionally. Through her involvement on GO Virginia’s Region 8 council, secretary of Loudoun Education Foundation and vice chair on the board of Shenandoah Telecommunications Co. (aka Shentel), she has connections throughout the Shenandoah Valley and into Northern Virginia.

She also focuses on regional connections in her role as the first woman president of Shenandoah University since its 1875 founding.

Fitzsimmons began as the dean of the private university’s College of Arts and Sciences in 2001, was named vice president of academic affairs in 2002, and became the university’s senior vice president in 2006, before her 2008 appointment as president.

“It’s pretty unusual in higher ed to have more than two roles at one institution,” she says. “I feel really lucky that Shenandoah has a different approach.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Fitzsimmons worked to retool operations so that the university was able to reopen its campus for the fall 2020 semester.

Shenandoah expanded student housing to accommodate social distancing, adopted hybrid classes of virtual and in-person learning based on students’ needs, and regularly tested students, faculty and staff for COVID. When vaccines became available, Shenandoah University hosted a mass vaccine site in its athletics center.

Fitzsimmons called the experience “one of the most fulfilling things I have been a part of.”