Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Upcoming Event

Best Places to Work in Virginia

Hamburger Menu Hamburger Menu

byline: Robyn Sidersky

Alexandria’s QED Investors raises $925M for two new funds

Alexandria-based fintech venture capital firm QED Investors raised $925 million for two new funds, QED announced Tuesday.

The funding comes from two capital commitments: a $650 million oversubscribed early stage fund and a $275 million early growth stage fund, according to a news release from QED, a key investor in San Francisco-based personal finance company Credit Karma and Brazilian banking company Nubank. The funds will allow the firm to “continue to invest in disruptive fintech companies in the U.S., the U.K., Europe, Latin America, India, Southeast Asia and Africa,” according to the release.

“We are excited, fortunate and privileged to be a steward of our investors’ capital,” QED Investors Managing Partner and co-founder Nigel Morris said in a statement. “We don’t take that responsibility lightly, especially in this difficult market.

In September 2021, QED announced it had closed on a seventh oversubscribed fund with capital commitments of $1.05 billion. In 2020, the firm secured $350 million in funding.

Morris and Frank Rotman, both involved in starting Capital One Financial Corp., founded QED Investors in 2007. QED has  invested in more than 200 fintech companies, including 28 unicorn companies. With the two new funds, QED will have more than $4 billion under management, according to the firm.

SWVA ‘ideal’ for small nuclear reactors, study says

Sites in Dickenson, Lee, Scott and Wise counties and the city of Norton would be “ideal” for installing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), according to a state-funded feasibility study released Monday.

Examining the technical feasibility, safety considerations and economic viability of locating small reactors in Southwest Virginia, the study conducted by Reston-based Dominion Engineering Inc. deemed Southwest Virginia a “competitive hosting ground for SMRs.”

The region is “in a prime position to attract new industries with inexpensive brownfield sites, mine water for cooling, existing right of way to transmission infrastructure and existing rail infrastructure,” according to the $150,000 study, which was commissioned by the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission and funded by the Virginia Department of Energy and GO Virginia Region One. 

“The main takeaway,” said Dominion Engineering President Mike Little, “is that this community is extremely attractive for one of these facilities. It’s not just one … factor that makes it attractive. It’s broadly distributed across all of those categories. … There’s existing infrastructure here.”

The state-funded study bolsters Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s push for nuclear energy to be part of the state’s green energy framework, the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which was passed by the General Assembly in 2020. In October 2022, Youngkin announced a goal of bringing a small nuclear reactor to Southwest Virginia within 10 years — despite the fact that the only currently operational SMR is in Russia. The idea of nuclear energy being a bridge between fossil fuels and renewable solar and wind energy sources has support from both Republicans and Democrats.

Last fall, Youngkin proposed allocating $10 million to create the Virginia Power Innovation Fund, with $5 million going toward the development of an SMR, but the legislature isn’t completely on board. A bill to establish a small nuclear reactor pilot program failed in the General Assembly this session, but nuclear energy is still a hot topic among state energy stakeholders.

“The study affirms the governor’s initiative to deploy SMRs in Southwest Virginia and their advantage in the region,” Youngkin’s spokeswoman, Macaulay Porter, said this week. “As the governor has said, the Southwest has a talented, generational energy workforce, a best-in-class training pipeline through local colleges and community colleges, and a unique geography that makes it among the best locations for research and development of advanced nuclear technologies.”

The seven potential SMR sites identified by the study are: 

  • Bullitt Mine Complex, Wise County
  • Vacant limestone mine, Scott County
  • Abandoned mine land site, Lee County near Wise County border
  • Mineral Gap/Lonesome Pine Regional Business and Technology Park, Wise County
  • Project Intersection (188-acre surface coal mine site at U.S. 23 and U.S. Alt 58), Norton
  • Red Onion Industrial Park, Dickenson County
  • Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center power station, St. Paul

In a statement Monday, Virginia House Majority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, called the site and feasibility study “the next step in making Gov. Youngkin’s ‘moonshot’ goal of making Southwest Virginia the home of the nation’s first SMR within 10 years a reality.” 

The two major utilities providing power in Virginia — Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. and American Electric Power Inc. (AEP) — have expressed support for developing nuclear projects in the region, according to the study. In a plan released in January, Dominion stated that it “anticipates SMRs could be a feasible supply-side resource as soon as the 2030s.”

At least 70 commercial SMRs are in various stages of development worldwide, but only one in Russia is operational. In the United States, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved just one SMR design, from Oregon-based NuScale Power Corp., in summer 2022.

SMRs are designed to generate up to 300 megawatts per unit, about one-third of the capacity of conventional nuclear reactors, such as the North Anna and Surry power stations owned by Dominion Energy Inc. in Virginia, which power nearly 900,000 homes.

Supporters see SMRs as a solution to climate change because they don’t emit greenhouse gases, unlike gas- and coal-fueled power plants. And unlike wind or solar energy, nuclear reactors aren’t dependent on the elements and don’t require battery storage. However, critics say that large nuclear plants are too expensive to build and maintain, and it will take too long for SMRs to address climate change, as well as prompting safety concerns about radioactive waste and accidents.

A May 2022 study led by a Stanford University scientist published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that SMRs would likely create more nuclear waste — by a factor of up to 30 — than conventional reactors. However, a second study released in November 2022 by the Argonne and Idaho national labs said the amount of nuclear waste produced by SMRs would be about the same as waste produced by large light water reactors. 

Virginia’s study on the viability of Southwest Virginia as a future home for SMRs “gives us third-party validation that Southwest Virginia is in the running, based on the land attributes necessary for deployment of SMRs,” said Will Payne, managing partner of consulting firm Coalfield Strategies LLC and head of business development for InvestSWVA, a regional business attraction campaign that focuses on adapted reuses for abandoned mine land.

“Southwest Virginia has and always will be an energy community,” Payne said, “and we believe that our land position makes us more competitive than other energy communities around the country.”

The primary reason many Southwest Virginia stakeholders are keen on SMRs is the economic impact such a project could have on the region. With the decline of coal mining jobs in Appalachia, the Southwest region has lost good-paying jobs and seen its population numbers decrease as a result.  

“It’s fair to say deploying one SMR will absolutely transform this region’s economy because of the significant capital investment,” Payne said. 

A 300-megawatt SMR would be expected to require a capital expenditure of about $1 billion, creating 40 to 60 permanent jobs and hundreds of temporary construction jobs, according to the study, and would provide more than $100 million in new local tax revenue over about 20 years. However, the report also confirmed that it could take 10 years for the first SMR to be operational in the region.

“We are thrilled to have completed this study, which holds great promise for transforming the energy landscape not only in Southwest Virginia but throughout the commonwealth of Virginia,” LENOWISCO executive director Duane Miller said in a statement. “Small modular reactors have the potential to provide a source of safe, stable and sustainable energy, enabling transformational economic growth, improving quality of life and complementing the region’s existing energy generating portfolio.” 

SAIC announces CEO transition

Nazzic S. Keene, CEO of Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), will retire in October, the Reston-based Fortune 500 contractor announced Thursday. She will be succeeded by former Microsoft Corp. executive Toni Townes-Whitley, also formerly president of CGI Federal.

Townes-Whitley will become CEO-elect on June 12, taking the helm of a company exceeding $7 billion in annual revenue, with more than 26,000 employees. She will also replace Keene on SAIC’s board. Keene will remain CEO until Oct. 1, and then will stay on as a special adviser to Townes-Whitley and SAIC through Feb. 2, 2024.

Townes-Whitley, a 35-year global technology veteran, most recently served as president of U.S. Regulated Industries at Microsoft, where she led the company’s U.S. sales strategy to drive digital transformation within the public sector and regulated commercial industries. Before she joined Microsoft, she led CGI Federal and held management roles at Unisys Corp.

Townes-Whitley serves on boards including Nasdaq, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Thurgood Marshall Fund, Partnership for Public Service, and the Princeton University Faith & Work Initiative. She earned her bachelor’s degree in public policy and economics from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and certifications from Wharton Executive Education, New York University and the Performance Management Institute.

Nazzic Keene, SAIC’s CEO.

“We thank Nazzic for her tremendous contributions and dedication to SAIC, which resulted in greater opportunities for our employees, improved outcomes for our customers and increased value for our shareholders,” SAIC Board Chair Donna Morea said in a statement. “The board’s selection of her successor is the result of a thorough and thoughtful CEO succession planning process to identify the right leader to accelerate the momentum built over the four years of Nazzic’s leadership. Toni is an innovative and collaborative leader whose success in digital transformation and leading-edge technology integration makes her our clear choice to lead SAIC’s next chapter.”

Keene, who had previously been an executive at CGI Inc., joined SAIC in 2012 as senior vice president for corporate strategy and planning and became chief operating officer in 2017. She became CEO and was elected to SAIC’s board of directors in 2019. Keene serves on the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and is on ADP’s board of directors as well as Inova Health System’s board of trustees. She previously served on the boards of Wolf Trap and Capital Partners for Education, and she was an executive committee member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, National Capital Region.

During Keene’s tenure as CEO, SAIC acquired Unisys Federal for $1.2 billion in 2020, adding 2,000 employees to SAIC and bringing the company’s cloud migration and other services to the company. This April, SAIC won an $889 million defense contract to develop and implement an information technology solution for the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency’s system. And in May, SAIC closed the sale of its logistics and supply chain management business to ASRC Federal Holding Company LLC for $350 million.

“I have known, respected and admired Toni for years and am thrilled to welcome her to our SAIC family,” Keene said in a statement. “I am proud of all we have accomplished for our customers and colleagues during my tenure at SAIC, and I am excited to work alongside Toni in the coming months to ensure we don’t miss a beat in driving sustained growth and performance.”

SCHEV director to step down

Peter Blake, the long-time director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), will step down by the end of the year, SCHEV announced Thursday.

Blake has been director of SCHEV since 2012. The state higher education agency makes policy recommendations and approves new degree programs and schools within universities. During Blake’s tenure, SCHEV has produced two statewide strategic plans for higher education, as well as creating an internship program with the Virginia Chamber of Commerce Foundation and developing the Pathways to Opportunity Plan to increase access to higher education. According to Thursday’s announcement, Blake plans to take some time off before making any future plans.

“Few careers allow one to work on important issues with smart, capable and committed people on important issues,” Blake said in a statement. “Higher education does indeed change lives, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to help make Virginia one of the best states for education.”

Blake was previously a SCHEV research analyst and also served as the state’s secretary of education from 2005 to 2006. He was vice chancellor of the Virginia Community College System from 2006 to 2012. He is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business’ executive program.

“On behalf of the dozens of Virginians who have served on the council over the past 12 years, we are grateful to Peter for his leadership and for building a capable and dedicated staff to carry out the mission,” SCHEV Council Vice Chair Katharine Webb said in a statement. “Peter is admired across the state for being an honest broker in an enterprise with many stakeholders. As we go forward with a search for a new leader, each council member shares a common bond and commitment to the commonwealth’s excellent system of higher education.”

Ken Ampy, SCHEV Council chair and Astyra Corp. CEO, will establish a search committee, which will work in coordination with the state secretary of education’s office and others.

Carilion Clinic promotes COO Arner to president

Carilion Clinic has promoted its executive vice president and chief operating officer, Steve Arner, to president of the Roanoke-based nonprofit health system. He will remain COO while taking on new duties as president, Carilion said in its announcement Tuesday.

Nancy Howell Agee, who has served as CEO and president since 2011, will also continue as CEO.

In addition to serving as Carilion Clinic’s COO and executive vice president for the health care organization’s Roanoke operations since 2012, Arner has been president and CEO of the 703-bed Level 1 trauma center Carilion Medical Center since 2014. As president, Arner will oversee day-to-day management of the $2.4 billion health system’s seven hospitals and more than 240 medical offices.

He also played a significant role in the state’s COVID-19 response as chair of the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association from October 2020 through April 2022.

After joining Carilion in 2005, Arner held leadership roles in hospital administration, cardiac and vascular services, surgical services and facility management, and he also was president and CEO of Carilion Rockbridge Community Hospital. In 2003, Arner earned an MBA from Brigham Young University.

During his time with Carilion, Arner helped spearhead capital improvements, including the Crystal Spring Tower addition to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, which will be completed in 2025.

“Steve is an outstanding leader, and we are delighted to promote him,” Agee said in a statement. “He has a strong work ethic and cares deeply about our patients, our teams and our work together caring for the communities we serve.”

As VHHA chair, Arner coordinated the collective response of Virginia’s health care provider organizations to the pandemic, and he has served on the VHHA board since 2014 and its executive committee since 2015. Arner was also state delegate to the American Hospital Association Regional Policy Board from 2016 to 2021 and serves on the strategic planning committee for America’s Essential Hospitals.

“Carilion today is a nationally ranked academic health system that provides an extraordinary range of services, from primary care to the most advanced, complex care,” Arner said in a statement. “I look forward to continuing on a pathway of growth and collaboration.”

Markel to change name

Glen Allen Fortune 500 insurance and investment firm Markel Corp. will change its name to Markel Group Inc. on May 26, the firm announced Tuesday.

The change is to “provide greater definition around the nature of [the] holding company, which includes three engines of insurance, investments and a group of diverse businesses in Markel Ventures,” according to a news release.

The company will also launch a new website, mklgroup.com, but continue trading under the stock ticker symbol MKL on the New York Stock Exchange. There won’t be any significant structural or organizational impacts, executives said.

“Over the last 93 years, Markel has evolved from a regional transportation insurer to a global Fortune 500 family of companies and investments,” CEO Tom Gayner said in a statement. “Given the nature of this evolution, we have used the name Markel to refer both to our specialty insurance business and our holding company. This new name for our entire group of companies will help us create greater clarity as we continue to grow each of our three engines.”

Markel’s global specialty insurance business will continue as Markel, and its primary website will stay markel.com.

Sam Markel started the firm in 1930 to insure jitney buses. Over nearly a century, it has grown with various acquisitions and in 1986 became public, with a listing on the NASDAQ exchange. It was first listed on the Fortune 500 in 2016.

“We chose the name Markel Group because even though we have many different businesses powered by 20,000 people around the globe, we are all part of the same team and we share the values of the Markel style,” Gayner said. “Together, our three engines form a connected system that is uniquely equipped to help our customers, colleagues and shareholders win in the long term.”

Markel has about 20,300 employees and reported $11.67 billion in 2022 operating revenue, down from $12.84 billion in 2021. Its total 2022 assets were $49.79 billion.

Caesars Danville opens temporary casino

Virginia’s third casino opened its doors Monday in Danville to hundreds of guests lined up to take a look inside Caesars Virginia’s 40,000-square-foot temporary casino.

While the $650 million permanent resort, which is expected to open in late 2024, is being constructed next door, the temporary facility will offer guests eight sportsbook betting kiosks; 740 slot machines; 25 live table games, including blackjack, roulette and baccarat; 28 electronic table games of blackjack, roulette and craps; and a quick-service restaurant, Three Stacks. Resembling a large white tent on the outside, the temporary facility looks like other casinos inside, with flashing lights and seemingly endless rows of gaming machines.

At Monday’s opening ceremony, Caesars officials said that when they learned it would take longer than planned to open the permanent casino, they started making plans to open the temporary one at the former Dan River Inc. Schoolfield mill site where the permanent casino is also being built.

Barron Fuller, regional president with Caesars Entertainment, said they’ve been talking about opening a casino for five years and said getting the temporary casino open was “easier said than done, but great people came together less than a year ago.”

In August 2022, Caesars announced a partnership with the Eastern Band Cherokee Indians on the project and upped the project’s budget from $400 to $650 million.

“It’s great day for Eastern Band, a great day for Danville,” said EBCI Chairman Richard French. “We’re trying to do everything to help build [Danville] better,” he said. “It’s the citizens of the towns that make the town, it’s not the buildings, it’s the people and we just want to thank you all for taking a chance and giving us an opportunity to help you grow and have this casino here.”

Del. Danny Marshall, R-Danville, talked about the referendum approved by Danville voters in November 2020. “Monday, May 15, 2023, is going to be one of those dates that will be remembered as a turning point in [Danville’s] history,” he said.

The temporary casino will have 400 employees, about a quarter who are table games dealers.

Caesars Virginia received the green light to operate on April 26, when the Virginia Lottery Board approved its license.

The permanent casino is expected to have 500 hotel rooms, a spa, a pool, bars, a 2,500-person entertainment venue and 40,000 square feet of meeting and convention space. It will also feature at least 1,300 slots, 85 live game tables, 24 electronic table games, a poker room and sportsbook.

Virginia’s first casino, the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol, opened in July 2022 in a temporary space at the former Bristol Mall after receiving licensing approval less than 90 days earlier. In December 2022, developers began construction nearby on the $400 million permanent Hard Rock casino, which is slated to open in July 2024. The $340 million Rivers Casino Portsmouth, which received its license in November 2022, opened its permanent space in January.

Two execs take on new roles at Harvey Lindsay

Harvey Lindsay Commercial Real Estate President Robert M. King will add chairman of the board to his responsibilities, and Robert M. Beasley Jr. is now executive vice president for brokerage services, the Norfolk real estate firm announced Monday.

King is taking over the role from Harvey Lindsay Jr., who died on April 19. He has been president since December 2019.

Beasley

Beasley will lead the company’s sales and leasing team. He succeeds Craig Cope, who is leaving the company on June 30.

“We thank Craig Cope for his contributions to the company, and we wish him well in his new endeavors,” Beasley said in a statement. “Bob and I are very excited about our new leadership roles at HLCRE, and we are dedicated to honoring the memory of Harvey by continuing to grow the company based on the integrity and values he instilled in us.”

Beasley has been with the firm for more than 36 years and was previously senior vice president for industrial leasing and sales. In his new role, he will oversee all incoming producing divisions, including sales and leasing, property management, asset management and new business initiatives.

Boeing reaches $40B deal with Ryanair

Irish air carrier Ryanair plans to order as many as 300 Boeing 737 MAX-10 aircraft from Arlington County-based Fortune 100 contractor Boeing Co. in a $40 billion deal, the two companies announced Tuesday.

Subject to approval by Ryanair’s stockholders, the deal includes a firm order from the airline for 150 aircraft and an option for another 150 aircraft, with delivery to start in 2027 and continue through 2033, said Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary. Each jet will have 228 seats — about 40 seats more than Ryanair’s previous fleet.

About 150 of the 737 MAX-10 jets will replace older jets in Ryanair’s fleet. The jets are expected to grow Ryanair’s passengers from 168 million passengers annually to more than 300 million annually by 2034, creating 10,000 jobs for pilots, cabin, crew and engineers across Europe in the next decade.

O’Leary said the aircraft use fuel efficient, greener technology, offer 21% more seats, burn 20% less fuel and are 50% quieter than older jets in its fleet.

The low-cost airline plans to use the new fleet to lower airfares in Europe over the next decade, he added, saying that Ryanair follows the model of Southwest Airlines, also a Boeing customer. 

“The Boeing-Ryanair partnership is one of the most productive in commercial aviation history, enabling both companies to succeed and expand affordable travel to hundreds of millions of people,” Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said in a statement. “Nearly a quarter century after our companies signed our first direct airplane purchase, this landmark deal will further strengthen our partnership. We are committed to delivering for Ryanair and helping the airline group achieve its goals.”

Boeing has received a number of large orders recently, many from the Pentagon.

In April, Boeing received a $313.4 million contract modification to upgrade and extend the service life of 25 Navy Super Hornet fighter jets, the Pentagon announced. In March, Boeing announced it would build 184 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters for the U.S. Army and international customers under a $1.9 billion contract modification announced by the Pentagon. In January, Boeing said it would help the Air Force expand its fleet of KC-46A Pegasus tanker aircraft under a $2.25 billion contract modification announced by the Pentagon.

Last November, Boeing announced a series of leadership changes and a reorganization to consolidate its eight divisions within its Boeing Defense, Space and Security unit into four as the company aimed to accelerate its operational discipline, quality and performance. That followed a report in October 2022 from Reuters that the company’s defense unit appointed a new chief operating officer to shore up money-losing defense programs as it dealt with delays and cost overruns on fixed-price contracts. 

On the commercial airline front, Boeing has faced problems with its 737 Max, 787 Dreamliner and 767 jets in recent years. In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing paused delivery of some of its 737 Max jets because parts were installed wrong. That followed a halt in January of delivery of its troubled 787 Dreamliner over documentation issues. The program had previously been halted by U.S. regulators for nearly two years prior after problems surfaced with the aircraft, and the Federal Aviation Administration launched a review of its production in 2020, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Boeing is the world’s third largest defense contractor. In May 2022, the company moved its headquarters from Chicago to Arlington County. A month after announcing the move, the company and Virginia Tech announced a partnership to open the Boeing Center for Veteran Transition and Military Families at the university’s $1 billion Innovation Campus in Alexandria, which is expected to open in 2024.  Support for the center comes from a record $50 million donation the company made to Tech in 2021 to support diversity at the graduate campus.

Tree-trimming companies merge, announce new leaders

Two national tree-trimming and vegetation management companies have merged and announced new leadership.

The merger of Norfolk-based Xylem Tree Experts with Lawrenceville, Georgia-based Kendall Vegetation Services was backed by Connecticut-based private equity firm Sterling Investment Partners.  The new company will have dual headquarters in Norfolk and just outside Atlanta. Its services will continue to include professional arboriculture services, including commercial tree trimming, vegetation management, right-of-way clearances for power lines, and hazardous tree removals.

Xylem Tree Experts co-founder Randolph Hoover will take the helm as CEO of the combined holding company on July 1, after serving as co-CEO alongside Robert Williams, who will retire on June 30. Williams joined Kendall Vegetation Services in 1988 and served as president and CEO, helping the business expand across the Southeast and Midwest. He will continue to serve on the board of directors as a strategic adviser.

Benjamin Hoover, Randolph Hoover’s brother, will take on the position of president of the combined company and president of Xylem Tree Experts. Kurt Goodman will serve as chief financial officer of the combined company and president of Kendall Vegetation Services. Scott Konikoff will serve as chief legal officer of the combined company.

“I am honored to be a part of the leadership team that has been developed to operate two national brands under one umbrella,” Randolph Hoover said in a statement. “Our partnership with Sterling Investment Partners to bring these two great companies together has allowed us to establish a company that covers approximately half of the U.S. today with nearly 3,000 dedicated employees. I personally could not be prouder of the business that we have created and look forward to a bright future — our best days are still to come.”

The company has 314 employees in Virginia, with 78 working out of the Norfolk administrative office, which includes the Wakefield fleet and logistics facility, and another 236 in field operations working with utility providers, maintaining right-of-way line clearance and storm response.