byline: Virginia Business

Construction is progressing on The Lake, a 105-acre mixed-use development in Chesterfield County, which Hart hopes will help attract more businesses to the area. It will have a 13-acre artificial lake and a 6-acre surf park, one of a handful of such facilities nationwide that can generate waves large enough to surf.

Hart also has said the project could bring more hotels, restaurants, and shopping options for visitors coming to the nearby River City Sportsplex for events. The county has garnered attention in recent years for big deals, such as the $1 billion Lego Group manufacturing facility under construction in its Meadowville Technology Park. Chesterfield also was a finalist for a $20 billion Intel semiconductor facility that ultimately went to Ohio.

Hart has more than four decades of experience in economic development and currently serves as the treasurer for the Virginia Economic Developers Association’s board of directors.

A graduate of Virginia Tech, Hart is also an alum of the Lead Virginia program, a statewide leadership development program.

THREE WORDS TO DESCRIBE ME: A problem solver

HOW I FEEL ABOUT AI: It is the next business revolution.

H7 Holdings is a private family investment company that owns and manages Keswick Hall and Golf Club in Albemarle County and the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. Level One Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in the health care and life sciences sectors. The couple also runs the H7 Foundation, supporting educational and nonprofit endeavors, and have donated millions to the University of Virginia, including a $7 million gift in 2019.

Robert Hardie has deep ties to U.Va., where he was appointed to the board of visitors in 2008, 2017 and 2021, becoming rector in 2023. He earned his undergraduate degree, MBA and doctorate from U.Va. He served as an adjunct professor at its Darden School of Business and co-authored two business management books.

Molly Hardie oversaw Keswick Hall’s renovation and expansion and The Hermitage Hotel’s renovations. H7 assumed ownership of Keswick Hall in 2017 from The Riverstone Group, the company owned by her father, Richmond philanthropist Bill Goodwin. A graduate of Dartmouth College and U.Va.’s medical school, she is vice chair of the board of trustees of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello.

If there’s one company making a big bet on bitcoin, it’s MicroStrategy. As of July 10, MicroStrategy owned more than $13 billion worth of the cryptocurrency after acquiring an additional $1 billion in bitcoin over the previous year.

Le took the lead at MicroStrategy in August 2022 after Michael Saylor, the company’s high-profile founder and former CEO, stepped back to focus on bitcoin; Saylor remains the independently owned company’s executive chairman. Saylor led MicroStrategy to become the world’s largest corporate bitcoin owner, but he stepped down
as CEO in August 2022 after the company’s stake in the volatile cryptocurrency dropped $1.98 billion in value.

Le joined MicroStrategy in 2015 and previously served as its chief financial officer, chief operating officer and in other executive posts. Le is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He previously served as CFO for XO Communications, held senior positions at telecommunications company NII Holdings and spent 12 years at Deloitte.

Armstrong is only the second president and CEO of the Community Foundation for a greater Richmond, established in 1968. She has held that position since 2015 after 26 years of leadership roles with United Way at local and national levels, including working as executive vice president of investor relations at United Way Worldwide and serving as CEO for the United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg for 11 years.

The foundation is committed to accelerating regional prosperity for the Richmond region, addressing community needs and supporting local nonprofits. It manages about 1,300 charitable funds with assets of some $800 million. In 2023, the foundation distributed a record $6 million to 150 organizations through its Community Impact grants program, helping individuals and families build a path to economic mobility.

Armstrong serves on the executive committee of Chamber RVA and on the boards of directors of Venture Richmond and the United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg. She has a bachelor’s degree in public relations from West Virginia University.

After joining Monday Properties in 2005, Helmig has led the company to capital investments of more than $16 billion, an expanded multifamily portfolio of 6,500 units, and execution of transactions totaling more than 36 million square feet.

A developer and investor of multifamily housing, Monday Properties has expanded its footprint into high-growth markets along the East Coast, from the greater New York City metro area into the Southeast. Monday Properties owns Nestlé’s U.S. headquarters in Arlington, as well as residential and commercial buildings.

Anthony Westreich, Helmig’s brother-in-law, founded Monday Properties and acquired a 2.5 million-square-foot Rosslyn portfolio of buildings in 2007, two years after Westreich’s father, the late Stanley Westreich, sold them to Beacon Capital Partners for $960 million.

Before joining Monday Properties, Helmig was a partner at Westfield Realty, co-founded by Stanley Westreich, where he oversaw approximately $5 billion in transactions. Helmig, a graduate of American University, is vice chairman of the Rosslyn Business Improvement District board.

Rowe became president of the nation’s second-oldest university in 2018, after serving as provost and dean of faculty at Smith College. She has shepherded the creation of William & Mary’s first sustainability plan, an entrepreneurship hub and the college’s strategic plan, Vision 2026.

In October 2023, William & Mary and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation formed a leadership development institute, the Williamsburg Institute, chaired by Carly Fiorina.

The college announced hefty donations this year, including $30 million from an anonymous alumna to renovate and rename a building for former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates (currently the university’s chancellor) and $100 million from Jane Batten to establish the Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences.

Rowe holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University, completed graduate work at New York University and spent 16 years as an English professor and department chair at Bryn Mawr College. A Shakespearean scholar, she also co-founded and was CEO of a software company that developed apps to help students understand the Bard of Avon’s plays.

Rowe serves on the Northern Virginia Technology Council board of directors and the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission.

In his role, McLaughlin oversees 88 branch locations and more than 750 employees. 

A Virginia Tech alumnus, McLaughlin joined Wachovia in 2004, working as a licensed financial specialist in Richmond. He quickly climbed the ranks, first taking a position as a financial specialist sales leader and, later, becoming West End district manager. 

Following Wells Fargo’s acquisition of Wachovia, McLaughlin in 2011 was named area president in Washington, D.C. He later took over the Northern Virginia market. In 2017, Wells Fargo named McLaughlin region bank president for northern Virginia. In 2021, his territory expanded, now encompassing the northern half of Virginia. 

In June, McLaughlin, a 2019 graduate of Leadership Greater Washington, was elected to the Virginia Bankers Association’s board. 

Ranked third among the nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo had $1.7 trillion in assets as of March. The company closed 280 branches in 2023, according to its annual report, as a response to its customers’ “shift to digital channels.”

In February, workers at a Wells Fargo branch in Virginia Beach voted to join Communications Workers of America, becoming the fourth unionized Wells Fargo branch in the country.

Wilbanks developed an interest in stocks and bonds at the age of 14. As a 16-year-old, he formed an investment partnership with other students. “I was hooked,” Wilbanks wrote on a Virginia Business survey.

A graduate of Duke, Wilbanks co-founded Norfolk’s Wilbanks Smith & Thomas Asset Management in 1990, serving as the firm’s managing principal and chief investment officer.

Clearstead Advisors, an Ohio-based financial advisory firm, announced in April it had acquired WST’s $5 billion in managed assets, and with the merger, Clearstead has approximately $20 billion in total assets under management. Wilbanks is now executive managing director of the Clearstead Advisory Solutions division and sits on the leadership committee of the parent company.

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY: I would probably have spent one year skiing between college and work rather than going straight to work the day after graduation. It would have been fun to take my skiing to the next level at a young age!

MY WORKDAY: I never leave work at work, and I have worked almost every weekday evening for the past 40 years.

McIntyre was retained as chairman and CEO after Guidehouse, a federal contractor and global provider of technology and consulting services, was acquired by a Bain Capital Private Equity affiliate for $5.3 billion in December 2023.

Guidehouse had been owned by Veritas Capital since 2018. Employing more than 17,000 people in 55 locations across the globe, Guidehouse was formed when Veritas purchased PricewaterhouseCoopers’ U.S. public sector business, for which McIntyre served as managing partner. He became Guidehouse’s CEO with that ownership change.

In April, Guidehouse announced it had won a contract valued up to $12 billion to provide systems engineering support for the U.S. Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missiles fleet. A subsidiary of BAE Systems originally held the contract and filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office. In June, the GAO ruled in BAE’s favor, sending the contract back to the Air Force for re-evaluation.

McIntyre has been named to Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 list of top government contracting leaders for eight consecutive years. He is also a member of The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council and was recognized as a Top 50 Consulting Firm CEO of 2023 by The Consulting Report.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Shortly after the 2024-25 Virginia 500 was released, Shea announced he would step down as of Sept. 9. He is being succeeded by Steve Schorer, former CEO of Alion Science and Technology.

Shea has been a fixture in the national security industry for decades. Since taking the helm when it was formed in 2017 by owner Veritas Capital, Shea has led Peraton to become a major federal contractor through a series of blockbuster acquisitions.

Peraton purchased Chantilly-based IT contractor Perspecta Inc. and Northrop Grumman’s federal IT and mission support services businesses in 2021 for a total of $10.5 billion. In 2023, Peraton moved its headquarters, which serves as a hub for 5,000 of the company’s 19,000 employees, from Herndon to Reston.

In February, Peraton announced that it had received a $2.8 billion task order to provide IT platform and network services to the U.S. Special Operations Command.

As a young software engineer, Shea used his expertise in geology and geography to create some of the earliest computer mapping systems for the CIA, the Air Force and the National Security Agency. Previously, as chief operating officer of Leidos, Shea was the principal architect in the creation of Leidos, where he served as president and chief operating officer.

Shea is a founder of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, a board member for the National Intelligence University Foundation and a trustee of Riverside Research.