byline: Virginia Business

As a young student in Michigan, Murrell’s academic struggles prompted a warning from a nun at his Catholic school: He would end up flipping burgers.

It took a few years, during which he earned an economics degree from the University of Michigan, worked in life insurance, got married twice and had five sons. But eventually the nun’s premonition came true, and Murrell, wife Janie and their sons opened a carryout burger joint in Arlington in 1986. By 2001, the family owned five restaurants in the Washington, D.C., area, and the following year they began marketing Five Guys franchise opportunities.

Today, there are more than 1,800 Five Guys locations across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with another 1,500 in development. In June, it opened its first location in an international airport, at Dubai International.

According to the chain, Five Guys restaurants serve up 165 million burgers each year. In 2023, the 5,000 employee-strong company made it onto Forbes’ list of the World’s Best Employers.

Keffer, who took over leadership of U.S. operations in August 2023 for German chainsaw and power tools manufacturer Stihl, has been leading Stihl’s transition toward battery-powered equipment, a $60 million-plus investment that included conversion of 84,000 square feet of warehouse space to battery tool manufacturing. He joined the company in 2022 as vice president for sales and marketing and previously spent about two decades with Stanley Black and Decker.

With more than 3,300 employees, about 2,700 of whom are in Virginia Beach, the U.S. division is the largest subsidiary of Stihl Group and exports to more than 75 countries. In 2023, the company completed a $49 million expansion of its Virginia Beach chain saw guide bar manufacturing facility.

In 1974, Stihl opened its doors in the United States with 50 workers assembling one model of chainsaw. Today, employees produce more than 80 models of Stihl equipment that are distributed through the company’s 11 regional branches and distributors and sold through a network of more than 10,000 authorized local Stihl dealers.

Since Abod founded Carahsoft in 2004, the privately owned IT and cybersecurity solutions provider has grown to land the No. 45 spot on Forbes’ 2023 list
of the nation’s largest private companies, with $11 billion in revenue and 2,470 employees.

Abod is a University of Maryland alum who previously worked for DLT Solutions and Falcon Systems. In January, he was named for the tenth time to Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 list of top government contracting executives.

His company is one of two firms modernizing federal payroll services under a General Services Administration contract. In June, Carahsoft hosted its second annual DevSecOps Conference in Washington, D.C.

In July 2023, Carahsoft announced it would market Apollo, Palantir Technologies’ software management platform, to the public sector through
its GSA and NASA contract vehicles. The company partnered with several tech companies in 2022 to offer their platforms and services — especially their cybersecurity solutions — to federal customers.

In the mid-1990s, Ahmed founded what’s now Dexian as a side venture while working as a consultant for Northrop Grumman and a senior technical manager for Mobil Oil. Today, the McLean-based provider of staffing, IT and workforce solutions employs about 12,000 workers across 70 locations worldwide.

Originally known as Digital Intelligence Systems (DISYS), the company rebranded as Dexian last year following its 2021 acquisition of Florida-based IT staffing firm Signature Consultants.

Ahmed is a graduate of George Mason University and Harvard Business School. In July 2023, after serving as president and chief operating officer, Ahmed’s brother, Maruf, was promoted to CEO, the role Mahfuz Ahmed previously held.

The Ahmeds were honored by George Mason in September 2023 for donating $250,000 to the school’s College of Engineering and Computing to fund the Dean’s Technology Innovation Fund. The Bangladesh-born brothers asked that a trash can near the library be dedicated in their honor to reflect their humble beginnings; Maruf worked as a groundskeeper at Mason, among other jobs, to support himself while in college.

In October 2022, Dahut became CEO of Google Public Sector, a subsidiary of the tech giant focused on government and educational contracting. Before joining Google, Dahut led Booz Allen Hamilton’s $4 billion global defense business.

Dahut served in the U.S. Navy for six years, including at the Navy Medical Research Institute in Maryland. As a civilian, she worked at the Logistics Management Institute, a Tysons-based nonprofit federal contractor, before joining Booz Allen.

Dahut holds a bachelor’s in business finance from Mount St. Mary’s University and a master’s degree from the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California. Named four times to Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 list of top government contracting executives, Dahut also sits on the board of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

In October 2023, Google Public Sector announced a new Cybersecurity Center of Excellence with Accenture Federal Services to assist government agencies in their response to cybersecurity attacks and threats. In January, Google partnered with ManTech to open a new Google Workspace Practice aimed at sharing best practices for artificial intelligence and secure workplace productivity in the government contractor field.

Gayner has led the Fortune 500 insurance company as sole CEO since early 2023, after serving more than six years as co-CEO with Richard Whitt III, who retired last year. Before joining Markel in 1990, Gayner was vice president of Davenport & Co.

Markel reported operating revenues of $15.8 billion in 2023, an increase from $11.7 billion in 2022.

Gayner oversees about 21,600 employees and three divisions: insurance, investments and Markel Ventures, which owns controlling interests in a portfolio of about 20 businesses. He made $8.1 million in total compensation in 2023.

In June, the company purchased a majority stake in Valor Environmental, a Florida erosion control and stormwater management firm, for an undisclosed amount.

In 2022, Gayner’s wife, Susan, retired as CEO of ParkLand Ventures, a Markel subsidiary that buys and operates manufactured housing communities. In 2023, the couple launched the University of Virginia’s Gayner Family Sustainable Investment Fund and Scholarship Program, where revenue from student-directed investments is used to fund scholarships.

In 1975, armed with $1,000 to invest, Paulette laid the foundation for what would become KBS. What started as a one-person company with an office in a sheet-metal shop has grown to a top-ranked construction firm in the mid-Atlantic, with a reach extending from its Richmond and Virginia Beach offices to Roanoke and Washington, D.C.

Its notable projects include the Virginia Department of Transportation and Virginia State Police Joint Operations Center, Richmond’s Northside YMCA renovation and the Locks Tower, a 355,000-square-foot downtown Richmond apartment development.

In May, Engineering News-Record ranked KBS No. 292 on its annual Top 400 Contractors list, up from No. 339 in 2023.

A 1969 graduate of Virginia Military Institute, Paulette is from South Hill and serves as a deacon at River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond. He is a former member of VMI’s board of visitors and a past president of the VMI Keydet Club. Paulette also previously served on the boards of the Virginia State Board for Contractors and Make-A-Wish Greater Virginia.

In 2022, Paulette’s son, Will, succeeded him as president of the company where Paulette presides as chairman.

In 2021, Guidera was the first secretary appointed by newly elected Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

A proponent of charter schools and parental involvement in education, Guidera is responsible for leading the state’s public schools and has significant influence on postsecondary institutions, including the Virginia Community College System. In 2022, the state began establishing K-12 lab schools — public, nonsectarian schools based at colleges and universities.

Her tenure has not been without controversy, including pushback from what opponents see as anti-transgender state policies in public schools and history curriculum revisions involving teaching about race. In 2024, Guidera reviewed syllabi for courses on diversity, equity, inclusion and race at George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University, at the request of Youngkin. Ultimately, the two schools eliminated requirements for students to take classes focused on DEI, race or racism this fall.

Guidera was the founder, president and CEO of the Data Quality Campaign, a nonprofit focused on using student testing data to improve schools.

Before founding DQC, Guidera was director of the Washington, D.C., office of the National Center for Educational Achievement and vice president and chief of staff for the National Alliance of Business.

Founded in 1924 by Borches’ great-grandfather, Carter Myers Automotive is Virginia’s fifth largest car sales group, with 24 dealerships selling 18 brands. It currently ranks No. 87 on Automotive News’ Top 150 Dealership Groups list, down 12 spots from 2023. Borches became CEO in 2012.

The company employs more than 1,000 people in Virginia, all of whom are part owners; Carter Myers is one of the only dealer groups in the nation that shares equity with its employees.

It’s also part of Driving Lives Forward, a partnership initiative between the United Way of Greater Charlottesville and CMA to assist economically challenged families with purchasing reliable vehicles and providing vehicles and repairs for single mothers.

Borches is a co-founding member of Women United in Philanthropy, which supports women and children in Charlottesville. She also serves on the life board of the United Way of Greater Charlottesville and the board of directors for Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Virginia. Additionally, Borches is a member of the board of Plug In America, an advocacy organization for electric vehicles. She lives in Charlottesville with her husband, Pete, and their two teenage children.

An Israeli native, Kotler has led Arko, the nation’s sixth largest convenience store chain and parent company of GPM Investments, since 2020, when it merged with Haymaker Acquisition Corp. II to become a U.S.-listed public company. He founded GPM in 2003, sold the business and reacquired it in 2011. 

The company has been on an M&A journey in recent years, expanding from 200 convenience store sites in 2013 to 1,543 locations in 2023. It made the Fortune 500 list for the third time in 2024, ranking No. 453, 45 places higher than in its 2022 debut.

Arko brought in $34.6 million in net income in fiscal 2023, down substantially from $72 million the previous year. Arko has around 13,500 employees worldwide after a series of acquisitions of convenience-store chains and fuel wholesalers. In January, the company launched a new take-and-bake pizza program that had been in development for over a year. And in August, Kotler said Arko will pilot a food-focused store design at seven of its convenience stores in the fourth quarter of 2024.