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2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Hall of Fame Honoree
Toni Townes-Whitley became one of two Black female Fortune 500 CEOs in 2023, when she joined federal contractor SAIC. An alumna of Princeton University, she previously served as president of Microsoft’s U.S.-regulated industries, president of CGI Federal and held management roles at Unisys. At SAIC, she leads a company that re[...]
The 2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: The Achievers
Black business leaders have played a pivotal role in shaping modern Virginia’s economic and cultural landscapes and driving progress across industries and communities. From the entrepreneurial spirit of pioneers who built thriving enterprises during times of immense adversity amid segregation and civil rights battles to today�[...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Denise Chadwick Wright
Chadwick Wright has served in long-term care facilities for nearly three decades and joined Birmingham Green in 2017 as its CEO. She was recognized as one of trade publication McKnight’s 2021 Women of Distinction for improving wellness for residents and implementing telehealth during the pandemic. Chadwick Wright previously he[...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Xavier Beale
Beale was promoted to his current position, overseeing the state’s largest industrial employer’s HR and trades department, in 2022. He is a second-generation shipbuilder and joined HII as a pipefitter in 1991, before working in other industries. In 2004, he returned to the shipyard and is vice chair of the Virginia Board of [...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Lee Mariano
With more than 20 years in human resources, Mariano now heads the HR department at one of the largest regional public accounting firms, a job she has held since 2023. Before that, she started her own executive coaching firm and held executive HR positions at multiple companies, including AgEagle Arial Systems and LookingGlass Cy[...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Regina Johnson Elbert
Elbert was named to her current post in January 2024, having held human resources and legal leadership roles at Dominion since 2011. She earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Virginia and law degree from Harvard and was an associate at McGuireWoods previously. Elbert serves on boards for the Center for Energy Workf[...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Jeff Bourne
Although Bourne has been with Roanoke’s Branch Group since 2018, he’s well known in Richmond as a former state delegate and, previously, deputy attorney general for the state’s transportation, real estate and construction litigation division. Bourne also served on the Richmond School Board before winning a seat in 2016 to [...]
VIRGINIA BLACK BUSINESS LEADERS HALL OF FAME
2023 Gilbert Bland President, chairman and CEO, Urban League of Hampton Roads; founder and chairman,The GilJoy Group, Norfolk 2023 Victor Branch Richmond market president, Bank of America, Richmond 2023 Victor Cardwell Chairman, Woods Rogers, Roanoke 2023 Warren Thompson Founder, president and chairman, Thompson Hospitality, Reston 2024 SHEILA JOHNSON CEO, […][...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Ernisha M. Hall
Hall co-founded the Virginia Black Business Directory in 2020, which became the Virginia Black Chamber Foundation. Today, the chamber has more than 1,000 members and has held a govcon conference and the Virginia Black Business Expo & Conference. Hall has degrees in business, social work and forensic psychology and serves on [...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Jerrine Lee
Lee joined Richmond Region Tourism in 2016 as its convention and sports services manager, and since then, she’s moved several rungs up the ladder to her current position managing sales teams who bring meetings and conventions to Richmond. Previously, she worked in corporate sales and client relations for the Richmond Flying Sq[...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Elwood Boone III
Known as Bernie, Boone moved back to Virginia from Texas, where he was CEO of San Antonio’s HCA Metropolitan Methodist Hospital, in 2012. In addition to opening a new ICU at his hospital, he helped open the VB Strong Center in 2019 following the Virginia Beach Municipal Center shootings. Boone is a Richmond native. FIRST [&hel[...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Perry J. Miller
Miller joined the Richmond International Airport in 2019, having previously served as interim CEO of the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority in Mississippi and in management positions for the Houston airport system. In 2023-24, he was chair of the American Association of Airport Executives, the world’s largest such professiona[...]
