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Finance/Insurance: MONIQUE S. ADAMS
Born out of recommendations from a group seeking to make Hampton Roads less dependent on federal defense spending, 757 Angels matches a network of more than 100 business and community leaders in the Hampton Roads region with Virginia-based entrepreneurs who need funding and mentoring to develop their early-stage companies. So fa[...]
Health Care: WILLIAM B. ‘BILL’ DOWNEY
Since 2012, Downey has led Riverside Health System, where he oversees 9,000 employees and shepherds major projects to expand health care services in the Hampton Roads region. Earlier this year, Riverside broke ground on a building that will house the region’s first standalone 24-hour psychiatric emergency department, sched[...]
Transportation: ADAM COHEN and ELAN COHEN
The body that oversees ships flagged from the west African nation of Liberia is not the country’s government, but a company based in Virginia. Liberian International Ship & Corporate Registry, founded by Yoram Cohen and run by his sons, totals more than 5,000 vessels, comprising more than 200 million gross tons, and re[...]
Transportation: STEPHEN A. EDWARDS
At what everyone hopes is the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s no longer a surprise to read another headline declaring that the Port of Virginia has shattered a previous cargo record. The port did so again in May 2022, when it handled more than 340,000 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units), breaking the previous record set [&h[...]
Transportation: W. SHEPPARD ‘SHEP’ MILLER III
A lifelong Norfolk resident, Miller was appointed state transportation secretary by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in January. He was previously appointed by Gov. Ralph Northam to serve on the Commonwealth Transportation Board, a body he now chairs. In 2017, Miller retired as chairman of Virginia Beach defense contractor KITCO Fiber Optics[...]
Telecommunications: MATTHEW J. DESCH
Desch has led Iridium for 16 years and serves on its board. The satellite communications company connects clients around the globe, reporting more than 1.72 million subscribers and $614.5 million in 2021 revenue. Iridium operates 66 low earth orbiting satellites and works with partner companies to provide voice and data communic[...]
Manufacturing: TOM HAYES
Hayes has worked at Swedish Match since 2006 and was promoted to group chief financial officer in 2018. In August 2020, he took over as president after Richard Flaherty retired. Swedish Match’s U.S. Division is based in Richmond, while Swedish Match AB is based in Stockholm. The company develops, manufactures and sells s[...]
Manufacturing: ASHLEY B. SMITH
Although Smith became CEO in 2018, he did not become Smith-Midland Corp.’s board chairman until January 2022, after his father, Rodney I. Smith, stepped down after 62 years. The family company, founded in 1960 by David G. Smith (Ashley Smith’s grandfather), manufactures, licenses, rents and sells precast concrete pro[...]
Living Legends: J. KNOX SINGLETON
Back in 1983, when Singleton took a job as executive vice president for operations at Fairfax Hospital Association, he expected to stay only a few years. But a year later, he was made president of the three-hospital system, which he transformed into Inova Health System, now a $4 billion regional health provider with five hospita[...]
Media: DOUG DAVIS
Davis spent more than 20 years managing various aspects of Norfolk television stations WAVY and WVBT before taking charge of a vast region of what would become America’s largest local television and media company in 2017. Davis was among a handful of general managers promoted to senior, regional positions that year, after [...]
Media: DAVE LOUGEE
In February 2022, Tegna, the nation’s largest owner of NBC affiliate TV stations, reached an agreement to be bought by New York hedge fund Standard General for $5.4 billion, ending its seven-year stint as a publicly traded company formed after Gannett Co. Inc. spun off its broadcast and digital media divisions. Tegna owns[...]
Media: MIKE REED
The owner of flagship newspaper USA Today, Gannett is the largest newspaper group in the nation with more than 600 papers, and under Reed’s leadership, the company’s digital revenue has skyrocketed. In 2021, Gannett’s digital revenue exceeded $1 billion for the first time, comprising one-third of the media comp[...]
