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Government Contractors | Technology | Aerospace 2025: KARI WILKINSON
PRESIDENT, NEWPORT NEWS SHIPBUILDING; EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, HUNTINGTON INGALLS INDUSTRIES, NEWPORT NEWS
Virginia Business //September 1, 2025//
Government Contractors | Technology | Aerospace 2025: KARI WILKINSON
PRESIDENT, NEWPORT NEWS SHIPBUILDING; EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, HUNTINGTON INGALLS INDUSTRIES, NEWPORT NEWS
Virginia Business //September 1, 2025//
In January, Wilkinson took over leadership of Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of HII and the state’s largest industrial employer, with more than 26,000 workers. She succeeds Jennifer Boykin, who retired.
Wilkinson spent three decades at HII’s Mississippi-based Ingalls Shipbuilding, becoming its president in 2021. She oversaw 11,000 workers who design, build and maintain amphibious ships, destroyers and cutters for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. She has a bachelor’s degree in naval architecture and marine engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Temple University.
The nation’s only builder of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, NNS is building two Ford-class carriers, the future Enterprise and Doris Miller, in drydock simultaneously. It is also working with General Dynamics Electric Boat to build 12 nuclear powered Columbia-class submarines, a program currently estimated to cost $132 billion.
