2024 Virginia CFO Awards: Large Business: Sean Daily, CAES

Sean Daily, chief financial officer of Arlington County defense technology contractor CAES, didn’t set out to forge a career in defense. But an interest in corporate finance, sparked by an internship at Marriott International, combined with an opportunity to join Lockheed Martin after his graduation from Virginia Tech.

Soon enough, “I developed an interest in the industry,” he says. “And as you spend years within aerospace defense, you really begin to connect to the mission.”

He spent almost 19 years at Lockheed Martin, earning his MBA at George Washington University through the company’s finance leadership development program and working his way up to vice president of finance and business operations. He led a team of 730 finance professionals and was responsible for financial management, pricing, program finance and control, contract negotiation, and financial administration for government and commercial programs.

His experience showed him that much of the industry’s energy is directed toward innovation and creative problem-solving. 

“A lot of times, I think the industry is misrepresented as a warmonger, but it’s really not,” he reflects. “It’s really about protecting and serving, and also exploring. We do a lot of scientific missions and space-based missions, which are really helping society at large.”

After leaving Lockheed in early 2020, Daily pursued some entrepreneurial ventures, including as a franchise owner of fitness studios. But he was ultimately drawn back into corporate financial leadership in the field he had come to feel so passionate about, joining CAES as a senior vice president and CFO in January 2021.

There were challenges for him to manage from the start of his tenure, considering that CAES (Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions) was created in 2021 as a standalone entity within its parent company, Cobham, which was itself purchased by private equity firm Advent International in 2020. In 2023, Daily oversaw the divestment of CAES’ Space Systems division to private equity firm Veritas, a transaction reportedly totaling nearly $2 billion. And then, in June, he saw the culmination of another mega-deal he’d worked on, the announcement that Honeywell plans to acquire CAES this year for $1.9 billion in an all-cash transaction.

That’s a lot of change to manage in a relatively short period of time, and Daily has led his team through it all with a focus on ensuring that everyone feels confident and can act with clarity.

“It’s really for me about trust, transparency, collaboration and teamwork,” he says. “In order to get that trust, people have to feel you’re looking out for them and you’re connecting with them on an individual level.”

Ensuring workers feel that high level of connection centers on cultivating honesty and transparency, he says: “I tell people, ‘You may not like the decisions that I reach, but you’ll never be confused by how I reach them.’ I think people appreciate that.”

Dave Fink, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at CAES, says it has been vital to have a finance leader with a future-oriented, strategic view of directing institutional change.

“Having personally witnessed Sean’s incredible business savvy and work ethic, I’m very happy to see this recognition, as he would never be the one to blow his own horn,” Fink says. “I’ve worked with a lot of CFOs, and Sean stands out as the best and brightest by the way he looks far into the future and then builds the road to help the team get there.”

Daily relishes the hard work of leading his team in a fast-changing corporate environment.

“What I really love about my job is the holistic view that you get in finance,” he says. “You get to see the entire enterprise and understand the breadth of the organization. You also get to help navigate through challenges. If you’re doing your job really well, you see the challenges before they even materialize and help make sure that they never impact the business in a negative or harmful way.”