100 People to Meet in 2025: New Folks

They’re new to their positions, but they bring decades of experience and new vantage points to the table. Here’s a sampling of Virginians — some fresh faces, some familiar — who are taking on significant new roles.

Mary Kate Andris

President and CEO, CIVIC Leadership Institute, Norfolk

Mary Kate Andris has defined her career through civic-minded leadership, from running the YWCA South Hampton Roads and overseeing council partnerships for the Girl Scouts of the USA to her current role at the helm of Hampton Roads’ Civic Leadership Institute.

Having joined the organization in 2023, Andris oversees Civic’s two core offerings: an eight-month program that trains executive leaders from diverse sectors to improve life in Hampton Roads, and a scholars program for Old Dominion University and Tidewater Community College students. She is the first Civic leadership alumna to lead the organization.

Andris also lends expertise to her community in many other ways, including serving on the Virginia Council on Women and her 25-year involvement with the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Kuntal Bhattacharyya

Director of the School of Supply Chain, Logistics and Maritime Operations, Old Dominion University, Norfolk

Many people never thought much about the supply chain, until there were significant failures and product shortages during the pandemic, says Kuntal Bhattacharyya. He joined Old Dominion University in July, as the inaugural director of its new school focused on supply chain dynamics, a popular new area of study.

He came from Indiana State University, where he directed a logistics innovation hub and served as executive director of graduate programs and marketing chair in ISU’s business college.

A big soccer fan, Bhattacharyya’s new role includes developing curriculum that will launch in fall 2025 for adult learners. A warehouse automation lab where students can get hands-on experience is also in the works.

Jenny Crittenden

President and CEO, Retail Alliance, Norfolk

In 2023, when Jenny Crittenden took the helm of the Retail Alliance, which champions Hampton Roads retailers, her predecessor gave her a surprising mandate: reinvent the 120-year-old organization.

Two years in, Crittenden, the second female leader in the organization’s history, has indeed shaken things up. Among other accomplishments, the leader commissioned Main Street America to conduct a “state of retail” study for Virginia’s small brick-and-mortar businesses, culminating in a sold-out event two years running, and piloted a program providing comprehensive technical assistance to retail businesses in Phoebus, a historic district in Hampton.

Prior to joining Retail Alliance, Crittenden led Gloucester’s Main Street Preservation Trust for 16 years, and remains on its board of trustees.

Leslie Fautsch

Chief human resources officer, Leidos, Reston

In October, Leslie Fautsch became head of human resources at Leidos, a Fortune 500 government contractor that employs 48,000 people globally.

Early in her career, Fautsch practiced as a labor and employment attorney. In 2004, she joined Northrop Grumman as an HR manager and later became an ethics officer.

She moved to Leidos in 2011 and tackled a succession of leadership roles, including vice president of ethics for the company’s health and engineering sector. Most recently, Fautsch was senior vice president for HR operations and total rewards. In that role, she led a review of more than $1 billion in compensation and benefit offerings for employees.

Robert Granados

Owner, Richmond Olive Oil Co., Richmond

A Navy veteran who boxed for 25 years, Robert Granados is serious about brain health. Researching it led him to extra virgin olive oil for its benefits. In 2021, he started selling imported olive oils at farmers markets, and the following year, he earned an olive oil sommelier certification after a three-month Tuscany Olive Oil School course.

A former Los Angeles resident, Granados opened his brick-and-mortar store in Richmond’s Carytown district on July 28, selling about 20 varieties of infused olive oil, six non-infused options and 20 infused balsamic vinegars, plus international foods, beer and wine. The store owner tests his olive oil imports for the proper acidity; he also drinks about a shot’s worth of olive oil every morning. Next year, Granados hopes to grow his online sales.

Alexandra Guenther

Chief information officer, Leidos, Reston

Alexandra Guenther took over as Leidos’ chief information officer in March, after spending several years in leadership roles at the Reston-based Fortune 500 contractor.
She most recently oversaw the company’s $1 billion Antarctic Support Contract, which included leading operations to support research and exploration on the continent. Now, she’s responsible for leading information technology access and assets to about 50,000 employees globally at a time of strategic change for the company under Tom Bell, who took over as CEO in 2023.

Guenther, a sports enthusiast since she was a teen, says multiple playing injuries helped her develop a dynamic and resilient mindset that’s served her well. She developed a concept — “analyze, automate, accelerate” — to help Leidos employees and customers understand the implementation of technological change.

Dr. Xuemei Huang

Chair, Department of Neurology, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville

Dr. Xuemei Huang is the first person in her family to attend high school. Growing up in a rural community in Beijing, she wanted to become a mathematician, but her mother convinced her to study medicine instead. While working toward that degree, she had the opportunity to work with a neuroscientist researching pain control and was fascinated. Huang, who came to the United States in 1988, joined U.Va. in August after serving as an associate dean at Penn State’s College of Medicine, where she was also chief of the Division of Movement Disorders and founded its Translational Brain Research Center.

A Parkinson’s disease expert, Huang hopes to strengthen collaboration in neurology research across Virginia and improve access to neurological health care.

Jamie Lucero

Project director, Alliance to Advance Climate-Smart Agriculture, Blacksburg

In her leadership post, Jamie Lucero oversees management of a record $80 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The alliance, a three-year pilot, funds climate-friendly practices at farms and ranches in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota and Virginia, and if successful, the program could be extended nationwide, according to the USDA.

Raised on a small cattle farm in southwestern Pennsylvania, Lucero grew up involved with 4-H and other agricultural activities, and she holds three agriculture-related degrees from Virginia Tech, the University of Central Missouri and Kansas State University.

She previously served as the agriculture college’s director of alumni relations.

Shannon O. Pierce

Senior vice president, Southern Company Gas; president, Virginia Natural Gas, Virginia Beach

A native of Surry County, Shannon Pierce spent a few years working as an energy and utilities attorney at McGuireWoods in Richmond before heading to Georgia in 2004 to serve as counsel at AGL Resources, which was purchased in 2016 by Southern Company Gas, parent of Virginia Natural Gas.

One of the reasons Pierce has stayed with the energy company for two decades, she says, is great coworkers, and that certainly includes VNG CEO Robert Duvall, whom Pierce will succeed in April 2025, when he retires.

Duvall once told Pierce he could see her as a company president, which wasn’t a trajectory she had previously considered. “Robert is the kind of leader that is incredibly supportive,” she says.

Kadi Rodriguez

Sales director, Kalahari Resorts and Conventions, Yorktown

Named for a former classic rock radio station that her parents loved in her native Illinois, it’s no stretch that Kadi Rodriguez is a music lover, with a vinyl record collection that “pretty much wraps” her home. In May, Rodriguez joined Wisconsin-based Kalahari, which is building a $900 million, 1.28 million-square-foot resort and conference center in Spotsylvania County — the fifth such facility in the country.

Rodriguez says her time spent in Chicago, Miami and Houston influenced her career in the hospitality industry, and she worked for several major brands, including Hilton and Marriott,
before becoming director of sales at Williamsburg’s Great Wolf Lodge. Though Kalahari’s Spotsylvania location is not slated to open until fall 2026, Rodriguez is already busy with bookings as far out as 2030.

Kim Sawyer

Director, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News

Kim Sawyer joined the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, aka the Jefferson Lab, in August, during a time of significant growth. The facility, home to a supercomputer that allows scientists to study the nuclei of atoms, is adding a data science computing hub — known as the High Performance Data Facility — that will cost up to $500 million.

Sawyer started her career in information technology. “I was one of those ‘girls who code’ before it was popular,” she says. She progressed into management and then leadership roles, working for a variety of companies, including Lockheed Martin, Xerox and Coca Cola, before taking on leadership positions at the Sandia and Argonne national laboratories. At Jefferson, Sawyer is focusing on maturing business processes and boosting the safety culture. 

Jack Scholl

Managing partner, Roadmap Coffeeworks and Hyperion Espresso, Lexington and Fredericksburg

During the pandemic, Scholl left his life in Washington, D.C., where he’d worked in govcon, to take over the family business: Lexington Coffee Roasters.

Are his parents proud? “They’re pleased that they get to travel,” he quips. “They’re out in California right now.”

In 2022, Scholl changed the company’s name to Roadmap CoffeeWorks to better fit its mission: helping people discover the coffees they most enjoy.

Scholl had been looking to expand when he heard the 30-year-old Hyperion Espresso in Fredericksburg was for sale. A graduate of the University of Mary Washington, Scholl was very familiar with it and took over ownership this summer.

Regulars might notice some changes. Scholl plans to introduce tasting flights of coffee, for instance. But he’s holding on to the Hyperion name: “It’s like an institution.”

U.S. District Judge Jasmine Yoon

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Charlottesville

Jasmine Yoon made history this year, when the U.S. Senate, with recommendations from U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine (D-VA), confirmed her as Virginia’s first Asian American federal judge.

Having arrived from South Korea as a teenager speaking little English, Yoon went on to earn undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Virginia. Her husband, Chris Kavanaugh, is the U.S. attorney for the Western District, which raised the issue of a conflict of interest, but he is stepping down at the end of 2024.

Prior to taking the bench in September, Yoon served as vice president of corporate integrity, ethics and investigations at Capital One Financial. She also investigated and prosecuted more than 80 financial crime and public corruption cases as an assistant U.S. attorney for Virginia’s Eastern District.

Check out the rest of our 100 People to Meet in 2025.