In his second stint at the helm of Virginia Natural Gas, Duvall is responsible for delivering natural gas to more than 310,000 customers across southeastern Virginia.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Clemson University, Duvall began his career in 1984 as a distribution engineer at Atlanta Gas Light, a subsidiary of VNG’s Atlanta-based parent company, Southern Company Gas. He previously served as VNG’s president from 2014 to 2016, then became Southern’s senior vice president of customer operations; he became president of VNG again in 2020.

Currently, VNG, which has said it intends to reach net-zero direct greenhouse emissions by 2050, is focusing its attention on renewable gas, launching a five-year pilot program in 2023 that aims to integrate renewable natural gas into its distribution systems. In June, VNG announced a $620,000 investment in workforce development efforts in southeastern Virginia.

Duvall is currently vice chair for the Hampton Roads Alliance’s board. A graduate of the CIVIC Leadership Institute, Duvall has served on boards for the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce and the Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance.

Molivadas has been in commercial real estate for more than 30 years. He previously was senior vice president at Spaulding & Slye Colliers, which was acquired by JLL in 2005, and he became JLL’s mid-Atlantic market director in 2018. Before that, he was a project manager for Clark Construction and a project director for Quadrangle Development.

JLL, a global commercial real estate and investment management company, reported 2023 revenue of $20.9 billion. Molivadas oversees approximately 1,500 employees in the greater Washington, D.C., region, and he was named the head of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for JLL’s eastern region.

Molivadas was instrumental in JLL’s project management of the construction of the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, and the sale of a 534-unit housing building in Arlington County near Amazon.com’s HQ2. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Southern Methodist University and is a member of Alexandria general contractor Landivar & Associates’ advisory board.

ADVICE FOR NEW COLLEGE GRADUATES: You must be curious, continuously seek to learn and improve, and push yourself into uncomfortable places, as that is where you will learn and grow the most.

UMW had its most successful fundraising year so far in 2022-23, raising more than $21.36 million in gifts and pledges, including a portion of a $30 million bequest from a 1959 alumna to support undergraduate research and scholarships, announced in March 2023.

Last year, Paino received the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators’ 2023 President’s Award, which recognizes a president or chancellor who has, over a sustained period, advanced the quality of student life on campus.

In April, the university became part of a consortium receiving a $25,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to develop curriculum around AI. In August 2023, UMW received a three-year, $345,000 National Endowment grant to continue publishing “The Papers of James Monroe.”

UMW also received in March two $100,000 Virginia Talent + Opportunity Partnership grants expanding internships.

President of UMW since 2016, Paino was previously president of Truman State University in Missouri. He holds doctoral and master’s degrees from Michigan State University, a law degree from Indiana University and a bachelor’s degree from Evangel College.

Paino serves on the boards of the Northern Virginia Technology Council and the Virginia Business Higher Education Council.

Dreiling’s first year as Dollar Tree’s CEO has seen a continuation of some of the tumult that preceded his time leading the Fortune 500 discount retailer.

The chain reported $30.6 billion in revenue in fiscal 2023, but a $1.7 billion loss in the fourth quarter. Following that poor performance, the company announced it would close around 600 Family Dollar stores in the first half of fiscal 2024 and would shutter 370 more Family Dollar and 30 Dollar Tree stores over the next few years. In June, it began reviewing strategic alternatives for Family Dollar, including selling or spinning off the brand.

From 2017 to April 2024, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued $22.7 million in penalties to Dollar Tree, though the entities reached a settlement in August 2023. In Virginia, federal regulators fined Dollar Tree $1.9 million for 85 safety violations in  the past 10 years.

A seasoned executive, Dreiling served as CEO for competitor Dollar General from 2008 to 2015, then became executive chairman of Dollar Tree in 2022, following a proxy battle with an activist investor group. Dreiling also serves as lead independent director on Lowe’s board of directors.

Co-founded by Frantz in 2009, Blue Delta is a venture capital firm that supports growth-stage companies providing technology solutions to the federal government. 

In April, Blue Delta announced it had invested $25 million in Maryland’s Herrick Technology Laboratories, a provider of software-defined radio (which relies on software rather than hardware to control frequencies) and related signals intelligence and electronic warfare tools. In July, Blue Delta closed a $250 million, oversubscribed fund.

In addition to his work at Blue Delta, Frantz sits on the board of ASGN, the Henrico County Fortune 1000 IT and professional services provider.

Previously, Frantz was a principal with Carlyle Group, the private equity firm where Gov. Glenn Youngkin served as co-CEO, and was a partner at RedShift Ventures. Early in his career, Frantz served as associate director of the White House’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs under President George H.W. Bush. He also worked as economic and technology policy adviser to former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.

Frantz earned a law degree and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.

Years before she was appointed to serve in Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration, Merrick and her husband, Phillip Merrick, founded webMethods, a software company that helped businesses connect data from disparate systems via the web. The company grew steadily from the mid-1990s tech boom until the business sold to Software AG in 2007 for $546 million.

Merrick, who is a venture partner in startup investment firm NextGen Venture Partners, also later founded and led Pocket Mentor, an app delivering leadership tools.

Before her appointment as the state’s secretary of commerce and trade in 2022, Merrick served as CEO of Youngkin’s nonprofit Virginia Ready initiative, which promoted workforce development.

In her current role, Merrick leads 13 agencies with 1,300 team members. She oversaw the launch of the state’s Compete to Win economic development policy, which aims to enhance the commonwealth’s workforce development, site inventory and infrastructure growth.

Merrick earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and completed Harvard Business School’s corporate governance program.

Landrum has led the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership since 2015. She joined the partnership nearly 20 years ago, serving as acting executive director for two years before stepping up to senior vice president. Before coming to AEDP, Landrum was a project coordinator at Southeast Fairfax Development Corp.

The site of Alexandria’s shuttered Landmark Mall is being redeveloped in a multibillion-dollar project that will include new housing units and an Inova Health System hospital. Also under construction is the first academic building of Virginia Tech’s $1 billion Innovation Campus, which is expected to open in spring 2025.

The city also claimed the headquarters for burger restaurant chain Five Guys, which in summer 2023 moved its 250 employees back to Alexandria, where it opened its first restaurant in 1986.

In March, Alexandria lost a controversial $2 billion arena proposal touted by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, when the Washington Wizards and Capitals NBA and NHL teams reached a deal to stay in Washington, D.C.

Landrum earned her bachelor’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of Virginia and her MBA from UVa’s Darden School of Business.

FAVORITE TEAM: Washington Capitals

A graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Pepperdine University, Kastner was tapped as Huntington Ingalls Industries’ president and CEO in March 2022. HII reported revenue of $11.5 billion last year, a 7.3% increase from 2022, and a total project backlog of $43.1 billion as of Dec. 31, 2023.

The Fortune 500 company is the nation’s largest military shipbuilding company and owns Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia’s largest industrial employer, with about 25,000 workers.

HII’s current history began in 2011 when parent company Northrop Grumman spun out its entire shipbuilding portfolio, including Huntington Ingalls and Newport News Shipbuilding. Before joining HII, Kastner was vice president and chief financial officer for Ingalls Shipbuilding.

Already looking to add 3,000 jobs this year, NNS expanded its footprint last year to an 8-acre satellite campus at Fairwinds Landing in Norfolk. The campus expects to have 150 employees this year. NNS has invested more than $25 million there and could spend as much as $100 million in five years.

HII’s technical solutions division, renamed Mission Technologies in 2022, has grown massively since its establishment in 2016, and the company is now heavily focused on artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity and unmanned systems.