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2025 Virginia 500: Government | Politics | Lobbying
Education 2025: RAO, MICHAEL
After a bumpy year for Rao and VCU in 2024 — first an ongoing dispute over VCU Health paying $73 million to exit a redevelopment project, followed in the spring by a violent clash between VCU police and pro-Palestinian protesters — the Richmond-based school had some good news.
The school announced plans to convert the Siegel Center into Richmond’s largest indoor concert venue to generate revenue for student-athlete compensation. In 2024, VCU also surpassed $500 million in sponsored research funding for health, sustainability and equity initiatives. In 2025, though, the school reported losing about $39.6 million in federal grants amid massive spending cuts by the new Trump administration. In 2024, VCU became the first Virginia university to offer a minor in artificial intelligence.
VCU has more than 28,000 students across more than 220 degree and certificate programs. Rao became its president in 2009, and his contract has been extended through 2030. He formerly was president of Mission College in California, chancellor of Montana State University-Northern and president of Central Michigan University.
TRAITS I ADMIRE: Empathy, sincerity, commitment to others
FAVORITE FASHION ACCESSORY: Flip-flops
Government Contractors | Technology 2025: LYNCH, KIM
Lynch joined Fortune 500 tech company Oracle in 2023. As Oracle’s executive vice president of government intelligence and defense, Lynch has executed Oracle’s growth strategy and driven innovation in cloud technology.
For fiscal 2025, Oracle announced revenues of $57.4 billion, up 8% from the previous year.
As the Trump administration seeks to streamline government agencies, Oracle this year offered federal customers a 75% discount on its software licenses as well as deep cuts in costs to its cloud service, The Wall Street Journal reported. In October 2024, the company announced that it is migrating personnel and pay systems for the U.S. Army to its defense cloud product, helping the service secure sensitive data.
Before Oracle, Lynch spent 24 years at Booz Allen Hamilton in numerous positions, including executive vice president and client service officer to the intelligence business unit.
Lynch is a member of the Potomac Officers Club 4×24 Intelligence Leadership group and serves on the Professional Services Council board. A graduate of Johns Hopkins and George Washington universities, Lynch received her second Wash100 award from Executive Mosaic this year, placing her among the nation’s top government contracting executives.
Education 2025: MAHONEY, PAUL G.
A former dean of the University of Virginia School of Law and a longtime faculty member, Mahoney was named in August as the university’s interim leader. He will serve until U.Va.’s board can find a permanent replacement for former leader Jim Ryan, who resigned as head of the state’s flagship university under pressure from the Trump administration and the U.S. Department of Justice.
A Yale Law and MIT alum, Mahoney joined U.Va.’s law faculty in 1990, serving as dean from 2008 to 2016, and specializes in securities regulation and corporate finance. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ryan left office in mid-July after two Virginia alumni who lead the DOJ’s civil rights division sent a volley of letters to him and other university officials demanding that they prove U.Va. was dismantling its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Ryan said that he was leaving to preserve federal funding for research and student financial aid, which according to multiple reports, a DOJ attorney had said would be threatened if Ryan hadn’t stepped down.
Government Contractors | Technology 2025: McINTYRE, SCOTT
McIntyre was retained as CEO after Guidehouse, a federal contractor and global provider of technology and consulting services, was acquired by a Bain Capital Private Equity affiliate for $5.3 billion in 2023.
Guidehouse was previously owned by Veritas Capital since 2018. Employing about 18,000 people in 55 locations across the globe, Guidehouse was formed when Veritas purchased PricewaterhouseCoopers’ U.S. public sector business, for which McIntyre served as managing partner. He became Guidehouse’s CEO with that ownership change.
In September 2024, Guidehouse ranked No. 4,732 on Inc. 5000’s annual list of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S.
In June, the company announced a $1.5 billion, three-year AI initiative, aiming to launch an AI platform for multiple industries.
The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Guidehouse is among several consultancies that offered cuts to their contracts in negotiations with the Trump administration as it sought to slash government spending.
McIntyre has been named to Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 list of top government contracting leaders for nine consecutive years.
INTERESTING PLACE I’VE TRAVELED: Iran, before and at the outset of the revolution, as a kid
FAVORITE TEAM: D.C. United
Education 2025: ADAMS-GASTON, JAVAUNE
Under Adams-Gaston’s leadership since 2019, Norfolk State has racked up achievements ranging from regularly ranking among U.S. News & World Report’s top 20 historically Black colleges and universities to attaining a 10-year reaffirmation of accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
The public university attracted big-dollar donations, from grants of more than $53 million for scholarships and student support and a $40 million gift from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott in 2021. The HBCU also launched a campaign to raise a $90 million endowment by its 90th anniversary this year.
Adams-Gaston has led NSU’s online curriculum expansion to include master’s degrees in cybersecurity and cyber psychology. She played key roles in forging partnerships with companies like Netflix, Apple and Amazon.
She served on former President Joe Biden’s HBCUs advisory board and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. Her term on the NCAA Board of Governors ended in 2024.
Before joining NSU, Adams-Gaston was senior vice president for student life at Ohio State University and held executive positions at the University of Maryland. She holds a doctorate from Iowa State University.
Health Care 2025: DAVIS, MELINA
In 2014, Davis became executive vice president of MSV, a trade organization that represents more than 30,000 physicians, physician assistants, residents and medical students. Four years later, she took the helm as CEO.
MSV successfully advocated for laws to allow Virginia health care professionals to seek mental health care and help for career fatigue without fearing repercussions to their medical licenses. Partnering with Vital WorkLife, MSV manages SafeHaven, which offers clinicians resources like peer coaching and counseling.
MSV and the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services announced in 2024 they were launching the Adult Psychiatric Access Line, a resource for health care professionals treating adults with substance use disorders.
Previously, Davis was CEO and president of the American Lung Association of the Atlantic Coast. She also founded PlanG Holdings, a consumer platform that allows people to donate to charitable causes.
Davis has a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina and an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She joined the United Network for Organ Sharing’s board in April and serves on the Virginia Credit Union board.
Government Contractors | Technology 2025: DEAN, WILLIAM H. ‘BILL’
In 2023, Dean opened the doors to a new, 168,000-square-foot building on his company’s manufacturing campus in Caroline County, completing a five-year,
$63 million phase three expansion that created more than 500 jobs in Virginia. It’s among several expansions for Dean, who grew the small business that his grandfather started in 1949 as an electrical construction company to employ more than 6,700 across more than 30 offices worldwide. The privately owned design-build systems integration company reportedly earned $1.3 billion in 2021 revenue.
Dean became CEO in 1997. A North Carolina State University alumnus, Dean serves on the board of the Washington Airports Task Force.
In 2024, MC Dean won a potential $116 million Defense Information Systems Agency contract to provide IT support for the U.S. European Command and Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic. It also expanded late last year with a new logistics facility in South Hill that will one day employ up to 100 people, as well as a new location in South Carolina. The company plans new presences in California and Germany, it said last year.
Education 2025: PAINO, TROY D.
In 2024, UMW introduced three new majors (applied mathematics and statistics, data science as well as management and entrepreneurship) and three new minors (disability studies, global history and professional writing). The school also signed a partnership with the University of Virginia, streamlining the admissions process for UMW accounting majors who meet qualifications.
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 2024, the university became part of a consortium receiving a $25,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to develop curriculum around AI.
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 board of the Northern Virginia Technology Council and chairs the Virginia Council of Presidents.
INTERESTING PLACE I’VE TRAVELED: Just got back from Greece (Athens and Santorini)
FIRST JOB: Maintenance worker
Government | Politics | Lobbying 2025: HERRING, DEL. CHARNIELE
When Democrats took control of the House of Delegates in 2020, Herring became the first woman and first African American to serve as majority leader. After Republicans retook the chamber following the 2021 elections, she became caucus chair but returned to her majority leader role when her party narrowly reassumed power in 2024.
Early experience with homelessness helped shape Herring’s outlook, and she attended George Mason University through the school’s Student Transition Empowerment Program, which assists disadvantaged students in transitioning to a college environment. Herring later became a lawyer and was first elected to the General Assembly in 2009. She served as chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Virginia from 2012 to 2014.
In recent years, Herring has carried several of Democrats’ signature pieces of legislation, including bills to legalize marijuana possession and join Virginia to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate carbon market. In 2025, she sponsored an amendment that would enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution, which the House and state Senate passed.