From training air traffic controllers and advancing facial recognition and fingerprinting at ports of entry, to equipping soldiers in the field with the real-time data collection, SAIC (SAIC) is integrated into our lives in ways consumers may not know bear the SAIC stamp, using advanced AI technology to be better positioned for the future.

Toni Townes-Whitley, became CEO of the $7.1B technical, engineering, and IT weapon systems company in October of 2023, and has already laid out her vision for the future of the company; which she says had struggled to grow organically in the five years before her arrival.

The former Microsoft (MSFT) executive grew up in a public service family: Her father is a retired three-star Army General and she describes her mother as “an elementary school principal who ran our household with the precision of a Brigade Commander through four hardship tours.” This combination of tech-savviness and patriotism arguably positions her to put her stamp on SAIC’s digital transformation and corporate culture after a year of transition. Modern warfare and intelligence is evolving, with 75% of SAIC’s revenue coming from the Department of Defense, and the rest from civilian partnerships. SAIC partners with government customers on what the company calls its National Imperatives: Undersea Dominance, Border of the Future, Citizen Experience, All-Domain Warfighting and Next-Generation Space. “Ethical AI” as Townes-Whitley calls it, plays a vital role in the goals and missions SAIC has set forth.

Recently named as one of Forbes 50 over 50 for Innovation, SAIC CEO Toni Townes-Whitley is one of just two Black women currently running a Fortune 500 company and the first Black woman CEO of a publicly-traded defense company – accomplishments she would like to see normalized in this day and age.

Yahoo Finance sat down with Townes-Whitley at SAIC headquarters in Virginia and its biometric testing facility in Maryland to discuss the experiences, skills and key decisions that have shaped her into the leader she is today, and the strategies driving her vision for SAIC’s external growth as well as internal goals of gender parity and ongoing digital transformation.

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