15 Jan Toni Townes-Whitley: Service First
SAIC CEO Toni Townes-Whitley was raised to prioritize service.
Today, that includes serving as a role model and guide for aspiring women leaders.
By Jackie Krentzman
When the $7.5 billion technology and defense contracting firm Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) named Toni Townes-Whitley as CEO in 2023, she became the first Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 defense industry corporation. For those who know Townes-Whitley, this shattering of multiple glass ceilings came as no surprise. As the daughter in a family of firsts, the former Microsoft executive prepared for this opportunity her entire life.
Townes-Whitley grew up in Virginia, the daughter of an elementary school principal and a three-star general. Her father, Lieutenant General James F. “Cash” McCall (ret.) was the first African American comptroller of the United States Army. Townes-Whitley’s parents held high standards for her and her brother. They were expected to be the very best they could be, with the full understanding that their academic, athletic, and social efforts would impact their parents’ high-profile careers, and that the playing field (relative to their peers) was far from even.
“Everyone in my family was the first to do something,” says Townes-Whitley. “Even my grandfather, Reverend Lester Kendall Jackson, born in 1899 into a sharecropper family, applied to Harvard multiple times just to challenge the system. He worked with Martin Luther King Sr. to desegregate beaches across the South, finally landing in Gary, Indiana.”
Her family instilled in their children the expectation that the family legacy was to fight injustice, everywhere and for everyone.
“As a result, the idea of serving has always been critical to me,” she says. “It was part of our faith and our family’s foundation. There was no question that you were going to serve—it was just a matter of where and when.”
After graduating from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Townes-Whitley was poised to jump on the fast track to the pinnacle of whatever profession she set her mind to. But her path included a strategic detour—two and a half years serving in the Peace Corps in Gabon (Central Africa). Remember, first and foremost: service.
Townes-Whitley eventually rose to president at CGI Federal, a federal government IT consulting firm, then spent nearly eight years at Microsoft, reaching the position of president of its US regulated industries, where she had a vast remit. She was responsible for a $16 billion fast-growing portfolio, and also contributed to such major initiatives as reducing the company’s carbon footprint and building an ethical framework for Microsoft’s emerging artificial intelligence solution portfolio. Notably, she secured a $10 billion cloud-computing contract with the Pentagon in 2019.
SAIC, which provides engineering, digital, and artificial intelligence mission support to the Department of Defense, intelligence and space agencies, and other branches of the federal government, came calling in 2023 when its CEO, Nazzic Keene, announced she was stepping down. Townes-Whitley’s background in a military family that prized leadership and patriotism and her impressive track record in technology, with significant experience interfacing with the defense technology sector, made her the perfect fit.
Townes-Whitley receiving an honor at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund CEO Impact Awards in 2024 for her dedication to HBCUs.
“Toni brings a clear vision for the company’s future and has not only launched a powerful enterprise growth strategy but is leading it with relevancy, innovation, and differentiation,” says Donna Morea, SAIC board chair. “She is a leader who energizes the entire company and creates an environment that runs on respect and trust, listening, being nimble, and anticipating our customers’ needs while having the courage and experience to disrupt and create value.”
Today, as one of only two Black female CEOs for a Fortune 500 company (TIAA’s Thasunda Brown Duckett is the other) and one of only a handful of women in the upper echelons of the defense and technology sector, Townes-Whitley is acutely aware that she is a standard-bearer. She embraces this role and its platform for increasing women’s representation in the highest reaches of Corporate America.
“We have a very little table,” she says. “People ask me what it feels like to be among this group. And I tell them—it feels lonely.”
Over the years, she has cultivated a finely tuned philosophy on leadership development and advancement to turn that loneliness into community. Women tend to get caught up in impostor syndrome, she says, which can only hold them back. She recommends they read Rebecca Shambaugh’s book It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor: Free Yourself from the Hidden Behaviors Sabotaging Your Career Success.
“The book is for any woman on the corporate track who is wondering if you’re an impostor, or is preoccupied or intimidated by glass ceilings,” she says. “Do not keep yourself on the floor. Do not self-select off the path. Move horizontally at times, stretch yourself with vertical moves, trust your instincts, go to organizations that need you. Get comfortable with uncomfortable decisions.”
That can be easier said than done. But Townes-Whitley has done it and, over the course of her career trajectory, has learned a number of valuable lessons that she is determined to pay forward.
It begins with formulating a set of core values and writing them down. “I have 10 that I developed 25 years ago,” says Townes-Whitley. “I encourage you to develop yours before you encounter a crisis. If you wait until the crisis, these important values will be shaped by the environment or the situation instead of by who you are.”
Next, she counsels, develop a growth mindset which, while a necessity for all leaders, is especially critical for women because the approach can help overcome societal barriers to thriving in leadership roles in which women tend to face more scrutiny or doubt.
“Carol Dweck’s research on the ‘growth mindset’ illustrates that people who believe their abilities can be developed through effort and learning are often more resilient, embrace challenges, and achieve greater success than those with a ‘fixed mindset,’ who believe their abilities are innate and unchangeable,” Townes-Whitley explains. “This resonates with me, especially as it relates to embracing challenges and taking risks, stepping outside my comfort zone, seeking continuous learning and development opportunities, and embracing feedback.”
Townes-Whitley and SAIC executives presenting a donation to Building Homes for Heroes, which gifts mortgage-free homes to wounded veterans.
Another of Townes-Whitley’s priorities is recruitment and retention of diverse talent, especially women in the tech and defense industries.
“Retention of women in the defense industry involves creating an environment where they can thrive and grow,” she says. “While the industry can talk about how women play an integral role in fostering digital innovation and bringing unique perspectives to technology solutions, at SAIC we’re passionate about also ‘walking the walk.’”
That means making sure that the women at the 24,000-person company are in a position to be heard. (Perhaps not surprisingly, one of Townes-Whitley’s favorite songs is “The Room Where It Happens” from the musical Hamilton.) Half of SAIC’s executive leadership team are women, as are nearly half of its board of directors, including the chair. The difference in pay for women at SAIC compared with men is less than one percentage point on a role-to-role basis. Its AccelerātHER Women’s Leadership Academy, a nomination-based program that aims to grow the pipeline of future women leaders, has graduated more than 142 aspiring women leaders, with more than 90 percent of graduates moving into leadership roles within SAIC.
Another priority is developing future female leaders by supporting the educational aims of girls and women pursuing STEM careers. For example, in 2022, SAIC made a $1.5 million commitment to the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering, to go toward its mission of educating the future cyber-technology and engineering workforce; the high school’s most recent incoming class was 38 percent female. SAIC’s employee resource groups also support Girls Inc., a program focusing on girls’ STEM exploration, establishment of healthy relationships, and comfort with using their voices to advocate for themselves and others.
Of course, you can grease the wheels and put all the support systems in place, but Townes-Whitley is a realist. She understands that even with support, the path for rising women will be full of potholes. A company can do its best to pave the way, but ultimately, women will need to take charge of their own destinies, learn the rules of the career advancement game, and make those rules of engagement work for them.
“It starts with level setting,” she says. “You can’t play or change the game if you don’t know what the game is. Early and mid-career women sometimes say, ‘I’m just not going to play the game. I’m not that person.’ That’s super naive because you are on the chessboard, and moves are happening around you, whether you like it or not. Career advancement requires a plan, making moves, being aware of situations and opportunities, and building relationships. If you understand there is a ‘game,’ you can make informed choices about changing the game by playing differently. But stepping out of the game is a choice that will not change the game.”
Townes-Whitley appreciates her many career achievements and honors. But they do not alone define her. One of her 10 core values is “source of joy,” which she uses to remind herself that the job she does is not who she is. No job is the “source of her joy.” That emanates from her Christian faith.
She tells the story of her one-year anniversary as CEO, when SAIC had its highest stock return in 10 years on the same day that one of her grandsons developed a high fever. “And as thankful as I was about the company news, the only conversation I remember from that day was about the baby’s well-being with my daughter-in-law,” she says, emphasizing that it’s important to understand your priorities in life. “As well as you want to do in your day-to-day job, I hope it is not your source of joy. Knowing the difference between what you do and who you are is critical. People will make you feel like what you do is who you are. To that, I say no.” EW
