Lockheed goes global with new business unit

Lockheed Martin Corp. has created a new line of business that will focus on international opportunities.

Not that the company wasn’t already big outside of the United States, with 17 percent of its revenue, or $8 billion, coming from international customers.

Lockheed President and CEO Marillyn Hewson announced today the appointment of Patrick Dewar to lead the new business, which will take what she described as an enterprise-wide approach, and will have the ability to sell offerings from across all of Lockheed Martin.

The company is already doing that in the United Kingdom, where the company has a U.K.-based business that sells offerings from all five of Lockheed’s divisions, Dewar said. The U.K. business also exports to other countries.

Dewar was named executive vice president of Lockheed Martin International. He’ll report directly to Hewson. Previously, he was senior vice president of corporate strategy and business development. The division will have dual headquarters in the U.K. and in the Washington, D.C. region in Reston, Va.

Lockheed’s strategy has a focus on partnering with other countries, including looking at technology transfer and economic development opportunities, Hewson said.

“Each country has to look at its budget, its economic development desires and its citizens’ needs and decide what they want to do and we’ll partner with them,” she said.

For example, in the U.K., Lockheed Martin has 500 business partners and supports 10,000 jobs, she said.

“Serving international governments is about partnerships, and it takes a keen understanding of the goals and challenges each country faces,” Hewson said. “And that takes listening, communicating and above all, building relationships.”

She and Dewar cited several examples of where Lockheed is already doing that, including Italy, where the company has aircraft, missile defense, radar and cyber work underway.

“The entire breadth of the company is represented,” Dewar said. “We’ll draw that together and work with Italian authorities and deliver enhanced solutions if that is what the market bears.”

The company has a goal of growing its international business from 17 percent to 20 percent in the next few years, and the creation of Lockheed Martin International will accelerate that growth because the company is dedicating resources and leadership, Hewson said.

“This is a top priority for me and my senior management team,” she said. “I’ve already visited Saudi Arabia, [the United Arab Emirates], Israel, and Italy and I’ve had discussions with visitors in the United States.”

The company already has international offices in Ottawa, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Canberra, Australia. There also are regional offices in Tel Aviv, New Delhi, Tokyo and Seoul.

Some of the opportunities that Hewson and Dewar discussed during a U.K. press conference today included aircrafts such as the F-35, F-16 and C-130J, missile defense systems, air traffic control, IT and cybersecurity.

The company is doing work in 70 countries and has 6,000 employees working with international customers.

“We are very global today and what we’re going to do is double down,” Hewson said. “We recognized we needed a unified approach to how we went to market.”