New CEOs, CFO mark busy period of executive moves

One defense technology integrator has elevated a new CEO from within as another government services company hired a new finance chief.

In the midst of that, a commercial IT firm names a new public sector leader and one of the market’s leading investment firms brought back a familiar name and face.

Here are snapshots of those executive moves announced over the past week.

MAG Aerospace

At the end of January, the provider of situational awareness capabilities and other solutions made official its promotion of then-President and Chief Operating Officer Joseph Reale to CEO.

Reale succeeds Joseph Fluet, a co-founder of MAG Aerospace who is now executive chairman of the company’s board of directors.

Fluet led MAG for 12 years prior to this transition, including the company’s sale to private equity firm New Mountain Capital in 2018. MAG went on to make several acquisitions with New Mountain’s backing.

Before joining MAG in 2019, Fluet was president of the former New Mountain portfolio company Camber Corp. and supported that firm’s sale to Huntington Ingalls Industries in 2016.

ASRC Federal

Jon Taglieri is their new chief financial officer after a stint leading corporate and business finance operations at Booz Allen Hamilton.

Taglieri’s new responsibilities are over financial planning and reporting, corporate accounting and compliance, cash delivery, program control and pricing strategy.

Prior to Booz Allen, Taglieri spent 18 years at the `Computer Sciences Corp. and its subsequent re-invention into what is now DXC Technology.

His career at CSC/DXC included roles such as CFO of a $3 billion-annual revenue division in Europe, CFO of a $1.5 billion managed services business in the Americas, and leadership over the financial systems integration of a global $25 billion business after multiple transactions.

Riverbed Technology

A division of the global IT services company focused on application performance monitoring and end-user experience has a new government business leader.

The business known as Riverbed Aternity has hired Craig McCollough as senior vice president of the public sector to steer relationships with federal, state and local government agencies.

McCollough is a former public sector SVP at cyber firm BeyondTrust and his career prior to that includes roles at CommVault, Hewlett Packard and GTSI.

In addition, Riverbed Aternity has brought in nearly three-decade technology veteran Alex Thurber as senior vice president of global partners and alliances with responsibility over the overall channel ecosystem. Thurber’s career includes operational leadership roles at Cisco, Blackberry and McAfee.

AE Industrial Partners

In the wake of leading a portfolio company’s sale, Pamela Braden has taken up a position as operational partner at the government market investment firm that once owned her company.

Braden is the founder and former CEO of Gryphon Technologies, which ManTech acquired for $350 million from AEI in December. Gryphon grew to be a $300 million-annual revenue business with 1,500 employees over its 25-year run. ManTech bought the company because of its digital systems engineering skills.

Today Braden is a member of the board of directors at BigBear.ai, which became a publicly-traded company in December. AEI remains a significant shareholder in BigBear.ai, which the investment firm formed in early 2021 through a series of acquisitions.

She also is on the boards of Belcan and Pangiam, which are fully-owned by AEI.