A trio of CEO moves and more across the market

Boeing

Perhaps the world's most-scrutinized chief executive search process is over following the hire of former Rockwell Collins CEO Kelly Ortberg, who will lead the airplane maker from Aug. 8.

The three-decade industry veteran is tasked with rebuilding trust with regulators, customers and the public amid an ongoing quality crisis and burning of cash. His degree is in mechanical engineering, which many observers believe is needed for Boeing right now.

Ortberg led Rockwell Collins for five years, then played a key role in its integration with United Technologies and RTX before his retirement from the company in 2021.

Work on U.S. government contracts represented around 37% of Boeing's revenue in 2023, according to its most recent annual report. Boeing is also Company No. 8 on our 2024 Top 100 rankings.

Sealing Technologies

Now a Parsons Corp. subsidiary as of August 2023, the defensive cybersecurity business has elevated Brandon Whalen to chief executive from his current role as a mission director.

Whalen joined SealingTech in 2019 following its acquisition of Quark Security, which he founded in 2013 as a secure system and cross-domain solution developer.

Parsons acquired SealingTech for $175 million in a move to further extend cyber offerings that are linked with other key tech areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, edge computing and cloud computing.

SealingTech also promoted a new chief operating officer in Hugh Clapp, who joined at the start of this year as a mission director. He is a former CEO of threat intelligence company Analyst1.

Ursa Major

Dan Jablonsky, the former Maxar Technologies chief executive, will start as CEO of this rocket propulsion system maker on Monday.

Ursa Major opened for business nine years ago and is currently led by co-founder Joe Laurienti, who originally planned to bring Jablonsky in as an adviser.

But those conversations apparently accelerated to where Laurienti saw Jablonsky as the right successor as CEO, the company said in a release.

Jablonsky led Maxar in the five years leading up to its sale to private equity firm Advent International for approximately $4 billion in cash.

Akira Technologies

Craig Fitzpatrick is returning to the cloud and data tech company where he was the chief operating officer for between 2012 and 2017, but this time as chief innovation officer.

Fitzpatrick will oversee Akira's research and development, customer-centric prototype development efforts and emerging technology partnerships.

He most recently worked as director of federal programs at SandboxAQ, the quantum startup that spun off from Google's parent company Alphabet in 2022.

Cailabs

Jim Hooper has joined the laser communications technology provider as senior vice president of its U.S. business.

France-headquartered Cailabs describes itself as a deep tech company that builds photonics products for space, industry, telecommunications and defense customers.

Hooper most recently was a senior vice president at SES, where he helped lead the satellite network operator's capture of programs and deployment of new systems.

ECS

Peter Santighian has joined the ASGN federal technology segment as senior vice president of defense to lead the business' work with that client set.

Santighian will lead strategy, growth and solution delivery functions that support ECS' work with Defense Department customers.

He most recently was chief strategy officer at Halvik Corp.

ITC Federal

Josh Zloba has joined as chief operating officer to help lead the 16-year-old technology integrator push for more wins of full-and-open contracts.

He will also oversee ITC's day-to-day operations and service delivery function.

Zloba joins ITC from SOSi, where he was vice president of technology and engineering.

RealmOne

Pearce Lantzy has joined the cyber and intelligence solutions provider as chief financial officer in the same year of its reveal to the government market.

Enlightenment Capital unveiled RealmOne in January as a 1,000-employee company whose core tech focus areas include data science, advanced analytics, hyper-automation and commercial software solutions for national security agencies.

Lantzy joins RealmOne after a stint as vice president of finance and accounting at Eqlipse Technologies, which has since combined with BlueHalo.

REI Systems

Gregory Garrett has joined the technology integration and consulting firm as chief operating officer to help lead its push to climb further up the market's middle tier.

Co-founder Shyam Salona recently spoke with us about REI's origins, growth and blueprint for where it wants to go next.

A two-decade Air Force veteran, Garrett most recently was vice president of cybersecurity services and solutions at Peraton.

Rise8

Jeff Muller has joined the software development specialist as chief operating officer to lead its functions involving strategic planning, organizational development, and IT and human resources optimization.

Muller most recently worked as COO for CFO Alliance and then led post-acquisition integration efforts following its sale to Atlantix Partners in 2023.

He also held senior leadership roles at Hunt Capital Holdings and MMA Capital Management.

Slingshot Aerospace

Former Dell Technologies executive Kelli Furrer has joined the space traffic coordination software provider as chief revenue officer and chief marketing officer.

Slingshot's current base of government customers includes Space Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which respectively have ordered a digital twin of orbital space and a system to find strangely-behaving satellites.

Furrer spent 15 years at Dell and her most recent role there was vice president of go-to-market, where she led that company's partnerships with other aerospace-and-defense companies.