Executive Mosaic is honored to announce Nazzic Keene, CEO of Science Applications International Corp., as a 2023 Wash100 Award winner in recognition of her leadership in accelerating corporate growth strategy, driving veteran employment initiatives and advancing sustainability, social and governance goals.
“Nazzic, a six-time winner, has successfully scaled up one of the industry’s most sophisticated organizations and continues to solidify the depth of her management team and strategic intelligence solutions while broadening SAIC’s product portfolio,” said Jim Garrettson, CEO of Executive Mosaic and creator of the Wash100 Award.
With Keene at the helm, SAIC continues to record robust financial performance. During the third quarter of its fiscal year 2023, the Reston, Virginia-based government technology services contractor posted $1.91 billion in revenue, up 1 percent from the prior-year period.
The company also recorded $2 billion in Q3 FY 2023 net bookings with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.1 and ended the quarter with an estimated total backlog of approximately $24.4 billion, of which $4 billion was funded.
“Our results reflect continued strong performance from the team with notable momentum in new business capture and on-contract growth,” Keene said in an earnings statement.
Keene told analysts in a conference call that capabilities within its GTA area of focus, also known as growth and technology accelerants, are driving profitability.
GTA covers enterprise information technology, secure cloud and systems integration and delivery, while its core area focuses on IT and technical services, engineering, logistics and supply chain.
Keene noted that SAIC has allocated most of its capital towards mergers and acquisitions in the last few years but will now focus more on “aligning capital allocation with long-term shareholder value creation.”
“Based on the current market conditions and competitive landscape, we expect capital deployment to be focused more towards returning capital to shareholders while opportunistically leveraging M&A to add capabilities, solutions or technologies where and when we can accelerate our growth strategy,” she said.
In response to an analyst’s question about M&As, the chief executive said she believes the “market continues to be active” and that the company would be interested in assets that lie within its GTA area of focus while being “very, very selective” as it looks at future acquisitions.
During the earnings call for the contractor’s FY 2023 second quarter, she said the space business accounts for around 20 percent of SAIC’s portfolio.
“As we’re all staying, we do believe this is an area of growth especially when you link the space related missions to some of our GTA areas. And so we do think this is an area where we can drive organic growth over the course of the next several years in support of the customer’s missions,” she added.
In July 2022, SAIC unveiled its third annual corporate responsibility report reaffirming its commitment to increasing workforce diversity and flexibility, enhancing employee benefits, reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions and advancing community engagements.
“SAIC embraces a broad scope of environmental, social and governance imperatives in the Company’s daily operations because we believe it makes our business, employees and communities better,” Keene said.
“We are focused on a better tomorrow, whether that involves architecting what’s next for our customers, reinventing the future of work for our employees, or improving the world around us,” SAIC’s top leader added.
In a video interview with Executive Mosaic, Keene discussed how SAIC harnesses new technologies to meet customer needs and strengthens its company culture as well as how it pursues opportunities across its three GTA areas of focus.
In 2022, SAIC earned several recognitions for advancing veteran employment. These include the company’s inclusion in Forbes magazine’s 2022 America’s Best Employers for Veterans and the Department of Labor’s Gold HIRE Vets Medallion Award.
“One out of four of our employees are veterans, who selflessly answered the call to serve our nation,” Keene said in a statement.
“We are honored to receive recognition from Forbes and the Department of Labor for our commitment to military veterans and their families,” she added.
In October 2022, GovCon Wire featured Nazzic Keene as part of Executive Mosaic media group’s coverage of Good Scouts who were recognized for their notable impacts in the tech sector and demonstration of scouting values. She was the first female recipient of the Technology Good Scout Award and accepted the accolade from the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America in November 2021.
“From Cub Scouting to Venturing to Sea Scouting to Exploring to STEM Scouting, these inclusive opportunities build both skill and character,” Keene said at the time.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Nazzic Keene and the SAIC team for their selection to the 2023 Wash100. Don’t forget to cast 10 votes by April 28 for this year’s ranking of winners at Wash100.com.
