Carey Smith, chairwoman, president and CEO of Parsons, has been featured in Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 list for 2023 for her continued efforts to grow the company through organic and merger-and-acquisition opportunities.
Smith has been chosen five times as a Wash100 winner over the 10-year history of the award. The annual list represents a cross-section of leaders who demonstrated achievement for their company or agency in the past year and are poised to contribute significantly to the government contracting sector in the year ahead.
The nearly 38-year GovCon veteran aims to position Parsons as a national security and critical infrastructure leader by capitalizing on domestic and international investments in infrastructure projects.
“As CEO, now my objective is to have top positions in our high growth market areas and to continue to be a global, critical infrastructure leader by capitalizing on both the U.S. infrastructure bill, as well as the growth of global infrastructure that we’re seeing,” Smith said in a March 2022 podcast.
Parsons reported $4.2 billion in 2022 revenue, reflecting a total growth of 15 percent and organic growth of 9 percent, with acquisitions accounting for $205 million of the overall fiscal year sales.
In June, Parsons completed its acquisition of Xator Corp. for approximately $400 million to gain a greater footing in the U.S. government and global infrastructure markets.
“Xator is an important strategic and financially accretive acquisition that diversifies our customer base, broadens and further differentiates our capabilities and increases our addressable market in both the federal solutions and critical Infrastructure segments,” Smith said at the time.
To advance business growth objectives, the company started its digital accelerator organization known as Parsons X in May and opened its Paladin Lab at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland the following month.
Parsons won spots on two major defense procurement vehicles in 2022. These are the Defense Health Agency’s Omnibus IV Medical Research and Development contract valued at $10 billion and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Assessments, Exercises, and Modeling and Simulation Support contract valued at $850 million.
Smith assumed additional duties as chairwoman at the Centreville, Virgnia-based company in April 2022.
“Every day, our global workforce is delivering integrated solutions and services in a complex security environment and a world of digital transformation. We are creating the future of national security and critical infrastructure by leveraging advanced technologies across these domains,” the five-time Wash100 honoree said of her board leadership appointment.
She additionally sits on the boards of Edison International, the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance and the Professional Services Council.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Carey Smith and the Parsons organization for their inclusion in this year’s Wash100. Vote for your favorite award recipients at Wash100.com! Voting ends on April 28.