Parsons CEO Carey Smith Recognized With 6th Wash100 Award for Leading Business Integration, M&A Initiatives

Executive Mosaic is honored to recognize Carey Smith, chair, president and CEO of Parsons, with the 2024 Wash100 Award for her continued efforts to drive the company’s growth and expansion efforts by leading new business integration and pursuing M&A opportunities.

Vote for Smith as one of your 10 favorite government industry leaders at Wash100.com. The popular vote competition of the Wash100 Award runs through April 30, 2024.

Smith has received the Wash100 Award for the sixth consecutive year. Wash100 is the most prestigious award in the government contracting industry that recognizes a list of government and industry leaders who demonstrated commitment to growing their organization’s presence in the GovCon sector in the past year.

“I’m honored to again join the Wash100 list, and pleased to represent the more than 18,500 Parsons employees around the globe whose work led us to a record-breaking year in 2023. As we celebrate our 80th anniversary in 2024, we’ll continue to deliver exquisite national security solutions that operate across the all-domain battlespace, with a focus on outpacing near-peer threats and critical infrastructure solutions that leverage digital technology to build smart solutions, with a focus on solving important societal challenges like protecting our critical infrastructure, enhancing the world’s aviation system and eliminating emerging contaminant,” the sixth-time Wash100 awardee said.

“And we’ll do that thanks to our diverse, agile and innovative culture, a true mission-focus in the way we operate and a commitment to delivering unique, integrated and operationally relevant solutions for our customers and an employee experience worthy of our talented workforce,” she continued.

She was previously recognized for overseeing Parsons’ organic and merger-and-acquisition efforts in 2023 and driving the company’s internal investment strategy in 2022.

“Under Carey’s leadership, Parsons has undergone major expansion through key acquisitions — 10 in the last six years — and significant contract awards. Carey is harnessing unprecedented global spending and record-breaking RDT&E funding to not only drive growth in Parsons’ core markets but also to better align the business with its customers’ most urgent national security and critical infrastructure needs. Carey was the leading force behind the company’s record-breaking $1.4 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2023, and her continued reliability and achievements have earned her the 2024 Wash100 Award,” said Jim Garrettson, CEO of Executive Mosaic and founder of the Wash100 Award.

Smith has nearly four decades of GovCon leadership experience, having previously held executive positions at Honeywell and Lockheed Martin. She joined Parsons in 2016 as president of the federal solutions business and became the company’s CEO in 2021. In April 2022, Smith took on the title of chairwoman when Chuck Harrington retired as executive chairman of the Centreville, Virginia-based company.

Under her leadership, Parsons gained $1.4 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2023, a record 25 percent year-over-year increase, and reported a double-digit increase in contract awards during the period.

Smith said the company also strengthened its defensive cyber capabilities through strategic acquisition during the quarter.

In August, Parsons purchased Sealing Technologies for approximately $200 million in a push to broaden its defense and intelligence customer base and expand its presence as a cybersecurity company in the national security sector.

“SealingTech’s defensive cyber capabilities complement our leading offensive cyber capabilities and increase our share in the full-spectrum cyber operations market, which is expected to receive more government funding because of accelerating and evolving cyber threats,” remarked Smith.

The acquired company has brought nearly 150 employees into Parsons’ defense and intelligence business unit to support the delivery of edge computing and artificial intelligence-based mission platforms.

Speaking during the Raymond James Defense & Government Conference in October, Smith said she envisioned Parsons as an organization that is deliberate in its acquisition strategy, focusing on companies that support national security objectives, such as strengthening cyber defense and countering hypersonic weapon threats.

“I think it’s going to be key that when you are looking at companies, you’re really looking at companies that are filling capability gaps and are not duplicative,” shared the six-time Wash100 awardee.

In March, Parsons agreed to acquire IPKeys Power Partners to expand its intellectual property portfolio and enhance its grid modernization and cyber resiliency offerings.

Commenting on the deal, Smith said IPKeys’ software offerings will help Parsons defend the U.S. critical infrastructure sector and extend its capabilities into adjacent markets.

Parsons closed the IPKeys deal in April and integrated the company into its federal solutions and critical infrastructure segments.

“When you look at a company that is servicing utility companies, water companies, and providing cyber monitoring capabilities, it really is at the right intersection for both federal and critical infrastructure,” Smith said of the transaction in a conference call with analysts.

With Smith at the helm, Parsons has committed to strengthening and aligning its environmental, social and governance strategy with business practices. In April, Parsons reported that it surpassed its goal of reducing emissions by 20 percent between 2019 and 2025 and reduced its annual water and energy consumption by 32 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

The company was named to Ethisphere Institute’s list of the world’s most ethical companies for 2023 for its efforts to advance ethically driven corporate governance and business practices.

In addition, Smith has been chair of Executive Mosaic’s 4×24 Group 1 Leadership since August.

“This forum provides a unique opportunity for collaboration with c-suite and government executive leaders to discuss and drive acquisition reform, technology innovation and legislative priorities in support of our customers’ critical missions,” said Smith.

Executive Mosaic congratulates Smith and the Parsons organization for their inclusion in the 2024 edition of the Wash100 Award.

Don’t forget to vote for Smith at Wash100.com.