Home Appointments CEO
CEO
Lockheed Martin
| Appointee | Marillyn Hewson |
|---|---|
| Role | CEO |
| Organisation | Lockheed Martin |
| Domain | Corporate Leadership |
| Start | 1 January 2013 |
| End | 15 June 2020 |
| Notes | First woman CEO of Lockheed Martin (largest US defence contractor) |
Institutional context
Lockheed Martin Corporation is the largest defence contractor in the world by annual revenue, formed by the 1995 merger of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta. It supplies major US military aircraft, missile, and space systems. From 1995 through 2012 every CEO was male.
Career path
Marillyn Adams Hewson (born 1953) earned a BS and an MA in economics from the University of Alabama. She joined Lockheed in 1983 and held progressively senior operations and finance positions across four decades, including President of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and Executive Vice President of the Mission Systems and Sensors business.
Appointment
Lockheed Martin announced her selection as CEO on 9 November 2012, effective 1 January 2013. She is the first woman CEO of Lockheed Martin.
Tenure
Seven and a half years. Tenure included continued ramp-up of the F-35 Lightning II programme, the acquisition of Sikorsky Aircraft from United Technologies (2015), and Lockheed's response to a sustained period of US defence-budget pressure. She left the CEO role on 15 June 2020 and was succeeded by James D. Taiclet.
Cluster context
Hewson's January 2013 appointment is contemporaneous with Phebe Novakovic's appointment as CEO of General Dynamics in the same month. The two appointments — both in January 2013, both at top-five US defence contractors — initiate the dataset's defence-industry first-woman cluster, which Kathy Warden's 2019 appointment at Northrop Grumman extended.