HERNDON, VA – September 14, 2020 – Five Peraton leaders—Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Wensinger, Chief Growth Officer Mike King, Chief Information Security Officer Jim Schifalacqua, Defense and Homeland Security sector President John Coleman, and Chief Communications Officer Matt McQueen —have been recognized by WashingtonExec for achieving measurable success in their respective positions.
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King was the winner for Private Company Chief Growth Officer of the Year and Wensinger was a finalist for Private Company Chief Operating Officer of the Year in WashingtonExec’s 2020 Chief Officer Awards, announced in June. The Awards recognized the most impactful and innovative executives in government and industry sitting in the C-suite.
Since joining Peraton in 2018, King has distinguished himself by successfully driving the company’s growth objectives and helping to expand into important new market adjacencies. King established an integrated capture, pricing, and competitive intelligence organization that is designed to support current and over-the-horizon corporate growth initiatives.
Through King’s leadership and partnership with Peraton’s business sectors, the company was able to secure 98% of all recompete dollars bid and deliver a book-to-bill of over 2.2x in 2019. A marquee win for the year was NASA’s Space Exploration Network Services and Evolution (SENSE) contract, worth up to $1.8 billion over five years.
Wensinger was the first strategic hire made by Peraton’s Chief Executive Officer Stu Shea in 2017. His charter was to design and lead a team focused on successfully transitioning critical operations, systems, and programs from the former Harris IT Services to Peraton, as part of a strategic carve-out by private equity firm Veritas, while simultaneously creating an entire suite of secure, business-critical, cloud-based back office systems. His team achieved or beat every milestone on a very aggressive schedule to stand up the core elements of what is now Peraton.
Today, Wensinger has responsibility for implementing all operational objectives at Peraton, including critical decisions that serve to positively differentiate the company, ensure strong customer and partner relationships, and attract and retain the best talent in the industry to help Peraton support vital and complex customer missions around the world.
“I am proud of the work Jeremy and Mike have done to drive Peraton’s success,” said Shea. “We set out to create a next generation national security company with a focus on supporting emergent warfighting domains. As we execute against our long-range strategy, both Jeremy and Mike have been innovative business executives who have helped transform Peraton into a critical partner to the Intelligence Community, Department of Defense, and select federal agencies and commercial entities.”
Additionally, in May, Schifalacqua was recognized by WashingtonExec as one of the Washington region’s Top 25 Cyber Execs to Watch in 2020. Schifalacqua has been a key leader in executing Peraton’s establishment of an award-winning scalable and secure cloud-based IT infrastructure and architecture. Schifalacqua has ensured cybersecurity is built into every aspect of Peraton’s infrastructure and has been instrumental in continuously improving the company’s security architecture and achieving an unparalleled balance between user experience and digital safety. Both have been critical during Peraton’s short history but have proven especially beneficial during the COVID-19 crisis, allowing employees to quickly pivot to a remote working environment easily and securely.
“Jim moves boldly within his projects at Peraton so that Peraton can move boldly as an organization,” noted Rob Giannetta, Peraton’s Chief Information Officer. “We are proud of his accomplishments keeping our customers’ and Peraton’s data safe. Jim leads a top-tier information security team that is working closely with our federal customers to help them migrate to secure cloud environments, and to better integrate cybersecurity into supply chain risk management.”
In July, Defense and Homeland Security sector President John Coleman was recognized by WashingtonExec as one of the Washington region’s Top 25 DoD Execs to Watch in 2020. Bringing together complementary technical capabilities from the former Defense and Electronic Warfare and Homeland Security sectors, Coleman has positioned Peraton to address a broader array of growing customer needs in the areas of , identity and threat detection and response, data analytics, software development, advanced logistics, and systems modernization.
Establishing Peraton as a leading provider of lighter-than-air sensor support, Coleman captured U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) $184 million Tactical Aerostat Systems program and successfully recompeted CBP’s $277.5 million Tethered Aerostat Radar Systems program. Building on Peraton’s longstanding support of U.S. Navy UUV programs, he led recompete wins for four U.S. Navy unmanned maritime task orders worth $27.5 million that covered unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) services as well as a spot on the Naval Sea System Command’s Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) Family of Systems $982 million IDIQ.
“I am pleased to see John recognized for his accomplishments,” said Shea. “John strategically organized the business for key growth campaigns in C5ISR and Defensive Cyber Threat Operations and built a team of experienced leaders and subject matter experts focused on meeting customer needs. After last year’s acquisition of Solers, Coleman smoothly integrated their Defense Systems Division capabilities to position Peraton to benefit from our new colleagues and capabilities.”
Finally, on September 14, Chief Communications Officer Matt McQueen was recognized by WashingtonExec as one of the Washington region’s Top 25 MarCom Leaders to Watch in 2020. McQueen accomplished two significant achievements in 2020: his strategy behind Peraton’s employee value proposition (EVP) and his crisis communications in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. By perceiving jobs as a product Peraton sells, McQueen focused on the human element of Peraton with a narrative that has resonated inside and out: Do The Can’t Be Done. The new careers website, launched at the start of 2020, is user friendly, intuitive, and uses tracking for a customized homepage.
During the economic and social upheaval of COVID-19, McQueen encouraged leadership to expand employee engagement through numerous mediums, including an executive and employee video series, generating widespread satisfaction with Peraton’s real-time responses, and enabling the company to weather the pandemic.
