New folks
Published
They might be new to their positions, but they bring decades of experience and expertise to the table. Here’s a sampling of folks — some fresh faces, some familiar — who recently have taken on new leadership roles.
Brian Anderson, President and CEO, Chamber RVA, Richmond
If history is any indication, it’ll be worth getting to know Brian Anderson. For nearly three decades, Chamber RVA has seen only two chiefs: Jim Dunn, who spent 18 years leading Greater Richmond’s chamber of commerce, and Kim Scheeler, who retired in 2019 after 11 years. Anderson, who took the reins Sept. 30, should have plenty of stories. Strike up a conversation about his native state of South Carolina, his time in the Army or his nearly 20 years in the beverage industry. He arrives in Richmond after four years leading the Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce. •
David E. Bowles, Executive director, Virginia Institute for Spaceflight and Autonomy, Norfolk
After more than 35 years with NASAs Langley Research Center, David Bowles is the first executive director of the Virginia Institute for Spaceflight and Autonomy (VISA), a research enterprise of Old Dominion University that will partner with other universities to commercialize emerging technology. VISA will be based on the Eastern Shore and leverage the state’s expanding space facilities and growing capability to support advances in satellites and autonomous systems, the sensors they carry and the data they produce. Bowles sees similarities in his work at NASA and VISA — he’ll be using the same technology and systems, he says, “but focusing them on utilizing the tremendous ecosystem of capabilities, innovation and entrepreneurship in the commonwealth.” •
Clark Casteel, President and CEO, Danville Regional Foundation, Danville
The Danville Regional Foundation didn’t have to look far when it hired its new president in May. Floyd native Casteel has been with DRF since 2008, when he started as a senior program officer. Funded by the sale of a public hospital 14 years ago, the foundation encourages revitalization and renewal in the city of Danville and surrounding counties by making long-term investments in, among other things, community wellness, economic opportunity and early childhood education. “Real change takes time,“ he says, “and we’re in the long-term transformation business, not the short-term happiness business.” •
Elizabeth Cromwell, President and CEO, Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, Charlottesville
Elizabeth Cromwell joined the Charlottesville Regional Chamber as its leader in October 2018, after serving as president and CEO of the chamber in Frederick County, Maryland. Cromwell made a big impression when she brought a group of Frederick leaders to Charlottesville for the Tom Tom Festival in 2018, and in 2020 she plans to take a group of business leaders from Charlottesville to Charleston, South Carolina, as part of its Partners in Trust program. The cohort from Charlottesville will learn about workforce development, regional collaboration and equitable growth. •
Sunny Kumar, CEO, SummitIG LLC, Dulles
Promoted to CEO of SummitIG in April, Sunny Kumar makes connections. His company, a dark fiber infrastructure provider, has built 550 miles of underground networks connecting to more than 100 data centers and 14 million square feet of space in Northern Virginia. His goal is to construct another 500 miles over the next three years to expand an already dense fiber footprint in a region that has become the world’s leading data center hub. SummitIG specializes in custom connectivity solutions for carriers, cloud providers, data center operators, large enterprises and government agencies. His goal is to offer customers greater flexibility in controlling their bandwidth requirements. •
Perry J. Miller, President and CEO, Richmond International Airport, Richmond
Perry Miller’s the man to know if you’re going places. A two-time graduate of Texas Southern University who is pursuing a doctorate in management from Walden University, Miller is the new president of Richmond International Airport, which offers nonstop flights from seven major airlines and served 4.27 million passengers in fiscal year 2019. He came from Mississippi, where he served as the interim CEO of the Jackson Municipal Airport but spent his formative years helping to manage the complex Houston Airport System. “What people don’t know is that running an airport is like running a small city,” says Miller. •
Dr. Andrew Mueller, President and CEO, Centra Health, Lynchburg
More than a half-million Virginians are served by the 70 locations of Lynchburg-based Centra Health. The regional nonprofit health system tapped a family physician, Dr. Andrew Mueller, as its new president and CEO this spring, citing his “health care leadership, deep industry knowledge and his primary care background.” Mueller graduated from medical school at the University of North Carolina and served as a flight surgeon in the Air Force. Before Centra, he led the largest market, in Greater Charlotte, of Novant Health. And he’s still seeing patients. •
Jeffrey Sadler , Housing and revitalization coordinator, Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp., Martinsville
As a housing planner, Jeffrey Sadler stresses quality of life, with dwelling options across age ranges and income levels. The certified economic developer, something of an expert on federal Opportunity Zones, fills a newly created position at the Martinsville-Henry EDC, funded by the housing-focused Harvest Foundation. Sadler was formerly in Richmond at the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development’s Community Revitalization Office. He’s also the principal and lead consultant for Complete Community Economies LLC, which concentrates on revitalization. •
Sarah Spangler, Vice president, customer success, xTuple, Norfolk
Sarah Spangler joined xTuple (pronounced X-TOOPLE) in May, helping restructure the enterprise resource planning company’s technical support, onboarding and implementation teams. What may surprise you is that she started out as a literature and writing teacher. “When I was teaching and doing coursework, I was always interested in technology,” Spangler says. “Messaging, tone, understanding your audience were all important.” She’s using those skills to work with customers, most of whom work in small and medium-size manufacturing companies. Workforce training also is an important part of Spangler’s job, because their customer service department needs workers with technical skills. •
Janice Underwood, Director of diversity, equity and inclusion, Commonwealth of Virginia, Richmond
Virginia hired its first diversity chief — apparently the first such state Cabinet-level position in the nation — in September. Gov. Ralph Northam tapped Janice Underwood, who served as diversity director for Old Dominion University, to root out inequities and improve diversity efforts throughout state government. Underwood arrived in the wake of Northam’s much-publicized blackface scandal. But she’s focused on issues that go far beyond that event last February, keeping in mind the “systemic, institutional, baked-in problems that we’ve had for the last 400 years,” Underwood says. She’s putting together a coalition of allies and is beginning to plan a series of regional meetings she calls “working town halls.” •