Leidos [LDOS] said on Wednesday that Chairman and CEO John Jumper has announced that he plans to retire as chief executive once the company has appointed his successor.
Leidos said its board has initiated a search for a new CEO and will evaluate both internal and external candidates, beginning a planned leadership transition over the next few months. Jumper will remain as the company’s chairman.
Jumper became chairman and CEO of SAIC in 2012 and led the company through its separation into Leidos and the new SAIC [SAIC] in September 2013.
“John provided the strong leadership that SAIC, and now Leidos, needed during the transition from one world-class company to two,” Lawrence Nussdorf, lead directors of Leidos’ board, said in a statement. “We look forward to his continued service on our board of directors and his assistance in an orderly transition to a new CEO, as we implement the strategy being developed by the management team and the board of directors.”
Jumper, a former Air Force chief of staff, joined SAIC’s board in 2007.
One likely internal candidate is Stuart Shea, the president and chief operating officer (COO) of Leidos and a key architect of the separation of Leidos and the new SAIC from the old SAIC. Shortly after Jumper became CEO of SAIC in 2012, Shea was appointed COO after serving as president of the company’s ISR Group.
Shea joined SAIC in 2005 after service as vice president for Space and Intelligence in the
TASC business unit of Northrop Grumman [NOC].
Another Leidos executive with significant experience running operations within a defense company is Lou Von Thaer, who joined the company last year as president of its National Security Sector, which is reponsible for ISR, cyber and systems solutions. Von Thaer joined Leidos from General Dynamics [GD], where he was president of its Advanced Information Systems division.