Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Board of Directors has elected Kari Wilkinson, Ingalls’ vice president, program management, to serve as executive vice president of HII and president of the Shipbuilding division, effective April 1. She will succeed Brian Cuccias, who will retire in April.
Wilkinson will report to HII executive vice president and chief operating officer Chris Kastner. “Kari is a respected leader with an impressive 25-year record of success managing programs and overseeing major shipbuilding initiatives at Ingalls,” Kastner said.
Throughout her career, Wilkinson has supported shipbuilding production. She has also worked with business development efforts on requirements and preliminary ship designs, and coordinated the prioritization of equipment and processes in Operations during the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort.
In 2007, Wilkinson transitioned into Program Management, where she served as a ship program manager for the San Antonio-class LPD program. She became the vice president of program management in 2016.
In this current role, she has profit and loss responsibility for all elements of program execution and serves as the principal liaison to the Navy and Coast Guard for all platforms in the Ingalls portfolio.
“Her focus on operational excellence, exemplary leadership skills and ability to build effective customer relationships well positions her for this new role, and I look forward to working with her to continue the Ingalls Shipbuilding legacy of success,” Kastner added.
About Huntington Ingalls Industries
Huntington Ingalls Industries is America’s largest military shipbuilding company and a provider of professional services to partners in government and industry. For more than a century, HII’s Newport News and Ingalls shipbuilding divisions in Virginia and Mississippi have built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder.
HII’s Technical Solutions division supports national security missions around the globe with unmanned systems, defense and federal solutions, and nuclear and environmental services. Headquartered in Newport News, Virginia, HII employs more than 42,000 people operating both domestically and internationally.
