Toni Townes-Whitley didn’t follow a step-by-step blueprint to reach the top of the defense industry. The SAIC CEO’s path was non-linear, stretching horizontally and vertically before reaching the top of the $7.5 billion defense tech giant.

Speaking at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit last week, Townes-Whitley said that she made “about three or four key turns” in her career before becoming the second Black female CEO currently in the Fortune 500.

One of those turns occurred right after she graduated from Princeton. She chose the Peace Corp in Gabon over a full-ride for an MBA. As part of the civilian volunteer program, she helped build 37 schools and taught public health to 820 students over three years.

Her time in the Peace Corp, which many thought would set her back, was a “leapfrogging” moment in that it eschewed the traditional ladder and gave her different life experiences. “[L]eapfrogging is one of my core values, one of my 10 that I’ve used for about 20 years,” she said.

After the Peace Corps, she began her white-collar career as a management consultant at the accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Another unexpected turn came when the company collapsed amid the Enron scandal in the early 2000s. She joked that she “might have sold the last contract” before leaving.

Combining leapfrogging with the spirit of service—she’s the daughter of a three-star general—Townes-Whitley now runs SAIC and is at the “intersection” of commercial technology and complex mission environments.

The shift to tech and a vertical leap

After Arthur Anderson folded, Townes-Whitley charted a new course by joining Unisys, a server infrastructure company, which catapulted her into the tech world.

Trained as an economist, she soon realized that her love for modeling and regression analysis translated perfectly into technology—a field she once thought was a mismatch for her skills.

“Some of you who don’t have language or taxonomy for what you’re doing, you think there’s no place for that in the new world order that you’re stepping into,” she said. “There’s always bridging and transition.”

Townes-Whitley eventually joined Microsoft in 2015; there she led the company’s global public sector, which broadened her understanding of how technology can power civic and government transformation. During her time at Microsoft, she traveled to more than 140 countries.

After leaving Microsoft, Townes-Whitley sat on several corporate boards, including Nasdaq. But she realized she still had “fuel in the tank” to lead.

In 2023, she accepted the role of CEO at SAIC, a $7.5 billion defense technology firm where one-third of employees are veterans. The move brought her career full circle, back to her family’s military roots and her lifelong commitment to service.

“It’s amazing, as women leaders and executives, how little we believe about how good we are,” she said. “It’s not about the glass ceilings—it’s the sticky floors. Check your sticky floors.”

Top defense CEO says non-linear paths can take you to the top: ‘Leapfrogging is one of my core values’