Toni Townes-Whitley says don't celebrate that she is one of two Black female Fortune 500 CEOs

Toni Townes-Whitley is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

To those close to her, Toni Townes-Whitley is a moviegoer, book lover, screenplay writer and an expert in “off the beaten path” travel. 

To the world, she’s the CEO of a $7 billion technology company called SAIC that provides engineering, digital and artificial intelligence solutions for national defense and space agencies, like the Army, Navy and Space Force, as well as civilian agencies across the federal government. 

Before that, she was president of U.S. regulated industries at Microsoft where she launched new initiatives that addressed the company’s carbon footprint, ethics framework for AI and support for women seeking corporate board roles. 

In other words, Townes-Whitley is a fighter. 

Tech has always been and continues to be a male-dominated industry, pushing women, especially women of color, to the sidelines.

In fact, Townes-Whitley is one of just two Black women currently running a Fortune 500 company – an accomplishment that she urges you not to celebrate. 

“I feel the pressure every day to perform and speak to the fact that it's not a bold move to have me in this role, that I've earned the role,” Townes-Whitley told USA TODAY. “But I want to move beyond how surprising it is. Let’s get to a place where this is part of the DNA, and the excitement is that I'm a CEO, not just that I'm a Black, female CEO – that's what the future looks like.

“If there is a young lady out there who looks like me and says, "I'm not sure if there's ever a role for me there, now she knows that there is.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

 Who paved the way for you?

I'm the daughter of a mother warrior. When I eulogized her a couple of years ago, it was right before some of the movies came out that discussed the Dahomey Warriors: the first set of women warriors in Africa. My mom was absolutely one of them — a mother warrior, a family warrior, a civil rights warrior, a prayer warrior. And so in many ways, I feel like she and my dad set a standard. It's a very strong family with a very deep legacy.

Beyond that, I look at some leaders that have affected me over time, some I had the chance to meet like former President Bill Clinton. He taught me four words that changed the way I thought about myself as a leader: Think big, be big. 

I also think of Nelson Mandela. I am still absolutely intrigued and blown away by what he was able to accomplish in South Africa.

Do you feel like you're paving the way for others?

I've always felt representatively responsible. Whether it was appropriate or not, in our family, you knew you represented people of color and women, groups that didn't have an opportunity. There was an expectation not just of giving back, but of pushing forward and setting a new bar.

I want to be more representative of the ability to be authentic every day, showing up, bringing all of you to the table and teaching people how to treat you. I want to be an example of leading with openness and curiosity, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, which I think will go a long way, quite frankly, in diversity, equity and inclusion going forward.

What is your proudest moment?

As a mom, daughter, grandmom, CEO and employee, at every season of my career, there have been moments that I've been super proud of. I was proud to be a Peace Corps volunteer when I left Princeton. I learned so much about myself and the bias that I brought as an American to my amazing village and all the things I thought I was fixing that I realized maybe didn't need to be fixed.

At Microsoft there were some moments as well when we started to lean in on issues of climate, as well as diversity after George Floyd's murder. I was super proud of winning their first contract in the cloud space called JEDI. It catalyzed the company to understand that the technology we were building for commercial entities and consumers could be applied in the department of defense. 

But as I look back, no matter how exciting my professional moments – the stock price, the sale, the win, the team – I always go back to my children, my grandchildren, my husband, my family. I'm super proud of who we try to represent every day.

What do women leaders need to thrive in the tech industry?

We talk a lot in the industry about the opportunity to use tech for blind hiring to almost level the playing field. If we did that universally, you would find much more diversity. We also talk about things like the glass cliff instead of a glass ceiling, which is when women in tech step into very senior positions in companies that are in the middle of a turnaround or on some sort of downward cycle.

While it’s important to know how to turn a company around, women also need to have other opportunities to have what I call momentum growth – help supercharge a company that's growing but not growing fast enough – or white space opportunities, where you get to build a company from the beginning. 

What advice would you give your younger self?

Younger Toni was not as decisive. She spent a lot of time rethinking and relitigating her decisions. Younger Toni was so concerned about making a poor decision that she didn't realize that a nondecision is in fact a decision. 

When you're in a situation where you're the only person who looks like you in the room, you're hyper-conscious of the effect of your decisions. If it's not right, it's not just me who will be critiqued. Maybe others who look like me will be critiqued. I carried that pretty heavily early in my career and I was slower in my decision-making, and it cost me certain opportunities in business. 

What is your definition of courage?

I think of courage as an adverb instead of a noun. I think about it in action, in motion. It takes courage when you show up authentically; it takes courage to acknowledge a mistake; and it takes courage to support people when it's going to cost you personally or professionally. 

Every time you do something courageous, you build that muscle. And so over time it's not really courage, it's just who you are.

Is there a mantra you tell yourself every day?

As a woman of faith in a Christian family, a Bible verse from the Book of Luke has been prayed over me since I was a child: “To whom much is given, much is required." When you've been more equipped, the idea is you're not equipped, as that's not the end. You're being equipped to address issues and help people around you. 

I do that by focusing on the balance of grit and grace in what I do every day. I get up and I think, you've got to push and you've got to be willing to get your hands right into the midst of it with your company, your team, your family. Grace balances that grit and says, "How do you extend that safety net to people around you? Where do you extend grace to yourself when you've made a mistake? How do you get beyond perfectionism?" 

How do you overcome adversity? 

I tease my team sometimes that I don't show up one day as a female and one day as an African American. I'm a Black female every day. So I have seen adversity all my life. I've experienced bias. I've had awful words said to me. I've been segregated or integrated in different ways. But now I focus first on the root cause. Do I understand why this is happening? Then I look beyond myself, and think, “Am I really the first person to deal with this?” It allows me to bring down the heat of the situation to acknowledge that everyone has had some form of adversity. 

Then there’s the question of intent. If I know it was not someone’s intent to say a certain thing or behave a certain way, then I look for reconciliation and practice setting boundaries so I don’t put myself back in a situation that may be negative or destructive.