A CIRCUITOUS JOURNEY
Kenny Cushing says there has been no linear path to his current role as CEO of NetCentrics, the mission-critical enterprise IT and cybersecurity services provider that counts government agencies and private industries as its client base.
“I’ve really had multiple careers already,” explains Cushing, as a way of explaining. His first career started an as Air Force intelligence officer, following college at the US Air Force Academy. “I was an intelligence officer and served on active duty for 11 years, and got out in early 2007. I’d only known the military my whole life,” he says.
When he saw his transition out of the military on the horizon, a job as eventual CEO of a company was his goal: “I just wasn’t sure what the best way to do that was or where to start. And long story short, a friend of mine had told me about a management consulting company called McKinsey & Company,” he recalls.
After making it through McKinsey’s prodigious pipeline, Cushing was offered a role at his office on his home turf of Washington, D.C. He stayed with the company for three years before deciding the time was right for a ‘leap of faith’ towards a CEO role.
“I knew I could do it one of two ways,” he says. “I could jump onto the corporate ladder of some other company or start my own. I have a very high-risk tolerance level. And, I’m fairly entrepreneurial. So, I decided to take the second option and start my first company.”
As a disabled veteran, Cushing was able to get a Service Disability rating which enabled him to start a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business. He stuck with this work for a few years, marking his first foray into running a small business. From there, he took an opportunity to lead a Silicon Valley-based e-commerce startup called Pivvit. He spent another three years there, building out the company and the platform itself.
‘And then another opportunity popped up for me to come back into government service, as CTO at the National Reconnaissance Office’s Mission Operations Directorate within the intelligence community. I did that for about three years, left that role and transitioned back into corporate to become the chief marketing officer and head of new cyber products for General Dynamics Mission Systems,” he recounts. “I left that role, then took on the role of Senior Vice President for a large government contractor called Avantus, leading their defense business.”
Then finally, in October of 2021, he took over as CEO of NetCentrics. (All this while also continuing to serve as a Colonel in both the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserves. In his current military role, he is the senior military officer assigned to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency [CISA] at DHS.)
“What really sold me on NetCentrics was the fact that it’s this 25-year company with great bones that’s done great things across information technology and cybersecurity for the federal government. And, they were at a point in their journey where they really needed a leader who had a level of hope, a solid vision, and enough energy to stimulate the whole organization with an idea to continue to grow this company,” Cushing tells us.
He came in with a communication plan and a strategy to stem the tide of fear or uncertainty that may happen when a new CEO steps in. By the end of the first few months, he says he felt tremendous support from across the organization.
RECRUITING FOR CLASSIFIED WORK
Despite not being able to discuss the specific nature of much of the work that NetCentrics does, Cushing says prospective talent are asked more generally about the functions being performed.
“Sometimes you have to try to narrow that down to ask, ‘What is it that you really do?’, but in the end the way we attract talent will come down to people recognizing that we try very, very hard to be the best people-focused company we can be,” he says. “Recruiting is definitely an art, not a science.”
So, what are the core values, then, that NetCentrics look for in a new employee? Cushing says the culture is palpable in some ways, and in other ways is simply what he calls “genetic.”
“You just feel it but you don’t know why exactly it is,” he explains. “I’ve been articulating in the first few months that I’ve been here that we need to think differently about talent acquisition, and how we find those cultural fits.”
The three things Cushing looks for in a cultural fit?
- Teammates who are smart and intellectually curious.
- Teammates who are comfortable with ambiguity and good problem solvers.
- Teammates who are motivated.
“It comes down to a gut feeling. We don’t have one person recruit and hire, we have multiple people involved in the process, so that we can all triangulate,” he elaborates.
A NEW MISSION IN 2022
NetCentrics faced the same challenges that most companies did over the last few years, including going fully remote, managing to stay connected, and keeping employees motivated. With or without perhaps the final answers on some of these New Normal questions, Cushing is facing 2022 with a bold, new vision – a “crystal-clear three words” – which boils down to “secure our nation.”
“We have a new mission to be able to bring the absolute best technology solutions and services to our customers in a highly collaborative way. We have new core values. We have essentially a new cultural foundation that’s being built based on this idea,” Cushing tells us.
The NetCentrics core values are:
- Mission First – The company focuses intensely on their customers’ missions, delivering the absolute best of outcomes every day.
- People Always – NetCentrics will always develop, coach, mentor, and grow their people throughout their careers.
- Be Eminent – The company works hard to uphold and promote its personal and corporate reputation for excellence.
- Embrace the Team – NetCentrics is a highly collaborative team, embracing diversity of thought and experiences and maintaining accountability to each other.
- Act with Purpose – NetCentrics team are inspired by their customer’s challenges and seek to resolve their issues by remaining flexible, agile, and proactive.
“We are expanding our capability sets in terms of how we build out technology solutions, how we deliver services, how we bring those two together, and how to be able to provide both of those to our customer. The transformation will be in full execution during ’22.”
As far as upcoming challenges that NetCentrics anticipates facing head on, there are three that Cushing points out:
- Helping the federal government transition fully to the cloud, a problem that the government has been struggling with without disrupting the larger mission.
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, which Cushing calls a burgeoning area. (“How can AI/ML capabilities be grown and applied to problems that the customers need solved?” Cushing asks. “And how do we do that in an ethical way?”)
- NetCentrics also will invest in people…smart, problem-solvers who can create innovative and affordable approaches and products/solutions for our national security partners.
“I want a company where the CEO, senior vice presidents, managers, engineers, analysts, and technicians know that we are all one team,” Cushing says of his idea for the right kind of company to work for, one like NetCentrics: “Anybody can text or call me at any time, day or night, and they’ll know that they have my ear and will get a response. And, I expect that of every leader in my organization, as well. We are all teammates, you’re not my employee, I’m not your employer. I’m not even your supervisor. What we are is teammates, and we are all accessible, and approachable. I always looked for that. And, that is NetCentrics to the core.”
