The Plan: Raytheon’s Tom Kennedy Is Growing A Global Technology Leader (From Forbes)

Raytheon Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Dr. Thomas A. Kennedy is just like the company where he has spent much of his adult life: focused.  And what he’s focused on right now is how to make the nation’s third-biggest defense contractor the global leader in its addressable technology markets, which include electronic sensing, countermeasures, missiles, digital communications and cyber security.  Raytheon already was the leader in some of these areas, but Kennedy is pressing his team to grow company franchises despite the recent downturn in Pentagon demand.  That means taking market share among military customers by leveraging technological “discriminators,” switching from a regional to a country-by-country focus in foreign military sales, and monetizing hard-win cyber skills in global commercial markets.  All of this unfolds under the banner of “One Raytheon” — a unified corporate team — and with a firm awareness that investors must be rewarded for their faith in Raytheon’s strategy.  I have written a commentary for Forbes here.