Petters says COO role marks 'next step in the maturation of' Huntington Ingalls

By Marjorie Censer / January 19, 2021 at 9:04 AM

Huntington Ingalls Industries created a new chief operating officer role to better bring together elements of the company's work, according to its chief executive.

Last month, HII announced it had named Chris Kastner, the contractor’s chief financial officer, COO, effective Feb. 12. In the new role, Kastner will “oversee the company’s three operating divisions and will work closely with the division presidents to drive execution on HII’s historic backlog,” the company said.

In an interview with Inside Defense last week, Mike Petters, HII’s CEO, said the company has typically been “very federated, pushing as many decisions as far away from the center of the company as we can.”

“What we’re seeing in our customers now is they’re looking for us to be able to bring different parts of our organization together to be able to solve their problems,” he added. “Our customers are actually looking at HII today as a bit more of an integrated whole than as a collection of a set of businesses.”

Petters said it’s now up to the company “to find ways to create that sort of collaboration in the business.”

“This, I think, is the next step in the maturation of HII,” he added.

210175