Kathy Warden

Company: Northrop GrummanTitle: Chair, President & CEOIndustry: Aerospace/defenseNotable in 2024: Warden focused on transformative technology to grow Northrop Grumman's order backlog to a record $91.5 billion. That growth was driven by demand for Northrop's stealth aircraft, uncrewed underwater vehicles and the James Webb Space Telescope.

For anyone who pays attention to the recent history of the defense sector, it's been clear that women are a dominant force in the relationship between the military and industry. The majority of top U.S. defense contractors have been run by women CEOs at some point recently, including the top posts at Lockheed Martin, Boeing's defense division, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, where Kathy Warden remains one of the most important chief executives in a sector critical to domestic and global security, leading roughly 100,000 employees and generating over $40 billion in revenue.

Warden, who first became CEO at Northrop Grumman in 2019, earned her success every step of the way. She was president and chief operating officer before being selected as CEO, overseeing all four of the company's main sectors' operations and led the integration of key aerospace acquisition Orbital ATK. Previous to that, she held posts at defense rival General Dynamics and conglomerate GE.

As Warden recounted in a video interview with a fellow top woman CEO, Kristin Peck at Zoetis, she grew up in a small town where "not much was expected from a small-town girl." But that only led her to see even more opportunity to take risks, "the freedom to try things," she said, including becoming the first woman in her family to go to college.

Warden earned a bachelor's degree from James Madison University, and told her alma mater that the defining moment in her professional life came with 9/11, which occurred in the same year she lost her father and first became a mother.

"I wanted to create a world that was a safer place for my son to grow up in," Warden said in an interview for a JMU publication. "That is what made me make a professional change but also for the past 17 years, is what kept me in this industry because I feel like I'm doing something to contribute … to impact the world in some small way."

At the time, she was working for a technology company but was approached with the opportunity to work with the intelligence community. "I was eager to do anything I could to bring safety and security to the American people. So, I said yes, and never turned back," she said in an interview for CNBC Changemakers.

Today, Warden finds herself at the center of a major transformation of the defense industry, with technological advancement, as she told Peck, moving "faster and faster."

The government and Northrop Grumman recently completed testing of the company's large autonomous, payload-capable underwater drone. Northrop Grumman played a key role in a development that has changed our understanding of the universe, working with NASA on the James Webb telescope, the most complicated telescope ever sent into space.

At the same time, Warden is cognizant of a Department of Defense planning budget cuts and new priorities, and new threats from Silicon Valley-funded defense tech firms.

She recently told analysts one thing has not changed: "strong bipartisan support for national security and global defense budgets are growing as our allies seek to counter aggression, from increasingly sophisticated threats."

The company recently reported a record business backlog of $91.5 billion.

And she is prepared for the competition. "The defense landscape is continuing to grow, both domestically and internationally. We are advancing into new technology areas, and I think there's room for all of us to work together to provide the U.S. and our allies what they need."

As one of the limited number of female CEOs in the Fortune 500 at a time of significant change in her industry, Warden takes the leadership responsibility to heart, serving on a variety of boards, including Merck, the Greater Washington Partnership, and board chair for Catalyst, the organization devoted for decades to women's success in the workplace.

"Dynamic times call for dynamic leaders with the ability to connect with, support and empower people," she told CNBC in an interview for Changemakers.