Kari Wilkinson

Kari Wilkinson is executive vice president of Huntington Ingalls Industries and president of Ingalls Shipbuilding. Named to this position in April 2021, she is responsible for all programs and operations at Ingalls, including the U.S. Navy’s amphibious assault and surface combatant ship programs and the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter program.

Wilkinson most recently served as the vice president of Program Management at Ingalls where she had profit and loss responsibility for all elements of program execution and served as the principal liaison to the Navy and Coast Guard for all platforms in the Ingalls portfolio.

Wilkinson began her career with Ingalls as an associate naval architect in 1996. Since then, she has supported major shipbuilding production events and milestones from positions in Engineering, has worked closely with Business Development on requirements and preliminary ship designs for both domestic and international customers, and also coordinated the prioritization of equipment and processes in Operations during the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort. In 2007, she moved into the Program Office as a ship program manager within the San Antonio-class LPD program.

Originally from Jenison, Michigan, Wilkinson earned a bachelor of science in naval architecture and marine engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from Temple University.

Huntington Ingalls Industries is America’s largest military shipbuilding company and a provider of professional services to partners in government and industry. For more than a century, HII’s Newport News and Ingalls shipbuilding divisions in Virginia and Mississippi have built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder. HII’s Technical Solutions division supports national security missions around the globe with unmanned systems, defense and federal solutions, and nuclear and environmental services. Headquartered in Newport News, Virginia, HII employs more than 42,000 people operating both domestically and internationally.