Vice Adm. Nancy Norton

Vice. Adm. Norton leads an agency of more than 8,000 military and civilian personnel with a budget of more than $9 billion. The first female director of DISA, Norton has called for actively demanding and embracing diversity and leadership in others. “We really do need to not just be a diverse workforce but we need to demand that that diversity of opinion and diversity of perspective is actually listened to,” Norton said last year. “Having a diverse group of people in the room that aren’t enabled to actually say anything or contribute to the dialogue isn’t real diversity. We have to encourage them to speak up and talk about different kinds of perspectives, different choices than what you would necessarily have. That’s something we as leaders not just have to encourage but we also have to demand it.”