Linda Gooden

Linda Gooden holds a B.S. in Business Administration and an MBA from the University of Maryland — where she would later serve on the Board of Regents as chair — and a degree in Computer Technology from Youngstown State University.¹ She spent nearly 40 years in the aerospace and defense industry, the last decade of which produced one of the most significant growth stories in federal technology.¹

While managing a Social Security Administration IT contract at what was then Loral Federal Systems (later acquired by Lockheed Martin), Gooden identified a gap: the company was dramatically underserving the federal civilian IT market.² She persuaded senior leadership to establish Lockheed Martin Information Technology (LMIT) as a new business unit, and became its president.

$8 Million to $2.5 Billion

In ten years, LMIT grew from $8 million in annual revenue to $2.5 billion, with 11,000 employees operating across more than fifty locations in sixteen foreign countries.² The growth was not gradual; it was the result of systematic market development and aggressive pursuit of federal civilian agency contracts at a moment when U.S. government technology modernization was accelerating.

Gooden rose to Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin's Information Systems & Global Solutions (IS&GS), overseeing a division that generated approximately $10 billion in annual revenue and employed 40,000 people across 20 countries at its peak.²

Fortune, Boards, and Retirement

Fortune included Gooden on its list of the fifty most powerful women in business for three consecutive years.¹ She received honorary doctorates from the University of Maryland University College (2005), Morgan State University (2010), and Drexel University (2012).¹ She served on the boards of Automatic Data Processing, Home Depot, WGL Holdings, and General Motors.³

She retired from Lockheed Martin in 2013.¹ Three years later, in August 2016, Lockheed Martin divested IS&GS to Leidos Holdings for approximately $4.6 billion — a sale that confirmed the value of the division she had built.²

The Classification Problem

The curriculum classifies Gooden as a 'Developer' intrapreneur in one text and as an 'Innovator' using an 'Opportunistic' corporate model in another — both drawn from the same source material, both accurate at different stages of her career. The platform presents both classifications and names the contradiction, because the taxonomy problem is itself a teaching point: real careers do not fit cleanly into analytical frameworks.

The Intrapreneur's Bargain

Linda Gooden built LMIT from an $8 million contract to a $2.5 billion subsidiary — and none of it was hers. The corporate intrapreneur's structural constraint is that the value created by the intrapreneur accrues to the corporation, not to the builder. Gooden received salary, bonus, and career advancement for growing a division that Lockheed Martin eventually sold to Leidos for approximately $4.6 billion in 2016 — three years after her retirement. The $4.6 billion sale represents the monetized value of the division she built. She was not on the cap table.

A second constraint was the classification problem documented in this curriculum: Chapter 9 of Rogers' source text identifies Gooden as a 'Developer' intrapreneur — someone who creates a new business unit — while the Carson case study in the same curriculum identifies her model as 'Innovator' using an 'Opportunistic' approach. Both are documented in the same source material. The classification inconsistency matters because it affects which corporate behaviors enabled her success and which corporate frameworks she can be said to have navigated. The platform presents both and notes the contradiction.

Retired 2013; IS&GS Divested 2016

Linda Gooden retired from Lockheed Martin in 2013 as Executive Vice President of Information Systems & Global Solutions. At the time of her retirement, IS&GS generated approximately $10 billion in annual revenue and employed 40,000 people across 20 countries.

In August 2016, Lockheed Martin sold IS&GS to Leidos Holdings for approximately $4.6 billion. The division she built from a single government IT contract no longer exists within Lockheed Martin's corporate structure. Its trajectory is documented in numbers: $8 million at inception, $2.5 billion under LMIT, $10 billion at IS&GS, $4.6 billion exit valuation.

Gooden serves on corporate boards including Automatic Data Processing, Home Depot, and WGL Holdings. She has received honorary doctorates from the University of Maryland University College, Morgan State University, and Drexel University.