CNF’s Aaron Grace named 2025 C-Suite Award Recipient

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Aaron Grace has been named a recipient of the 2025 San Antonio Business Journal C-Suite Awards. The annual awards recognize top executives across industries who demonstrate exceptional leadership, strategic vision, and organizational impact throughout the San Antonio business community.

The 2025 honorees were recognized during the C-Suite Awards ceremony on Thursday, September 4, 2025,at the Embassy Suites by Hilton San Antonio Landmark.

Since joining CNF, Grace has played a pivotal role in the company’s rapid expansion, helping drive transformational growth while maintaining a workforce retention rate exceeding 90 percent. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Grace helped lead CNF’s transition toa remote-delivery operational model, enabling employees to continue supporting critical national security missions despite widespread facility closures. While many organizations faced layoffs or closures during that period, CNF continued hiring and growing.

As CNF’s first Chief Technology Officer, Grace established the company’s research and development laboratories and helped shape its long-term innovation strategy. He forged strategic academic partnerships, including CNF’s role as a founding partner of the National Security Collaboration Center at The University of Texas at San Antonio. His leadership also accelerated research into converged cyber-electromagnetic effects and industrial control systems cybersecurity —areas in which CNF has become an industry leader.

Grace additionally led CNF’s first Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) initiative with the Department of Defense, resulting in patented secure communications technology designed for contested environments. He also spearheaded the company’s early investments inartificial intelligence and machine learning technologies that continue to shape CNF’s business strategy today.

“Aaron has been a breath of calmness and steadiness during otherwise chaotic times,” said CNF’s CEO Freddy Ramirez. “He consistently looks beyond immediate challenges and maintains a solution-focused vision that has been instrumental in helping me grow as an executive and helping CNF continue to evolve as a company.”

Grace’s contributions have also supported the company’s expansion across the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, helping CNF secure more than $400 million in new contracts while creating jobs and contributing to the San Antonio economy.

“He’s created these effects  by being an upstanding man of integrity, service, humility, dignity, and  empathy. It is my great privilege to see that daily and its effects on our  clients and our company,” said CNF’s CSO Steve Barish.

CNF congratulates Aaron  Grace on this prestigious and well-deserved award!