Richard Addi

President and CEO Exostar

Last Reviewed: September 26, 2026

Executive Summary

Richard Addi is President and CEO of Exostar, the Herndon, Virginia company whose platform lets heavily regulated industries share sensitive information with suppliers and partners and prove compliance while doing it. It serves aerospace and defense, life sciences and healthcare. He is a finance executive by training. He joined Exostar as chief financial officer in 2007, became CEO in 2011, and has since run it under two private equity owners: Thoma Bravo, which bought the company in 2020, and Arlington Capital Partners, which bought it from Thoma Bravo in 2023. In 2026 Exostar renewed a contractual relationship with Lockheed Martin that has lasted more than two decades.

Career Highlights

• Joined Exostar in early 2007 as Chief Financial Officer and became Chief Executive Officer in 2011.
• Led the company through Thoma Bravo’s acquisition, completed in July 2020, and Arlington Capital Partners’ purchase from Thoma Bravo, completed in November 2023.
• Under his leadership Exostar passed one million active platform users in October 2024 and acquired Robot Morning and ComplyUp in December 2024.
• In April 2026 Exostar won a new five-year contract from Lockheed Martin covering supplier, risk and compliance management for a community of nearly 20,000 suppliers.
• Previously Vice President of Finance at Data Systems & Solutions and Director of Tax at Rolls-Royce North America.
• Sits on the Aerospace Industries Association Board of Governors and the board of the National Defense Industrial Association’s Washington, D.C. chapter.

Professional Journey

Addi began his career at an international public accounting firm in Washington, D.C., and then moved into industry at Atlantic Research Corporation, a subsidiary of Sequa. He went on to Rolls-Royce North America and held a series of roles there, ending as Director of Tax. In that job he managed the design and implementation of corporate restructurings, cross-border financing, mergers and acquisitions, and economic development. He also led the design of the company’s “Building Financial Acumen” programme with the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He then became Vice President of Finance and a member of the executive management team at Data Systems & Solutions, an asset management and predictive maintenance business serving the nuclear, aerospace and defense, and energy markets. It was a joint venture between SAIC and Rolls-Royce when he joined.

He joined Exostar’s management team in early 2007 as chief financial officer and became chief executive in 2011. Exostar’s platform brings large manufacturers and their supply chains into managed communities. It handles identity proofing and credentials for supplier users, secure access to applications, supplier onboarding and risk management, and help with regulatory regimes such as the Defense Department’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. Life sciences companies use the same identity infrastructure to speed clinical trial start-up.

In June 2020 Thoma Bravo agreed to acquire the company, and the deal closed that July. Addi called it “the logical next step in our company’s evolution”. Three years later, in September 2023, Arlington Capital Partners, a Washington, D.C. private equity firm whose focus on regulated industries Addi cited as a reason for the deal, agreed to buy Exostar from Thoma Bravo, and that deal closed in November 2023. Thoma Bravo’s Carl Press said that under Addi’s leadership the company had transformed its commercial capabilities, expanded its product offering and grown both revenue and earnings.

Under Arlington’s ownership Exostar has expanded by acquisition and grown its user base. It announced more than one million active users in October 2024, and that December it acquired Robot Morning, which supports collaboration between manufacturers and suppliers to improve on-time delivery, and ComplyUp, which helps suppliers prepare for CMMC audits. In 2026 Addi promoted Amy Hogan to be the company’s first chief information officer, and in April Exostar announced a new five-year contract with Lockheed Martin, extending a relationship that he said had run “for nearly a quarter century”.

Outside the company he serves on the Aerospace Industries Association Board of Governors and the board of the National Defense Industrial Association’s Washington, D.C. chapter.

Education

Marymount University

Undergraduate degree, Accounting

The George Washington University

Master of Tax

He is also a Certified Public Accountant, according to his Exostar biography.