Promoted to head Boeing’s $29.5-billion-in-revenue Defense, Space & Security division in 2016, Caret is following the same path as the airplane maker’s current CEO, Dennis Muilenburg. Though her unit’s revenue has shrunk—in part because of a slowdown in big-ticket orders from its largest customer, the U.S. Department of Defense—its operating profits grew 15% in the first half of 2017. The recent earnings boost has helped make Boeing the best-performing stock in the Dow Jones industrial average this year.