Speakers

Dr. Victor Aguero, a co-Founder of Cambrian Works is now serving as CEO and CTO. Cambrian Works is a startup focused on developing the commercial potential in space through the establishment of key space infrastructure.  Cambrian Works is currently supported through a combination of Space Systems Command, Space Development Agency, and National Science foundation funding, as well as initial commercial sales of space networking products.

Until mid-2020, Dr. Aguero served as a Senior Principal Research Engineer at SRI International, where for nearly 23 years he worked as a space technology developer and architect. His primary areas of interest had been space systems and advanced technology related to small satellites, satellite constellations, and enabling novel space missions. Dr. Aguero founded the small satellite program at SRI supporting the DoD/IC community by focusing on technology innovations, developments, and mission concepts during the mid-2000s through 2020. While at SRI, Dr. Aguero’s work led to eight patents, over 15 publications in refereed journals, and participation in over 13 on-orbit missions. His most recent work focused on communications and networking architectures for LEO constellations and clusters, and applications of robotic space systems.  The Cambrian Works team is now applying associated developments to commercial space.

Prior to joining SRI, Dr. Aguero worked two Space Shuttle missions carrying out research and engineering for the NASA Tethered Satellite System (TSS-1, 1992), its re-flight (TSS-1R, 1996) and associated payloads. During his graduate student years, Dr. Aguero also helped found and lead the Stanford University Small Satellite Program through the late-1980s to early 1990s. Dr. Aguero holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and a B.S. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Raghavan is a Principal in Deloitte’s Telecom, Media and Technology industry practice. He has more than 16 years of experience in telecom and satellite communication industries.

Raghavan one of the leaders in Deloitte commercial space practice across industries, and with a significant focus on Technology and Telecom sectors. He is an expert and thought leader with respect to full lifecycle operations and ecosystems, as a Service and emerging business models, mergers & acquisition, and end to end customer experience.

Raghavan specializes in Strategy Planning, Growth, Commercial Due-diligence, Cost Optimization, Business Case Modeling, Process Transformation, Business Process Design, Change Management and Technology strategy. Raghavan has a deep understanding of carrier economics, having advised U.S., European and Asian providers on their market entry and growth strategies, and led projects in cost reduction and re-engineering of telecommunications and satellite communication carriers.

Raghavan graduated in Information Science from Bangalore University and subsequently earned a Master of Science from University of Edinburgh, UK. and MBA from the Indian School of Business, India. He is also an avid traveler, sports enthusiast and lives in Austin, with his wife and two boys.

Eric Anderson is President of And One Technologies and a startup investor, advisor and mentor in aerospace, IoT, mobility and medical systems. He has contributed to dozens of space products, missions, and programs. Eric currently supports technology and business aspects of several satellite and space activities. He emphasizes delivery of data and services via new technologies, channels, and business models including government access and use of emerging commercial space products and services.

As Chief Technologist for Space at Moog, he helped lead the company’s space business and collaborated with worldwide colleagues on business strategy, technology and innovation across multiple markets. Eric was part of the leadership team at the nationally-recognized small company CSA Engineering, serving several years as President.

He was on the technical staff at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, worked at Sikorsky Aircraft, served eight years as a city Planning Commissioner and is on the board of the Kenya-based education non-profit The Kilgoris Project. Eric earned BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT.

Joe Anderson is the Vice President, Space Logistics for Northrop Grumman company.

In this role, Anderson is responsible for managing the technical, operational, licensing and insurance aspects of SpaceLogistics’ satellite-servicing fleet, and business development for commercial and government satellite servicing customers.

Anderson has been with SpaceLogistics nearly ten years. Previous to his current position, he served as chief engineer and director of mission extension vehicle services.

Prior to joining SpaceLogistics, Anderson spent 20 years at Intelsat where he served in a variety of technical, managerial, strategy and business development roles.

Anderson possesses more than 30 years of satellite industry experience including control system design for launch vehicles, telecommunications satellites, the Space Station Freedom, and satellite operations from more than 25 launch missions.

Anderson holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Minnesota, a master’s in engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from George Washington University.

Amolak Badesha has been building deep-tech products and businesses for over twenty years in silicon valley. His career spans building and leading teams in R&D, Strategy / M&A, Marketing, Sales and Operations, and managing >$0.5B business. He co-founded Orbital Composites, an advanced manufacturing company, to build robotic Gigafactories for composites, on earth and in space. As a CEO, he is focused on building next-generation composite Gigafactories and developing deep customer relationships in the Space, Defense and Energy sectors. Besides Orbital, Amolak is active in deep-tech angel investing as a member of Sand Hill Angels, and advisor to Silicon Catalyst, a high-tech accelerator for silicon startups.

Mr. Baugh serves as the President and Founder of Northern Sky Research (NSR), which he created in 2000 to provide independent, actionable market research and consulting services to the satellite industry. Mr. Baugh directs all NSR multi-client research reports and single-client consulting projects and manages a global team of analysts that stand at the forefront of satellite industry expertise.

Before forming NSR, Mr. Baugh served as Senior Analyst for Pioneer Consulting where he covered all aspects of the satellite market. Prior to Pioneer, Mr. Baugh was an International Trade Specialist and Economist for the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, DC. While at the Department of Commerce, Mr. Baugh was a recipient of the Charles F. Meissner Memorial Award for his work on trade negotiations in the International Trade Administration.

Mr. Baugh also has extensive legislative and analytical experience from his work for the Committee on International Relations and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, both in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Baugh holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Westminster College and a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from The George Washington University.

Dr. Bryan Benedict serves as Senior Director of Innovation and Satellite Programs at SES Space & Defense. During his career he has worked extensively within both the DoD and US Civil Agencies to socialize the advantages of hosting imaging payloads on commercial spacecraft.  Additionally, Dr. Benedict has been a key advocate in the commercial industry for the use of space robotics for both recovery and life extension of geosynchronous satellites.

Prior to his current position Dr. Benedict served as the Product Line Manager for Commercial and Civil Hosted Payloads at Intelsat General Corporation, Director of Hosted Payloads at Intelsat, Director of Engineering for Satellite Bus & Launch Service Acquisitions at PanAmSat and was a System Engineering Manager at Hughes for the BSS601HP product line.

Dr. Benedict started his career as a chemical engineer in the petroleum industry – inventing and patenting several catalysts still used for stabilization of jet fuels.  Dr. Benedict earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1986, where he conducted research on the stabilization of high energy materials within crystalline lattices.

Dr. Benedict has been awarded a number of patents throughout his career – the latest for delivery of microsatellites to orbit piggybacking on the nadir deck of geosynchronous communication satellites.

Alan Campbell is a Principal Space Products Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS). His focus is on empowering customers with innovative new Cloud-based scalable solutions for the Aerospace & Satellite segment. Alan specializes in Data Analytics / ML enabling key insights in Satellite Communications, Earth Observation, and IoT platforms.

Prior to joining AWS, Alan directed the Panasonic Avionics Satellite Engineering team, delivering premium QoE to Inflight passengers. He led a major Cloud & Data migration of 100+ applications resulting in cost savings and SLA improvements.

Alan’s experience ranges from a Fellowship award at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to authoring a book on Embedded Systems at Texas Instruments. He holds multiple Cloud certifications, satellite credentials and patents.

Gabrielle Carlisle is vice president of Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Logistics at Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing Company. Millennium Space Systems delivers high-performing prototype and constellation solutions across advanced national security and environmental observation missions. Founded in 2001, the company’s small satellite missions support government, civil and commercial space customers’ needs across orbits.

In this role, Ms. Carlisle is responsible for operational execution, with ownership of production technician teams, manufacturing and test engineering, material planning, procurement, shipping and receiving, inventory and data analytics. Previously, she held a variety of roles of increasing responsibility at SpaceX. Most recently, she led SpaceX’s Avionics Production organization, responsible for production, quality and manufacturing engineering in support of Falcon and Dragon launch vehicles. Prior to the aerospace industry, she was an analyst with Morgan Stanley.

Ms. Carlisle earned her bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in chemistry from Duke University.

Phil Carrai is President of the Space, Training and Cybersecurity division of Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, Inc, where he is responsible for all aspects of business operations, sales, mergers and acquisitions. Kratos Defense is an approximately $650 million public company focusing in Aerospace and Defense products and services. 

Don Claussen is chief executive officer of ST Engineering iDirect, a global leader in satellite communications (satcom).

Prior to joining ST Engineering iDirect, Claussen was a Vice President at Intelsat General Corporation responsible for strategy, business development, product management and service delivery. During his tenure at Intelsat General Corporation, he aligned the Product Development and Service Delivery teams to launch a Multi-Orbit SATCOM capability providing end users seamless access to GEO and LEO SATCOM services from a single user interface.

With over 15 years of technology leadership positions, Claussen served as a general manager of portfolio businesses at Viasat and L3Harris Technologies where he successfully led business growth, organizational change, and business integration. He also has held technical positions in various technology companies and has designed and deployed SATCOM systems for commercial and government customers.

A veteran of the U.S. Army with eight years of active service, Claussen holds an MBA from Northeastern University and a Bachelor of Science Degree from Colorado Technical University in Business Administration & Management, and has attended Executive Leadership Courses at the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Ioana Cozmuta is the managing partner of Gravity Free Consulting and CEO of G-Space Inc, two small, women-owned businesses. These two portfolio companies are a reflection of Dr. Cozmuta’s driving passions: (1) to discover new revenue opportunities at the intersection of Space and Earth Technologies and to help accelerate the time to market AND (2) to develop, design and optimize advanced and new materials by liberating the potential design space from the limiting effects of gravity.

Dr. Cozmuta’s work at the confluence of Space and Earth is based on a nineteen years career in academia, at NASA and in the start-up world uniquely combining expertise in physics, computational chemistry and materials research; data science and space technology with business and entrepreneurship. From her early work in nanotechnology research to engineering projects for missions such as Hypersonics, Stardust, Mars Science Laboratory, Orion or the International Space Station, dr Cozmuta has built a legacy on transforming the status quo, opening new avenues for innovation and devoting her energy, enthusiasm and collaborative spirit to advance the new space entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Dr. Cozmuta holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands and post-doctoral specializations in computational chemistry and material design from the California Institute of Technology respectively Genomics and Biotechnology from Stanford University.

Carol Craig, founder and CEO of Sidus Space, has a pioneering history – the first female founder and owner of a space-based company to go public (NASDAQ: SIDU), one of the first women eligible to fly in combat aircraft in the U.S. Navy as a Naval Flight Officer, one of the first female Naval aviators to complete Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School at CENSECFOR Detachment SERE West, and the first female aviator in her P-3 Orion squadron. She and her companies play a part in many major space projects including hardware implementation on the International Space Station and manufacturing support roles for the NASA Artemis I mission.

Craig sets aside a significant amount of time to give back through mentorship, volunteerism, and committing to the strong company culture of “Sidus Serves.” Over the past 12 years, Craig has held positions on 30+ boards and locally has been part of the Space Coast Junior Achievement (JA) since 2008.

After leading software research and development for over two decades, Jimi is the founder & CTO of Orbital Insight. Orbital Insight helps business and policy decision-makers understand economic and societal trends through geospatial analytics. His corporate focus is to develop artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision, creating a new source of market data for diverse industries.

Before a successful $1B Monsanto acquisition, Jimi was the SVP of Science and Engineering at the Climate Corporation. Prior to that, he was CTO and Software Architect at Moon Express whose goal was putting the first commercial robot on the moon. As the Engineering Director for Google Book Search, he was in charge of Google’s project to scan, index, and make searchable all the world’s books. As EVP of Engineering at Composite Software, he led product development around data visualization.

At Nasa Ames Research Center, Jimi led Autonomy and Robotics projects and authored over 15 peer-reviewed publications, resulting in five patents. Jimi earned his Ph.D. and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and BA in Math and Computer Science from Rice University.

He has a long-term interest in photography which led him, most recently, to eastern Idaho to photograph the August total eclipse.

Erik Daehler is the Vice President of Orbital Systems and Services for the Sierra Space Corporation.  In this capacity, he is responsible for the development, production and innovation of satellite products and services for the Applications Team at Sierra Space. He brings 23 years of aerospace and defense experience, with a broad background in program management, business development and product innovation.

Prior to joining Sierra Space, Mr. Daehler was Senior Director of the Protected Communications Mission Area in Lockheed Martin’s Military Space organization. He was responsible for the development of next-generation satellite communications (satcom) product offerings, technology solutions, satellite design and system architectures for the United States Space Force, US Navy and Space Development Agency. Prior to that role he was the Director of Product Innovation for Boeing, where he led development of new satellite platforms for Boeing Space, including the first of a kind 702SP all-electric, dual-stacked satellite and the 502 Phoenix remote sensing and servicing satellites.

Mr. Daehler has a background in physics and space systems engineering with applications in communication, space protection, re-entry vehicles and remote sensing. This mission experience shaped his strategies for new technology development at Boeing and Lockheed Martin.  Mr. Daehler led commercial business development and the protected communications mission at Lockheed Martin Space as well as research and development for Boeing’s unmanned satellite systems, worked as a chief system architect and systems engineering manager on large-scale satellite and network systems for commercial and government customers.

Mr. Daehler entered aerospace at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center in 2000 where he performed calibrations of space and aircraft-based earth observation systems.  In 2002, he transitioned to Boeing to develop next-generation space systems including the X-37B reusable space plane.  In 2016, Mr. Daehler returned to Lockheed Martin to grow the commercial and military communications and remote sensing businesses.

Mr. Daehler was educated in Europe at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands where he received his Master’s degree in Space Systems Engineering in 2006.  He also received a Bachelor of Arts in Physics from The Colorado College in 1998.

Alan DeClerck joined LeoLabs in 2016 as Vice President, Business Development and Strategy. In addition to growing the company’s customer base, Alan is tasked with marketing and strategic partnerships for LeoLabs.

Alan brings enterprise as well as startup experience in support of the LeoLabs mission, and a background in evangelizing and commercializing disruptive technologies in areas outside national jurisdiction. For nearly two decades at Sun Microsystems, he held numerous positions in sales, corporate development, business strategy and partner marketing. He led business development and marketing at FirstPerson, Sun’s Java startup in Palo Alto, CA in 1992, and drove key Asian and European partnerships as Director in Sun’s corporate development organization. He was subsequently appointed head of Sun’s international alliances organization, based out of Geneva, where he was responsible for partner sales activities across EMEA, Asia Pacific and Latin America. His other roles at Sun included Global Executive for the Sun/Oracle Business Unit.

Alan has since contributed to multiple successful IPO’s and startups. Between 1998 and 2000, he held executive positions in two early stage companies, as Vice President and General Manager of Beyond.com, and Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations for Skystream Networks. Alan also served as Executive Director, Ventures & Licensing at SRI International, and more recently, responsible for Data Services and Sales at Liquid Robotics. DeClerck holds a Master of Philosophy degree in International Relations from Oxford University, where he specialized in international law of the seas and strategic studies. He also earned an M.B.A. from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in International Relations.

Shane Fleming holds a Mechanical Engineering degree with multinational hands on technology development, scale-up and leadership experience through laboratory, pilot, demonstration and commercial scale. Shane is proficient in engineering design and operations and has led diverse technical teams and developed innovative solutions to complex processes in the field under high pressure dynamic environments to achieve client requirements and company milestones. Throughout his career, Shane has supported and managed numerous government and private investor funded, technology focused projects across agriculture, commercial products, energy, aviation, fuels and chemical sectors. Cost and performance are key to commercializing any startup technology. Shane has overseen and analyzed complex market economics while determined to improve product yield and efficiency. A well balanced, functional crew is crucial during early stage technology development. Shane has collaborated with recruiters to actively seek niche talent and build primed global operative teams and continues to mentor pre-grad students through an Engineering Leadership Program since University.

Mr. Slava Frayter is the Regional Vice President, North America for Gilat Satellite Networks.

Joining Gilat in November 2019, Mr. Frayter oversees Gilat’s business operations in the region. He is responsible for developing and executing the company’s growth strategy in North America, as well as cultivating opportunities across various market segments such as cellular backhaul, enterprise, mobility, and government.

Mr. Frayter has an extensive experience in satellite communications. Prior to Gilat, he had a decade-long tenure with Newtec, a Belgian-based satellite communication technology company, where he held several management and C-level positions. During his time there Slava was instrumental in developing market strategy and leading significant expansion in the regions.

Mr. Frayter holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Riga Technical University in Latvia and an MBA in International Business & Finance from the University of Connecticut (UCONN). He speaks English and Russian fluently.

As Vice President of Strategy at Omnispace, George Giagtzoglou is responsible for developing corporate strategy, market and competitive intelligence, and supporting strategic partner development initiatives for the company that is redefining mobile communications.

George brings more than 35 years of diverse technical and business experience to Omnispace, leading initiatives that have shaped the commercial satellite industry, and represent more than $28Bn in corporate development deals. Prior to Omnispace, George was the President of Alazo Consulting. In this role he delivered expert satellite industry insights to support strategic investments and acquisitions.

Previously, George was the head of Corporate Development at ABS Global with responsibilities including corporate development, corporate & regional strategy, business planning, market intelligence, satellite business case development, and financing.

Prior to ABS he was with Intelsat for 11 years as the head of Corporate Strategy & Planning and also led Corporate Development, Global Marketing, Product Strategy & Development, and Business Development.  Mr. Giagtzoglou was instrumental in various company sale processes in 2005 and 2008, and the acquisition of PanAmSat in 2006.  He played a key role in developing and commercializing the company’s capabilities, primarily in the area of broadband services.

Prior to joining Intelsat in 2000, Mr. Giagtzoglou’s career in the space and telecommunications industry included engagement leadership positions in the telecommunications practice of A.T. Kearney Management Consultants, and senior engineering and business management positions at Telstra (Australia).

Mr. Giagtzoglou has a master’s degree in Business Administration from The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), in addition to a degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the University of Adelaide in South Australia

Katherine is the Chief Executive Officer for River Advisers (formerly ManSat) which specializes in international spectrum regulation and market access. Before joining River Advisers, Katherine worked with U.S. defense contractors to bring commercial satellite and terrestrial communication technologies to austere environments in support of military, civil, and commercial initiatives.

Katherine serves as Chairwoman of Space & Satellite Professionals International (SSPI), mentors through the Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator and Space Generation Advisory Council, and supports the ITU’s Girls in ICT initiative.

A graduate of the International Space University’s Executive program, Katherine holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce from the University of Virginia.

Andrew Guenther is a Principal Software Engineer at San Francisco based hyperspectral satellite imaging and intelligence company, Orbital Sidekick (OSK). Orbital Sidekick is building the most advanced commercially available remote sensing and intelligence platform with a core focus on Energy and Security. With three satellites in orbit and two more launching in Q1 2024, OSK monitors more than 20,000 miles of pipeline a month, providing leak detection and intrusion alerts to its Fortune 100 energy customers.

At OSK, Andrew leads the development of the company’s imagery APIs, data processing pipeline, and most recently an exploration into the LLM space. As a certified Professional Solutions Architect, Andrew has been accelerating cloud transformation and innovation at several companies for over a decade. Before OSK, he spent seven years working at Amazon Web Services (AWS) launching services that have allowed thousands of customers to transform their cloud infrastructure. He is a graduate of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo with a M.S. in Computer Science and a research focus in distributed systems.

Ian Jones is the founder, CEO and significant shareholder of Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd. He is a satellite communications engineer and entrepreneur with over 30 years’ experience in the industry with a background in digital satellite communications systems, RF design, earth station development and operations.

He graduated from Leeds University in 1985 in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. He developed new Digital Signal Processing satellite modems at BT Research Labs and Communication Systems Research Ltd (CSRL), leading the design of the Inmarsat Aero communication system. When CSRL was acquired by Ferranti International, Ian was promoted to Head of Satellite Engineering and subsequently Head of Business Development within the Ferranti Computer Systems Division.

In 1994 he co-founded Orbit Research Ltd where he was Managing Director and 50% shareholder.  Ian was responsible for a number of innovations and new product designs for satellite communication systems including remote control monitoring systems for satellite earth stations. He led the development of a new business providing mobile health care diagnostic services via satellite and he was also responsible for a number of innovations in Education Outreach which led to the creation of the Star Centre (Keighley) and the ESA ESERO network.

In 2008 he became aware of the impending closure of Goonhilly Earth Station and worked to create a new business opportunity for the site. He founded Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd and built a successful, profitable business leasing the antennas at Goonhilly from BT and bringing them back into service. In January 2014, Ian led the team completing the successful acquisition of Goonhilly.

Ian’s vision for a sustainable, profitable and diverse business at Goonhilly is rapidly taking shape with a growing client base covering all aspects of commercial satellite communications, space communication, radio astronomy, big data and data centre services, training, outreach, and business co-location. His entrepreneur skills are in demand across Africa where he is involved in assisting human capital development projects at other former telecommunication centres.  Goonhilly has now become an Enterprise Zone and the host of the Sat Apps Catapult South West Regional Centre of Excellence, of which Ian is the Chair.

Mr Jones has over 30 years’ senior management experience as a CEO, Company Director, Investment Banker, Corporate Advisor, Test Pilot, Sports Administrator and Business mentor/advisor.

Following a distinguished military career as an Experimental Test Pilot, Mr Jones held several senior positions as CEO of the Aerospace Group, Raytheon Australia and Smart Communication Group. Mr Jones also completed several senior advisory and technical appointments with Boeing, Airbus, IPTN/CASA and Alenia Aeronautica.
An Olympian as Director of Sailing at the Beijing Olympics, past Chairman of the Americas’ Cup Challenger Committee and CEO of Brumbies professional rugby team Mr Jones continues to have a passion for, and parallel career in elite sports management.

Mr Jones was the founder and inaugural CEO and Chairman of ASX listed airline Regional Express (ASX: REX). Mr Jones has also sat on numerous public, private and not for profit Boards.

Michael also co-founded and was Managing Partner of investment banking company Canterbury Hill Advisory for 14 years, completing over $2 billion in transactions and has filled temporary CEO or Principal Advisor to the Boards of companies in the Airline, Agricultural, Marine, Manufacturing, Logistics, Professional Sport, Resources, Property, Medical Services, Software and Financial Services industries.

Before joining ELA in 2021, Mr Jones filled CEO and Chief Strategy Officer roles with large logistics business AWH and Virgin Australian Airline respectively.
Mr Jones has a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from the University of NSW, a Master of Applied Science (eqv) from Cranfield University and a Grad Dip of Applied Finance (Investment Banking) from the Securities Institute of Australia.

Michael Jones joined ELA in 2021 and since that time has: restructured the company, completed Series A and B capital raises, steered the development of the Arnhem Space Centre and the issue of the first Launch Facilities Licence and Launch Permit for Australia’s first ever commercial Space launch and NASA’s first ever launch from a commercial space Port.

ELA owns and operates the Arnhem Space Centre (ASC) at 12 degrees south of the equator and the world most advanced multi-user commercial spaceport, having achieved three NASA space launches in 15 days in 2022. From 2024 ELA will increase orbital launch cadence to a peak tempo of over 50 launch/year.
ELA has agreements with ‘new space’ launch providers from USA, Europe and Asia and expects to be soon booked out for the next five years.

Mr Jones is a highly distinguished graduate of the Royal Military College Duntroon and the Empire Test Pilots’ School UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and a member of Financial Services Institute of Australasia.

Steve Jurvetson is an early-stage venture capitalist with a focus on founder-led, mission-driven companies at the cutting edge of disruptive technology and new industry formation.  Steve led founding investments in several companies that had successful IPOs and others that were billion-dollar acquisitions, representing $800 billion of aggregate value creation. Some of those early VC investments include Planet Labs, SpaceX and Tesla.

Before co-founding Future Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Steve was an R&D Engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where seven of his chip designs were fabricated.  He also worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT and management consulting with Bain & Company.  He completed his undergraduate Electrical Engineering degree at Stanford in 2.5 years, graduating #1 in his class, and went on to earn a MSEE and MBA from Stanford.

In 2017, Steve received the Visionary Award from SV Forum. In 2016, President Barack Obama appointed Steve as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship. Steve has also been honored as one of “Tech’s Best Venture Investors” by Forbes, and as the “Venture Capitalist of the Year” by Deloitte.  Here is a recent podcast interview on 20VC.

Amit Katti is the Director of Systems Engineering at SES Space & Defense, where he leads a talented team focused on supporting and expanding the Space Initiatives Business unit. With an expertise in technical sales, operations, and systems integration, Amit has played key roles at Newtec (ST Engineering iDirect), Hughes Network Systems, and Global Wireless Solutions.

In addition to his work at SES, Amit is an adjunct professor at George Mason University’s Volgenau School of Engineering. He teaches courses in the ECE and IT Departments, sharing his knowledge and industry insights with aspiring professionals. Amit is also actively involved in the industry as a board member of the SSPI Mid-Atlantic chapter.

Amit holds a Master’s Degree in Telecommunications from George Mason University’s Department of ECE and a Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Communications Engineering from JNTU Hyderabad, India.

Adam is an Affiliate Principal Advisor at Euroconsult with specialization in Earth observation (EO) and disruptive technologies. In over 20 years in the industry, Adam has advised a wide range of clients including government organizations, investors and commercial actors along the EO and space value chain. He has managed over 200 consulting and market intelligence projects focusing on EO markets and industry, satellite imaging and operations, and government space programs. He Initiated Euroconsult’s research and consulting activity in the EO sector including the Satellite-Based Earth Observation: Market Prospects report; now in its 15th edition (2022), the first annual research report focused on evolutions within the EO sector. He has held various positions in the company, including director of the company’s Space Practice and Managing Director of Euroconsult North America. Previously he worked for the European Space Agency within the Directorate of Earth Observation on developing new applications utilizing EO data, and the UK National Remote Sensing Center (now Airbus).

Jason Kim became chief executive officer of Millennium Space Systems, a non-fully integrated Boeing subsidiary based in El Segundo, California, in December 2020. Millennium Space Systems provides alternative, relevant and affordable solutions to today’s aerospace challenges. The company designs space flight systems and develops space mission and system solutions for the U.S. Intelligence Community, Department of Defense and National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as well as commercial customers.

Kim has more than two decades of experience in executive management involving small and large satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, mission payloads, ground systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning, data processing, command and control, launch, program management, systems engineering, prototyping, assembly and integration, and testing and operations of aerospace and defense systems.

Previous to his current position, he was the business development executive at Raytheon Intelligence & Space, where he led a team to fully develop and execute a global and domestic growth strategy. He worked to meet the growth goals of a vertically integrated, multi-billion-dollar space and command-and-control business.

From 2006 to 2019, Kim demonstrated his ability to grow companies as vice president of Strategic Planning at Millennium Space Systems and as a program manager at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.

Biography

From 1999 to 2006, he served as a program manager in the U.S. Air Force’s Space Superiority Systems Program and Reconnaissance Systems Program offices, where he gained a deep background in advancing autonomous systems starting on unmanned aerial vehicle programs such as the Global Hawk and Predator and growing to acquisitions and developments of first-of-its-kind classified and unclassified space and ground systems.

Kim has served on the National Defense Industrial Association board of directors and Space Enterprise Consortium formation committee and has been an active member of the National Security Space Association.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. He received a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from the University of California at Los Angeles Anderson School of Management.

Mr. Letarte is a Vice President at AE Industrial and is primarily focused on origination, transaction due diligence, executing new investments, and monitoring portfolio investments. Mr. Letarte has helped lead AE Industrial’s recent space investments in York Space Systems, Redwire, Firefly Aerospace, and Sierra Space. Additional investments at AE Industrial include Belcan, BigBear.ai, Resolute Industrial and Kellstrom Aerospace. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of AE Industrial portfolio companies York Space Systems and Belcan.

Prior to joining AE Industrial in 2018, Mr. Letarte was an investment banker at Moelis & Company, where he focused on M&A, restructuring and strategic corporate advisory across a broad spectrum of industries including aerospace and defense. Prior to joining Moelis, Mr. Letarte was in J.P. Morgan’s Leveraged Finance Group, where he provided debt capital solutions and acquisition financing. During his career, Mr. Letarte has completed over $50 billion of mergers and acquisitions across 60+ transactions and assisted in over $100 billion of debt financings.

Janna is a senior attorney and technology strategist focused on national defense, intelligence, and commercial space sectors. She has unique, cross-sector expertise in guiding programs and technology development for U.S. government and commercial initiatives, including engagements directed to launch services, satellite communications, unmanned vehicles, C5ISR sensors and network architectures, cloud computing, and cybersecurity.

Prior to joining BAE Systems, Janna was with Northrop Grumman, where she facilitated innovation and strategic collaborations for their Missions Systems Sector to advance defense and intelligence capabilities. Prior to that, Janna worked for Facebook, where she supported Facebook’s mission to enable global internet connectivity. She helped to frame industry partnerships to catalyze delivery of space-based and high-altitude global connectivity solutions. Before Facebook, Janna was in private legal practice, where she served as legal counsel to U.S. and international clients in the aerospace and defense, commercial space, and telecommunications industries.

Janna is a volunteer with the Space Foundation, served on the Defense Innovation Board, Space Advisory Committee, and is a registered patent attorney. She frequently speaks about the rapidly evolving laws and policies affecting the defense, intelligence, and commercial space industries. Janna is committed to diversity in the space industry, and is a strong advocate for new space professionals.

Ed Lu helps protect satellites from hitting debris, and asteroids from hitting Earth. As an astronaut, he flew the Space Shuttle twice, the Russian Soyuz, and served aboard the International Space Station.

Tim is the Chief Strategy Officer and US General Manager at ClearSpace, providing strategic and technical leadership as the company develops core technologies needed to deliver a wide range of In-Orbit Services (IOS) to government and commercial clients. Prior industry experience includes senior engineering management roles with OneWeb and Orbcomm, where he spent more than 25 years developing and operating low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellations for global communications while advocating for responsible stewardship of our shared, orbital, natural resources.  Tim has published and spoken extensively on matters related to orbital debris and space sustainability, and has served on a variety of boards and working groups to promote safe and sustainable practices.

Tom Marotta is the Founder and CEO of The Spaceport Company. Prior to founding The Spaceport Company he was the Principal Launch Licensing Manager at Astra Space where he obtained the first FAA Part 450 launch license and helped establish Astra’s second spaceport, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in 8 months, faster than it’s ever been done before. From 2016 to 2021 he worked at the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation managing the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee and writing portions of the Part 450 licensing regulation. From 2010 to 2016 he was U.S. Foreign Service Officer having served overseas in West Africa, Europe, and Iraq. He was an original co-founder of the Beyond Earth Institute and co-authored “The High Frontier: An Easier Way”.

Dr. Martin joined Astroscale U.S. in August 2019 as SVP of Operations and Programs. She brings many years of space technology management, operations, and engineering expertise to the Astroscale team.

Dr. Martin previously held the position of the Director, Orbital Solutions at General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS). She was responsible for the management and technical performance of the engineering staff and delivery of projects, including planning and managing technical and programmatic solutions to ensure quality, business, and financial objectives were met.

Prior to joining GA-EMS, Dr. Martin was the Chief Operating Officer at Surrey Satellite Technology US, where she led the Surrey project management and engineering teams. As a member of the Surrey Satellite US executive team, Dr. Martin managed the bidding, negotiation, and execution of projects, and was responsible for ensuring the company’s cost-effective methods were appropriately applied to the execution of programs.

Dr. Martin joined Surrey Satellite US from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. in the United Kingdom, where she held several positions including the Head of Telecommunications and Navigation business unit, encompassing the Galileo payload programme. Prior to Surrey, Dr. Martin was a project manager and scientist at QinetiQ.

Dr. Martin earned a Master of Science in astrophysics and a Doctorate in mathematics and computational sciences from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Stephen Matier, President and CEO of Maritime Launch Services, is the visionary and driving force behind the development of Spaceport Nova Scotia, a world-class commercial space complex that will launch Canada into the global space industry.  

A mechanical engineer (Bachelor of Science, University of New Mexico, 1989) and an award-winning former NASA contractor engineering manager (NASA White Sands Test Facility), Matier is driving the  collaboration and partnerships that will support the development of a safe and environmentally sustainable commercial space market in Canada.

 With satellite clients within Canada and around the globe interested in launch from Nova Scotia, Maritime Launch is joining a global industry that will exceed one trillion dollars annually within the next 20 years.  

Patrick McKenzie currently serves as the Director of Government Business Development at Firefly Aerospace and has more than four decades of experience in the commercial aerospace industry. For the past 20 years, Patrick’s focus has been on space applications, providing business development and capture leadership for companies including Lockheed Martin, Ball Aerospace, RUAG Space, ASRC Federal, York Space, and Spaceflight, Inc.

Edward Mehr, co-founder and CEO, Machina Labs

Edward Mehr has been a student of engineering, manufacturing and design for twenty years. His expertise in machine learning led to a role as an early employee at SpaceX and Relativity Space, and is one of the inventors on Relativity’s additive manufacturing patent. He co-founded Machina Labs with the vision to radically simplify manufacturing by using sheet metal, AI and robotics to form complex parts without a need for fixed tooling.

John Moberly brings capabilities spanning technical network exploita-tion and algorithm development, space system development and space protection, and experience in the Intelligence Community and Federal programming, budget, and acquisition processes. As SVP for Space, he leads SpiderOak’s pivot to space leveraging the company’s zero trust and cybersecurity foundational capabilities and helps address the ur-gent needs of data and space network system security so that critical in-formation dominance can be achieved with full data integrity.

John Moberly is the SVP for Space for SpiderOak. Space Cyber is the most critical vulnerability of our space systems and space-based net-works require different approaches than terrestrial cybersecurity and SpiderOak is uniquely positioned with our zero trust blockchain ap-proach to lead solutions to meet these architectural needs in space and ground segments as well as other unattended sensor architectures. Pri-or to SpiderOak, John led the US Federal subsidiary for LeoLabs, ven-ture capital based startup building a global radar network capability to improve space domain awareness – another space enabling function like cyber. He previously led the Space & Intelligence Business Area for Arete, a company with work largely focused on algorithms for weak sig-nature detection and AI/Machine Learning applications for GEOINT (Geospatial Intelligence) Systems, including developing a concept that won a “Prestigious Pitch Award” at the Air Force 2019 Space Pitch Day. He was also highly involved in NRO, DARPA Blackjack, Space De-velopment Agency, and commercial satellite algorithm development focusing around on-board processing and weak/dim signature detec-tion.

John also brings industry experience from Hughes Network Systems networking and satellite communications and General Dynamics Mis-sion Systems leading business development for classified space and in-telligence programs.
LTC (ret) Moberly retired from the Army after 20 years of which the last 12 years were as a space operations officer with tours in the NRO Ad-vanced Systems and Technology (AS&T) and as systems engineer on a highly successful project that provided a new source and method to in-telligence and worked other National Security Space efforts. His mili-tary career culminated in assignment to the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (AT&L), Space & Intelligence Office leading oversight of Intelligence Community Major Systems Acquisitions and Research and Development programs in con-junction with his Office of the Director of National Intelligence counter-parts.

John has Executive Certification in Science & Technology Public Policy from Harvard University’s JFK School of Government, MS in Aero-nautics/Astronautical Engineering with EE graduate minor in Control Systems from Stanford University, MS in Engineering Management from University of Missouri S&T, and BS in Systems Engineering (Mech Sys-tems) from the United States Military Academy, West Point.

John is the proud father of an Army infantry ranger/airborne/air assault qualified first lieutenant currently stationed with the 101st as a platoon leader in the dismounted reconnaissance troop, a daughter who has just completed her Auburn interior design major (War Eagle!), and a high school junior social butterfly and lacrosse player. He is happily married to wife, Laura.

Dr. Monk is VP and CTO of Wireless Initiatives at Viasat, a global provider of satellite services. At Viasat he focuses on new technology and business initiatives, such as satellite direct-to-device and 5G NTN for both commercial and government applications.Before that he was VP of business development at XCOM Labs, which develops advanced 5G solutions. Previously, he was VP of Strategic Alliances and Standards at Cohere Technologies, which developed a groundbreaking wireless modulation technique known as OTFS.

He was a co-founder, VP and CTO of Entropic Communications, a publicly traded semiconductor company that invented the MoCA home networking solution. Prior to Entropic he developed communications ICs at Conexant and ComStream and was a researcher at JPL. He sits on various industry, advisory and academic boards, including the UCSD Jacobs School Dean’s Council of Advisors. Dr. Monk earned a M.S. from Caltech and B.S. and Ph.D. from UC San Diego, all in Electrical Engineering.

With a life-long dedication to technology and software development, Jonathan has over two decades in delivering solutions to challenging technical problems. His experience spans multiple industries: aerospace, satellite communication, databases, web, distributed systems, cybersecurity, and cryptography.

In November of 2016 Jonathan joined SpiderOak Inc, a cutting-edge developer of Zero-Trust & blockchain based security products as Chief Technology Officer Jonathan drives SpiderOak’s technological vision, strategies, and ensuring engineering resources are aligned with client needs and has led the charge to leverage the company’s core competencies in delivering security solutions for advanced hybrid space architectures.

His articles have been featured in many industry publications including Real Clear Policy and The Hacker News. He also hosts the weekly “CyberContext” podcast where we he addresses cybersecurity issues at the crossroads of current geopolitical and social events.

Dr. Mukherjee leads this SpaceSMART think tank. Currently, he is a Robotics Technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he has led various robotics projects for NASA, DARPA, and other DoD and civil entities as Principal Investigator. These include Curiosity rover mobility on Mars, Mars sample return, Lunar robotic sampling and sample return, telescope assembly for astrophysics, in-space robotic servicing of geosynchronous satellites (RSGS), and robotic persistent platforms for Earth science/remote sensing. His leadership experience includes the NASA-DoD On-orbit Servicing Assembly and Manufacturing National Initiative (OSAM NI), NASA’s Strategic Capability Leadership Team for Rendezvous and Capture, topic area management for Strategic Technology Transfer and Research grants, and roles in JPL’s Office of Strategic Planning and JPL’s Chief Technologist’s Office for Astrophysics. When he is not advancing space technology, you can find him seeking inspiration from uncommon beauty in common places.

Ahsun Murad is the President and CEO of Optimal Satcom, which he co-founded as a spin-off from Lockheed Martin and Comsat in 2002. Over the last 18 years since its founding, Optimal Satcom has grown to support a large segment of the satellite industry with products and customized solutions that help its customers run their business – over 15 satellite operators, 20 of the largest satellite service providers, and major US Government DoD and civilian agencies use Optimal Satcom products and systems today. As a world expert in satellite communications technology, Mr. Murad advises satellite companies and governmental agencies on satellite system design, application of emerging technologies, and formulating policy decisions.

Mr. Murad has worked for over 25 years in various positions across the satellite communications industry. Immediately before founding Optimal Satcom, he held management positions at Lockheed Martin and COMSAT Laboratories. In these positions, he headed the development of products for transmission planning and satellite capacity management and was the lead system architect for a number of commercial SATCOM and MILSATCOM projects. Before joining COMSAT Laboratories, Mr. Murad worked at the NASA Center for Satellite and Hybrid Communications Networks where he was involved in research and development related to hybrid satellite-terrestrial mobile communications systems, and complex multi-satellite systems. Mr. Murad graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India, with a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering. He holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park.

Francis has over 20 years of experience in the Telecoms and Technology sectors and is a founding member of Rivada Networks. Francis currently serves as Chief Operating Officer, having served in several strategic and operational roles since the company’s inception.  Francis also serves as the Rivada company Secretary and is on the Executive Leadership Team of Rivada Space Networks.  Prior to joining Rivada, Francis worked in the strategic consulting sector, most notably for Accenture and McKinsey & Co.

As leader of the firm’s Transportation and Space Group in Washington, D.C., Dara Panahy’s practice involves representation of satellite and space infrastructure operators, aerospace manufacturers, launch services providers, communications and data services companies, banks, private equity firms, hedge funds and other investors in debt and equity offerings, project, structured and vendor financings, corporate matters, mergers & acquisitions, financial restructurings, and in negotiating commercial contracts. He also advises on regulatory, risk management, sanctions, anti-corruption, national security and export control matters.

Akshay Patel is a Managing Director in the Strategic Advisory Group at PJT Partners, based in New York.

Akshay Patel has over 15 years of experience in the aerospace and satellite industry across finance, business development and engineering. Through his years of experience as an advisor, start up operator and engineer, Akshay has built relationships across the landscape of traditional aerospace and new space companies.

Prior to joining PJT,  Akshay was Vice President of Corporate Development at OneWeb where he led all M&A, partnership, and new business efforts. Prior to Oneweb, he was the Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at Planetary Resources where he led the company’s strategic planning, sales and partnerships activities.

Akshay also spent 5 years in investment banking at Morgan Stanley based in New York. As part of the Media Comms group, Akshay focused on advising companies across the satellite industry value chain including the advising on sale of Skybox Imaging to Google, the merger of DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, and the IPO of Intelsat.

Prior to Morgan Stanley, Akshay was an aerospace engineer at Lockheed Martin where he designed and built telecommunication and remote sensing satellites. In addition, he published one of the first small satellite market studies in the industry

Akshay has a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University.

Pelton joins Iridium from Pryon, an AI company focused on augmented intelligence for the enterprise, where he served as Chief Product Officer.  In this role he was responsible for all aspects of the company’s augmented intelligence product portfolio, leading the engineering team and product development efforts.  Prior to this, Pelton was Vice President of Collaboration and Devices at Avaya, where he managed a portfolio of voice and video endpoints, soft clients and collaboration services.  Before Avaya, he served as CTO and Vice President for Infrastructure Engineering at Polycom and led Cisco’s corporate Technology Center where he worked on the Internet Routing in Space (IRIS) program consisting of developing a router for use in satellites and transitioning of satellite ground networks to multiservice IP networks.

Chris is the president of Quilty Space, an independent research and consulting firm that provides strategy, competitive benchmarking, financial analysis, and investment diligence on all aspects of the Satellite & Space industry.

Prior to establishing Quilty Spacein 2016, Chris served as a sell-side research analyst with Raymond James for 20 years, publishing hundreds of company-specific, macro, sector, and thematic research reports on the industrial, defense, space, wireless, and communications industries. Chris is widely-acknowledged as the leading Wall Street analyst on the Satellite & Space sector and has participated in 30 capital markets transactions over the past five years valued at over $2.5 billion

Chris received a BS degree in Systems Engineering from the United States Naval Academy in 1989 and an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1994.

Noel Rimalovski is a Managing Director at GH Partners, an independent New York-based investment banking firm. Mr. Rimalovski leads the firm’s representation of mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings, debt financings, and strategic advisory services to domestic and international clients. At GH, Mr. Rimalovski specializes in the telecom, media, technology, space and defense sectors.

Prior to joining GH, Mr. Rimalovski was with Macquarie Capital, Wasserstein Perella, and Lazard Frères.

Mr. Rimalovski graduated from Tufts College and received an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Robbie Robertson is the CEO and Co-founder at Sedaro, a digital twin cloud software company. Dr. Robertson has over 15 years of experience developing space simulation software and space hardware. Robbie has held research positions at Los Alamos, AFRL, Virginia Tech, the German QUEST Center, and with the National Science Foundation installing space weather instruments on the Antarctic Plateau. He was previously the first employee at Ibeos, where he led the development of instruments and subsystems for spacecraft headed to LEO, GEO, and the Moon. Robbie received both his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and PhD in Applied Physics and Space Engineering from Virginia Tech.

Dr. Rosenberg is a co-founder of Wavestream Corporation, a leading manufacturer of SSPAs, BUCs, and transceivers for satellite communications. He serves as Wavestream’s Chief Technology Officer.

He is co-inventor of the pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor (pHEMT), and of the Grid Amplifier, a chip-level spatial combiner capable of efficiently combining the outputs of hundreds of transistors in a single combining step. He is author/co-author of over 50 publications in refereed journals and conference proceeding on semiconductor devices, semiconductor processing, and microwave/mm-wave amplifiers and sources, and co-author of a textbook on engineering modeling and analysis. He is inventor/co-inventor on 13 US patents and 20 non-US patents.

He received the Sc.B. Degree in Engineering from Brown University, M.S. in Electrical Engineering from U. C. Berkeley, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University.

He was a recipient of a National Science Foundation Fellowship, Faculty Development Awards from both IBM Corporation and AT&T, and the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award. Member of Tau Beta Pi.

Serving as Deputy Manager of JPL’s MicroDevices Lab, he oversaw the start-up of the laboratory, and led the development of new high-speed optical communications products as Director of Engineering at GPD Optoelectronics. He has held professorships at Brown University and Harvey Mudd College, and was a Research Associate at California Institute of Technology.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel believes that the future belongs to the connected. She works to promote greater opportunity, accessibility, and affordability in our communications services in order to ensure that all Americans get a fair shot at 21st century success. She believes strong communications markets can foster economic growth and security, enhance digital age opportunity, and enrich our civic life.

From fighting to protect net neutrality to ensuring access to the internet for students caught in the Homework Gap, Jessica has been a consistent champion for connecting all. She is a leader in spectrum policy, developing new ways to support wireless services from Wi-Fi to video and the internet of things. She also is responsible for developing policies to help expand the reach of broadband to schools, libraries, hospitals, and households across the country.

Named as one of POLITICO’s 50 Politicos to Watch and profiled by InStyle Magazine in a series celebrating “women who show up, speak up and get things done,” Jessica brings over two decades of communications policy experience and public service to the FCC. Prior to joining the agency, she served as Senior Communications Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, under the leadership of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV and Senator Daniel Inouye. Before entering public service, Jessica practiced communications law in Washington, DC.

She is a native of Hartford, Connecticut. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University and New York University School of Law. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two children.

Alexis Sáinz is the global co-leader of the Hogan Lovells Space and Satellite practice and a member of the Infrastructure, Energy, Resources & Projects group.  She regularly represents export credit and multilateral development agencies, satellite operators, aerospace manufacturers, launch services providers, communications companies, financial institutions, project sponsors, private equity firms, hedge funds, and other industry participants on structured, project and vendor financings, in negotiating commercial and corporate transactions, and with commercially strategic regulatory matters. She also provides industry advice in connection with debt and equity offerings, joint ventures, mergers & acquisitions, and financial restructurings.

Alexis works with investors and lenders to understand the underlying issues impacting space projects and companies, at the intersection of commercial, regulatory and financing aspects of a transaction.  She works with project parties to focus on key deal points and to identify appropriate industry-based risk mitigants and efficient allocation of risk in order to build consensus and drive closure.  She works with companies to build a project and financing strategy from the ground up, anticipating financing issues early in the development of a new project or the growth of a company.

Alexis co-chairs the American Bar Association’s Committee on Space Law.  She co-authored the chapter on “Commercial Satellite Programs” in the Routledge Handbook of Space Law.  Prior to beginning her legal career in 2007, Alexis spent over 10 years working in internet-based industries, including e-commerce and media. She previously served as a consultant for the World Bank, National Geographic, and domestic non-profit organizations in connection with internet-based technology, and she was an early member of KPMG Peat Marwick’s financial service’s e-commerce consulting practice, where she focused on emerging technologies.

Alex is CEO of GeoOptics, a leading provider of satellite weather and Earth system data. He has held several roles at GeoOptics, including managing the deployment and operations of its satellite constellation. He is an industry leader with expertise in product development, research and development and policy.

Before joining GeoOptics, Alex was the Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, leading policy development and business operations for the industry association of the fast-growing commercial space industry. He has also been Legislative Director to Congressman Adam Schiff, advising the Congressman on science and technology, space, energy, environment, and non-proliferation issues and playing key roles in helping expand the use of nuclear forensics to track nuclear material and in shepherding the 2010 NASA Authorization Act through to passage.

Alex holds an AB from Harvard and a PhD from Stanford University, both in Physics, and enjoys playing soccer and reading science fiction.

Alvaro Sanchez has led the sales at Integrasys for the past 5 years with strong international presence taking care of the current Integrasys customers and opening new markets and accounts and he manages the Integrasys Marketing Department. Currently, Alvaro is leading the new Integrasys USA office based in Herndon, Washington DC area, where the sales team is growing as the company is a stronger player every day in North America.

Alvaro represents Integrasys Innovation with the latest Innovation awards at Satcon NY and VSAT event for the famous Satmotion Pocket VSAT Commissioning System.

Previous to join Integrasys Alvaro was a Test & Measurements engineer at CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research specializing in timing and phase measurements for colliders synchronization. Alvaro was involved in a project where neutrinos where traveling at the speed of light from CERN (Switzerland) to Gran Sasso. The synchronization devices where Alvaro worked on were critical for ensuring that the neutrinos could not travel faster than the speed of light.

Alvaro holds Industrial Hardware Engineering Degree and Computer Software Engineering Degree by the European University with a Master Degree in Sales Direction by ESIC Business School.

Pablo Gallego Sanmiguel is PLD Space Senior Vice President, Sales & Customers. Before joining PLD Space in 2019, he developed his professional career from California (United States) working as Mission Manager of Launching Services with SpaceX as well as providing aerospace consulting services. Previously, Pablo had participated actively in several other rocket launch operations, such as Ariane 4, Ariane 5, Soyuz, Dnepr, Vega, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.  Currently, Pablo coordinates his activities in PLD Space between the United States and Europe where he directly addresses the needs of customers.

Experienced CEO with a large professional background in the Telecommunications Industry, Jaume Sanpera is a classic in technological entrepreneurship in Spain.

Founder of various companies mainly telecommunications, creating a business group that was listed on the stock market and with a wide international presence, such as Eurona, (1st telecom satellite operator in Europe that was listed in 2010), Ambientum , (leading the enviromental sector in Spain), Cidec a praxis technology, TechnoTrends, Festuc etc.

Jaume is backed by almost 30 years of experience in Telecommunications and recognised  achievements in this sector.

Its consolidation as an entrepreneur and CEO expert in the Telecommunications Industry makes him a very present figure in the media, forums and other information and broadcasting platforms.

Mr. Schmidt is a Managing Director at KippsDeSanto & Co., recently acquired by Capital One’s commercial bank, and co-heads the Aerospace & Defense Group, where he focuses on sellside and buyside M&A advisory engagements and sourcing growth capital. Key areas of experience includes space, defense electronics, and armaments. Prior to joining KippsDeSanto & Co., Mr. Schmidt worked at a competing investment bank where he helped create a leading Aerospace·Defense·Government Services industry banking group. Notable space-related clients and assignments include multiple General Dynamics space businesses, BEI Precision, Orbital Sciences, GeoEye, and other space-component businesses.

Leading up to his entry into investment banking, Mr. Schmidt served in various combat arms assignments in the US Army across the globe and in various Joint and Army staffs working on classified intelligence assessments, equipment modernization, and weapons testing. Mr. Schmidt earned a B.S. in (aeronautical) engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, an M.S. in operations research from the Naval Post Graduate School, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is registered with FINRA as a General Securities Registered Representative (Series 7, 63).

Vagan Shakhgildian is the Vice-President Global Business Development at Comtech Telecommunications Corp. He is responsible for developing new worldwide markets and shaping customer solutions across the space, satellite, terrestrial and wireless commercial markets. Previously to the current role, Vagan had a variety of senior management positions at Comtech, and its global subsidiaries.

Vagan first joined Comtech as part of the acquisition of Canada-based UHP Networks. As the CEO of UHP Networks, he led the company from a virtual start-up to a market leader in high-performance VSAT systems. Prior to that Dr. Shakhgildian was the President and COO of Advantech Wireless, Head of Research at Adaptive Broadband and held senior R&D positions with Motorola and Signal Processors. Dr. Shakhgildian holds advanced degrees in mathematics and electronic engineering, as well as an MBA from the London Business School.

Mr. Spice has served as Rocket Lab’s Chief Financial Officer since May 2018, and has served as the Secretary and Treasurer since May 2021. From January 2011 until May 2018, he was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at MaxLinear, Inc., a provider of radio frequency, analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for the connected home, wired and wireless infrastructure, and industrial and multimarket applications. From October 2009 to November 2010, Mr. Spice was the Chief Financial Officer of Symwave Corporation, a venture backed fabless semiconductor company until its sale to Standard Microsystems Corporation (SMSC). From July 2000 until September 2009, Mr. Spice held a variety of financial and operational executive roles at Broadcom Corporation, a creator of semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications. From June 1996 until July 2000, Mr. Spice worked as a finance manager for Intel, a microchips manufacturer. Mr. Spice has a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Brigham Young university and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. John Springmann is Senior Vice President of Space & Sensors at Tomorrow.io. He has developed and manages the company’s Space & Sensors department, which is home to its space program and overall hardware development capabilities. Tomorrow.io’s constellation development includes a mix of precipitation radar satellites and passive microwave sounders being developed to significantly improve weather forecasting globally and to ultimately improve Tomorrow.io’s Weather Intelligence platform. Previously, he held engineering and program leadership roles at BlackSky and Rocket Lab.

As ALL.SPACE’s Executive Vice President of Product & Marketing, Mark leads product and market strategy for the company’s breakthrough smart terminal rolling out in 2023.

He brings more than 35 years’ experience in the communications sector and satellite industry to ALL.SPACE, which is redefining ground segment resiliency with the world’s first multi-orbit smart terminal capable of simultaneous, full-performance link connections.

Mark has held various senior roles, including Vice President of Product Development and Strategy at Inmarsat, and Director for User Terminal Development for the company’s Global Express solution before that.

He also served as Senior Director of Engineering at Cobham Satcom, where he helped lead the development of a new set of products, focusing on micro terminals, flat panel arrays and solving challenges inherent with comms on the move.

Mark has also been actively involved in the Global VSAT Forum and was a key member of the Forum’s SOMAP (Satellite Operators Minimum Antenna Performance) working group focused on creating a framework for minimum performance recommendations for satellite service providers. He’s also been active in the Satellite Industry Association and is a past board member of the Satellite Innovation Group.

Earlier in his career, Mark spent 15 years in the Royal Air Force working on Airfield Navigational aids.

A UK native, Mark earned his MSC in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bedfordshire and an MBA in Business Administration from the University of Liverpool.

Hanna is passionate about building exceptionally performing teams and businesses which will propel us into a multi-planetary economy. She combines her her technical Earth observation background, 25+ years of international business experience and her training in the neuroscience of attention to unlock new opportunities for the space economy.

Hanna is currently focused on enabling AI-driven satellite constellation operations at scale, while growing Cognitive Space from Seed to IPO by building a world-class operations team.

With business experience that spans the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Hanna has worked with stealth startups, multinational conglomerates, public and private companies, and civilian and military government agencies across the globe. Her roles have spanned operations, channel management, sales and business development roles in high resolution satellite imaging, satellite access and ground segment hardware sales, space launch services and launch vehicle component manufacturing.

Hanna’s prior appointments include multinational operations and senior business development roles at Mynaric, the late Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch, RUAG Space USA, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic / Virgin Orbit, Maxar, GeoEye and Space Imaging. Hanna’s professional development includes studies at the International Space University and Stanford University Graduate School of Business. She holds a Master of Science degree in Oceanography with a specialization in Remote Sensing & Satellite Oceanography.

Headquartered in Houston, Cognitive Space is the market leader in AI/ML-driven satellite mission operations, enabling evolution of satellite operations at scale through effective and dynamic constellation management. The company’s flagship CNTIENT® platform allows commercial space operators and government operation centers to optimize and tailor remote sensing mission planning, scale without disruption, and automate payload scheduling, link management, bus management, and prioritized tasking. More information is available at cognitivespace.com.

Brooke is a Partner in McKinsey’s Aerospace & Defense practice, supporting clients on space and defense engagements.  She leads the firm’s Space practice, working with established companies, disruptors, and investors.  Her focus is on growth strategy, innovation, and transactions related work, supporting clients on topics such as go-to-market strategies, market sizing, strategic portfolio reviews, ecosystem market scans, equity story development, and market diligences.

Brooke’s most recent work includes leading market evaluation and growth efforts with disruptive space companies, spanning space technology areas.  She has also worked closely with multiple investors in the sector.

In addition to her client engagements, Brooke has co-led McKinsey’s space knowledge partnerships, including collaborations with the Aerospace Industries Association and the World Economic Forum.  She is currently leading McKinsey’s knowledge partnership with the World Economic Forum, having recently published a report on the outlook for the space sector and satellite-enabled applications across industries.  She has also spoken at industry events and in the media on space industry dynamics, in addition to serving as a mentor to early-stage space companies via the Creative Destruction Lab incubator program.

Her published work covers topics such as space investment funding trends, satellite constellation performance analysis, the role of space in global priorities, and industry R&D funding analysis.

Brooke’s background prior to McKinsey is in finance and business economics, and included work with a boutique financial and economic analysis firm, where she worked closely with leading economists on complex analysis of financial markets.  She is a graduate of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, as well as Bucknell University.

As President of SIA, Tom Stroup is the trade association’s lead advocate for regulatory and policy issues of critical importance to SIA’s membership, including spectrum and licensing issues, defense and public safety matters, and export control and international trade issues. He also manages the day-to-day operations of SIA, including member communications, staff leadership and organization of SIA sponsored events.

Prior to joining SIA, Mr. Stroup was with Shared Spectrum Company (SSC), a leading developer of spectrum intelligence technologies, where he served as CEO. For more than a decade, he served as the President of the Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA). Previous to his position at SSC, he founded and ran several companies in the technology industry, including Columbia Spectrum Management, P-Com Network Services, CSM Wireless, and SquareLoop.

Mr. Stroup holds a BS, summa cum laude, in Public Administration from the University of North Dakota. He is also a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center where he served as Editor of the Georgetown Law Journal.

Experienced innovation and engineering executive across multiple industries including wireless networking (cellular and WiFi), consumer electronics, silicon platforms, and large-scale cloud client computing. Currently CTO of Carnegie Technologies. Other roles included SVP Software Engineering at Comcast NBC Universal, VP of Engineering at Cable Vision Systems, VP Silicon Platform at Motorola PCS, CTO of Dell’s Client Solutions Group, and CTO Broadband at Texas Instruments. He was a founder and CTO of two successful startups: Wi-Fi innovation leader Aironet Wireless (acquired by Cisco) and 4G wireless innovator Raze Technologies. He started his career at the National Security Agency.

Al Tadros is the Chief Technology Officer of Redwire. In this role, he is focused on making strategic investments that support Redwire’s customers, advancing technology development and commercialization, and maintaining a nimble and collaborative technical culture. With nearly three decades of experience as an aerospace executive, Al is a thought leader in in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing with a proven track record in maturing satellite and space systems programs for exploration, national security, and commercial innovation.

Previously, Al was Chief Growth Officer and Executive Vice President of Space Infrastructure at Redwire. In this role, he oversaw the company’s long-term growth strategy and business development activities, and was responsible for advancing development, increasing adoption, and building momentum for Redwire’s mission-enabling capabilities within the civil, defense, and commercial space sectors.

Prior to Redwire, he served as Vice President of Space Infrastructure and Civil Space at Maxar Technologies, where he led significant innovation in next-generation spacecraft design and space infrastructure, integrating robotics and in-space satellite manufacturing, servicing, and assembly capabilities. Over the course of his career at Maxar, Al contributed to 13 missions and launch campaigns, many of which deployed cutting-edge communications and remote sensing systems. Al has worked with both commercial enterprises and government agencies to develop space systems for communications, satellite servicing, remote sensing, and exploration.

An authority in in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing, Al holds patents in the field of attitude control systems and was responsible for early telerobotics research for the International Space Station.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Sonny works for RTX Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of RTX (180K+ employees, split between aerospace & defense, 2023E revenue of ~$70B).

Prior to joining RTX in 2019 he was head of capital investment, North America for the UK government at the British Consulate in New York City.  Additionally, he spent four years in venture capital as managing director for a large angel group (75+) where he structured tech. investments and assumed board & interim operating roles at portfolio companies.  Before then, he was a senior research analyst on the buy-side, investing for BMO (AUM $250B) for five years.  Ahead of transitioning into the financial sector, he was an entrepreneur for seven years in defense & commercial avionics, exiting by acquisition.  He began his career as a machine learning avionics engineer for four years in 1997, after interning with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Education: B.Sc. Electrical Eng., B.Sc. Aerospace Eng., M.A.  Political & Economic History, M.Sc. Technology & Strategy Leadership

Parth Trivedi is CEO and Co-Founder of Skylo Technologies, the world’s most ubiquitous non-terrestrial network (NTN). Skylo provides 100% coverage across the globe from space, allowing its customers to connect to any part of their business anywhere, at any time, all the time. Skylo connects smartphones, wearables, machines, sensors, and devices to digitize and transform lives and industries, and ensure that you never lose coverage.

At Skylo, Parth is responsible for leading business operations including long-term goals, growth, profitability and its overall vision. He works closely with the board of directors and his executive team to devise and implement strategies for promoting satellite connectivity, and increasing visibility for Skylo as a leader in the industry.

An aerospace engineer by training, Parth and his co-founders conceived of Skylo while at Stanford Graduate Business School, where he was co-leading research in the Space Systems Development Lab exploring how to connect billions of devices in a ubiquitous, cost-effective way. Parth then became an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at venture capital firm Innovation Endeavors, where he and his co-founders continued to spin out their research and invent an affordable way for people and remote industries (e.g., agriculture, fishing, mining, utilities infrastructure, disaster preparedness and response) to become connected for the first time. Under his leadership, Skylo has raised $116 million in funding from Softbank Group, Boeing, DCM, Moore, and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors.

Parth was chosen to serve on the U.S. delegation to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations technical body on aviation, after earning his Master of Science from Aeronautics & Astronautics from MIT. There he led various aerospace-focused projects for the Department of Defense, Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA, Lockheed Martin, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Born and raised in Kolkata, India, Parth earned his Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University with highest distinction. He subsequently earned advanced degrees from both MIT and Stanford before founding Skylo.

Seamus Tuohy, PhD is the Senior Director for Business Development for Robotics and Space Operations (RSO) at MDA, Canada’s leading space company that has provided robotic technology and operational support for space missions including Space Shuttle, International Space Station (ISS), and now Gateway in lunar orbit.

In this role, Seamus has responsibility for providing solutions for commercial, civil and National security missions including strategy and business development of on-orbit robotics, sensors, and rover technologies for the United States space market.

Prior to his current position, Seamus led business development and strategy for the Aerospace, Defense and Civil operation at Dynetics, a Leidos corporation. Seamus played a key role in the development and production of low-velocity strike systems, civil and commercial space systems, hypersonic systems, and cyber and IT systems. Before that position, Seamus was the space program office lead for the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory responsible for strategy, business development and delivery of hardware and software products for the space market.

A recognized expert in space rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking, planetary entry, descent and landing, and space robotics, Seamus was a key contributor on such foundational programs as DARPA Orbital Express, USAF XSS-11, Space Shuttle, ISS, Cygnus, Dreamchaser, Orion, Space Launch System, and NASA’s Human Lander System. In addition, Seamus contributed to a broad range of science missions including LADEE, CYGNSS, OSIRIS-Rex, and the Parker Solar Probe.

Seamus holds a doctoral degree in Ocean Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Masters of Engineering Management from the Gordon Institute at Tufts University. In addition, Seamus was awarded Masters degrees in Ocean Engineering and Mechanical Engineering from MIT and a Masters and Bachelors degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the University of New Orleans.

Dr. Marco Villa serves as Chief Revenue Officer for Terran Orbital Corporation, an industry-leading small-satellite products and services provider. Dr. Villa’s established expertise plays an integral role in managing daily operations, strategic efforts and the acquisition and execution of satellite opportunities for civil, defense, and commercial organizations worldwide. Prior to his position at Terran Orbital, Dr. Villa served as the Director of Mission Operations at SpaceX, where he managed Dragon spacecraft missions. Dr. Villa also advises on corporate strategy and business execution in high technology industries. With a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering and a master’s in engineering management, Dr. Marco Villa continues to make his mark in the aerospace industry domestically and internationally.

Brian Weimer is a corporate partner in Sheppard Mullin’s Washington, D.C. office and Leader of the firm’s Telecom Team. Brian is recognized by Chambers and is consistently selected for inclusion each year in Best Lawyers in America in the Communications Law category.

Brian provides transactional and regulatory advice to clients in the telecommunications industry, with particular emphasis on satellite, wireless and media companies. He acts as corporate counsel to telecommunications companies in M&A and financing matters and also advises on Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory issues presented by these transactions.

Brian represents FCC licensees on a wide range of issues at the FCC, including rulemaking, licensing and enforcement matters. He also advises foreign and domestic clients on international telecommunications issues such as satellite landing rights, cross-border M&A transactions and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS).

Brian frequently speaks and writes on telecommunications-related matters at industry events. He is also actively involved in the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he has served as co-chair of the International Telecommunications Committee, the Transactional Practice Committee and the Wireless Committee. He is also a member of the Washington Space Business Roundtable (WSBR).

Louis A. Zacharilla is Director of Innovation & Development for the Space & Satellite Professionals Internationalwhere he serves as strategist and spokesperson for the Society and the industry. He oversees SSPI’s corporate development program and is responsible for developing new chapters and events worldwide.

With the SSPI team Lou created the www.bettersatelliteworld.com campaign and Awards Dinner in London, which promotes the role of satellites as anchors of human development.

Mr. Zacharilla has written hundreds of articles and blogs for trade and business publications, appears regularly in the media and as a speaker and moderator of satellite industry conferences. He developed the World Teleport Association’s Teleport Awards Luncheon, which is now in its 23 years at the Satellite Conference in Washington, DC. He is a co-author of three books, including, Brain Gain.

He gave a TEDx Talk in 2016 and spoke at the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.

He holds a Masters Degree from the University of Notre Dame (USA) and lives in New York.

Zimmerman currently is leading HawkEye 360’s data science strategy, guiding a team as they apply machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to maximize value from HawkEye 360’s large-scale geospatial data sets. She previously worked at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where she managed a Machine Learning Solutions Lab division serving Intelligence Community and Defense Department customers. Among many projects, Zimmerman explored maritime security analytics that leveraged HawkEye 360’s RF data and underlying vessel characteristics and behavior to predict whether a given vessel was likely to engage in nefarious activity.

Before joining commercial industry, Zimmerman was an active-duty officer for the United States Air Force, where she worked on RF satellites and ground systems at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). She is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology, with degrees in Computer Engineering and Electrical and Electronics Engineering. While developing her master’s degree, Zimmerman analyzed the utility of machine learning of RF waveforms.