In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from Bhavi Jagatia, Astrodynamics Engineer at Planet and one of three Promise Award Recipients in 2023. Bhavi took on her current position at Planet after completing a successful internship for the Orbits R&D team. While at the company, she has made significant improvements to the tasking system for the company’s high-resolution constellation of imaging satellites, SkySats.

Bhavi was initially tasked with evaluating the complex schedule for SkySats, identifying areas of improvement and implementing changes to increase the collection capacity of the fleet. Her work resulted in substantial fulfillment enhancements, and she is now the sole owner and developer of the tool for her team. Bhavi received her Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, which she attended on the prestigious Tata scholarship. During her studies at Cornell, she worked with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on a project to investigate the use of flux-pinning on orbiting sample capture for a Mars sample return mission. Bhavi served as avionics lead for the project and participated in a microgravity test aboard a Zero-G flight with the JPL team. She also led Cornell’s project team for NASA’s Micro-G NExT competition while completing her studies and worked in internships at Boeing’s research lab, ASML, and Honda Aircraft Company. Read more about Bhavi.

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In the third episode of this Making Leaders podcast series, we hear from James Hinds, Chief Executive Officer at Airbus OneWeb Satellites. James joins SSPI’s Robert Bell to discuss his career path and what experiences he brought from his engineering and management background to the new space sector.

James Hinds is the CEO of Airbus OneWeb Satellites, a position he was appointed to in January 2021. He has over 35 years of leadership and engineering experience in the space and satellite industries. Prior to his previous role as COO of Airbus OneWeb Satellites at the end of 2019, he spent four years with Airbus Defence and Space in Toulouse, France, where he was responsible for strategic planning of its Space Systems business. Before that, he worked with Airbus and Boeing (and predecessor companies) in satellite engineering, production and project management. Notable achievements include his responsibilities as Airbus program manager for the Hylas 1 satellite (a joint Airbus/India Space Research Organisation programme); director responsible for payload research and development at Airbus including digital processors, active antennas and amplifier development; and as the lead verification engineer of Boeing’s 601HP satellite series.

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In the second episode of this Making Leaders podcast series, we hear from Ronald van der Breggen, Chief Commercial Officer at Rivada Space Networks. Ronald joins SSPI’s Robert Bell to discuss his career path and what experiences he brought from his advisory and entrepreneurial background to the new space sector.

Ronald van der Breggen is Chief Commercial Officier (CCO) at Rivada Space Networks, a position he has held for just over 1 year. As CCO at Rivada, he is responsible for setting and executing the commercial strategy for the company. In addition to serving at Rivada, Ronald is the CEO and owner of Route206 b.v., a consultancy business he founded nearly 10 years ago to help turn tech companies into business successes. He puts his consulting skills to use on multiple boards, serving as Advisory Board Member for both Via Satellite Magazine and Xenesis and also briefly served as the Advisor to the CEO of KebNi. Ronald's other past postions include Chief Commercial Officer at LeoSat Interprises, Inc., Vice President of Customer Account Managment for SES Satellites, Vice President of Business Development at KPNQwest and Senior Director of IP Network Development at KPN.

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In Part 2 of this Making Leaders podcast, we hear more from Debra Facktor, Head of U.S. Space Systems at Airbus U.S. Space & Defense and the 2023 Mentor of the Year. Throughout her more than 30 years in the space industry, Debra has served as a mentor and guide for more than 25 interns and young leaders beginning their careers and countless more leaders as they continue their professional journeys. Of note, she provided vital advice and support to Gary Lai, who went on to become the Chief Architect at Blue Origin, when he was an intern and young engineer starting out at Kistler Aerospace. Debra founded the Women in Aerospace (WIA) Foundation in 2009 – which has provided scholarships to 35 women pursuing higher education degrees in aerospace fields over the past 13 years – and served as a mentor to the inaugural recipient, Dr. Whitney Lohmeyer, whom she still mentors today. She is a sought-after speaker for panels, business deals and general industry advice due to her powerful combination of enthusiasm, energy and sharp business acumen.

Debra is Head of U.S. Space Systems for Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, a position she has held for 3.5 years. In her current role, Debra leads the company’s space business line with a focus on small satellite constellations and space exploration, and serves on the board of the Airbus OneWeb Satellites joint venture. Her contributions have been vital to the company’s remarkable 4-year compound annual growth rate of 145%. Before joining Airbus U.S., she served as Vice President and General Manager of Strategic Operations at Ball Aerospace, where she led the firm’s D.C. operations and expanded its strategic capabilities in the defense, civil and commercial sectors. Read more about Debra.

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In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from Debra Facktor, Head of U.S. Space Systems at Airbus U.S. Space & Defense and the 2023 Mentor of the Year. Throughout her more than 30 years in the space industry, Debra has served as a mentor and guide for more than 25 interns and young leaders beginning their careers and countless more leaders as they continue their professional journeys. Of note, she provided vital advice and support to Gary Lai, who went on to become the Chief Architect at Blue Origin, when he was an intern and young engineer starting out at Kistler Aerospace. Debra founded the Women in Aerospace (WIA) Foundation in 2009 – which has provided scholarships to 35 women pursuing higher education degrees in aerospace fields over the past 13 years – and served as a mentor to the inaugural recipient, Dr. Whitney Lohmeyer, whom she still mentors today. She is a sought-after speaker for panels, business deals and general industry advice due to her powerful combination of enthusiasm, energy and sharp business acumen.

Debra is Head of U.S. Space Systems for Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, a position she has held for 3.5 years. In her current role, Debra leads the company’s space business line with a focus on small satellite constellations and space exploration, and serves on the board of the Airbus OneWeb Satellites joint venture. Her contributions have been vital to the company’s remarkable 4-year compound annual growth rate of 145%. Before joining Airbus U.S., she served as Vice President and General Manager of Strategic Operations at Ball Aerospace, where she led the firm’s D.C. operations and expanded its strategic capabilities in the defense, civil and commercial sectors. Read more about Debra.

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This summer, SSPI brings you a series of special guest interviewers who will interview our latest space & satellite industry guests. For the first episode, we hear from Lee Chew Tan, President, Smart City & Digital Solutions and Chief Commercial Officer (Mkt Development) for ST Engineering. Lee Chew is interviewed by Jennifer Hoil, Director of Product Marketing at ST Engineering iDirect and an active member of SSPI-WISE (SSPI Women in Space Engagement).

Jennifer Hoil is Director of Product Marketing at ST Engineering iDirect, a position she has held for nearly 1.5 years. Jennifer previously served as Senior Manager of Product Marketing at the company. Before joining ST Engineering iDirect, she worked as Director of Marketing and Public Relations for Isotropic Systems and Director of the Satellite Group at Sage Communications. Jennifer also served for 7 years as Account Executive for Longbottom Communications, a boutique communications firm specialized in space & satellite clients. She is an active member of SSPI-WISE and currently serves as Co-Chair of the Sustainment & Infrastructure Working Group.

Lee Chew Tan is President of Smart City & Digital Solutions and Chief Commercial Officer (Mkt Development) at ST Engineering, a position to which she was recently promoted. She previously served as President Commercial for ST Engineering. Lee Chew also currently serves as President for the Women in Tech Chapter of the Singapore Computer Society. Before joining ST Engineering iDirect, she served as Managing Director for the Worldwide Public Sector, ASEAN at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Lee Chew began her career at Hewlett Packard Asia Pacific, where she worked as Vice President of Sales, Asia Pacific for 2.5 years before moving on to become Vice President and General Manager, Servers Asia Pacific and finally Senior Vice President, Business Group, Global Sales for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She dedicates her time to the industry outside of working hours as well, having served as a mentor for the German Accelerator Southeast Asia from May 2019 to February 2021.

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In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from Joe Spytek, CEO of Speedcast and one of three inductees to the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame in 2023. In his 17 years as Co-Founder and CEO for ITC Global, Joe Spytek grew the company from a disaster recovery start-up to a remote communications leader, coordinating the sale of the business to Panasonic in 2015.

At Speedcast, he led the company through a complete recapitalization during the height of the global pandemic, while consolidating more than 15 legacy organizations, each with different networks and platforms. Just 18 months later, Speedcast had created something new – a global network delivering the multi-path, multi-orbit, software-defined service that the industry talks about as the future. It has enabled Speedcast to integrate LEO connectivity into managed-service solutions for customers to take advantage of lower latency while receiving guaranteed service levels. Speedcast now operates the industry’s largest global network, topping out at more than 30 Gbps of total bandwidth to customers in 2022 when the company stood up 65 new networks in a matter of weeks to support demand. Read more about Joe.

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In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from David Kagan, CEO of Globalstar and one of three inductees to the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame in 2023. Dave Kagan’s career began more than 25 years ago when he worked in finance and operations for Norwegian Cruise Line. There, he saw the growing value of satcom to shipboard operations and passenger satisfaction. That led him to accept a position as president and CEO of Maritime Telecommunications, whose founder and fellow Hall of Famer Richard Hadsall invented the motion-stabilized VSAT antenna.

He did the things a good leader is supposed to do: growing the company’s revenues and expanding its customer base to include cruise lines, luxury yachts, oil rigs and government vessels. But he also forged a partnership that would reinvent the company: a deal with AT&T to enable mobile phone usage on cruise ships. When the World Trade Center was attacked, the company made headlines by offering phone and internet service for free aboard dozens of ships to let passengers reach their loved ones. Read more about Dave.

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In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from Kevin Steen, CEO of OneWeb Technologies. Kevin joins SSPI’s Robert Bell to discuss his career path and what experiences he brought from his leadership and entrepreneurial background to the new space sector.

Kevin Steen joined OneWeb Technologies as CEO in 2022, after serving as CEO of ST Engineering iDirect for 12 years. Before ST Engineering iDirect, he served in other leadership positions, including as Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions at SAP and as Senior Director of World Wide Business Operations for Aspen Technology. Kevin is an entrepreneur who has co-founded and worked in senior leadership roles at multiple early-stage startups that were later acquired by Fortune 100 companies. He received his MBA from Northeastern University after completing a BSBA at the University of Denver.

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Talent attraction is a many-faceted challenge that is top of mind for our rapidly expanding industry. We have to fill the talent pipeline, from grade school through to institutions of higher learning. And we need to attract talented individuals already in the workforce to meet immediate talent needs.

Outside In explores all the ways people are outside, and how to invite them in, inclusive of gender, ethnicity or “race,” nationality, other industries, other disciplines. How do we invite people in? How do we make our industry the most attractive and the most inviting?

In this Making Leaders podcast, members of the 2022 “20 Under 35” cohort join SSPI’s Tamara Bond-Williams to explore this concept of “Outside In.”

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In part two of Outside In, members of the 2022 “20 Under 35” cohort discuss how to break habits of mind that make it hard to envision pathways into the industry for people who are traditionally outside it.

Talent attraction is a many-faceted challenge that is top of mind for our rapidly expanding industry. We have to fill the talent pipeline, from grade school through to institutions of higher learning. And we need to attract talented individuals already in the workforce to meet immediate talent needs.

Outside In explores all the ways people are outside, and how to invite them in, inclusive of gender, ethnicity or race, nationality, other industries, other disciplines. How do we invite people in? How do we make our industry the most attractive and the most inviting?

You can also watch both parts of this conversation as a video:

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SSPI’s Making Leaders campaign is made possible with the support of our corporate partners

In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from Dr. Christopher R. Boshuizen, Co-Founder and Former CTO of Planet Labs PBC, now Partner at DCVC, and one of six inductees to the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame in 2022, alongside his two co-founders. Planet was founded in 2010 as Cosmogia by former NASA scientists Will Marshall, Robbie Schingler and Dr. Christopher Boshuizen. The three scientists-turned-entrepreneurs had a singular vision: to image the entire Earth every day to make changes visible, accessible and actionable. They were the first to deploy cubesats in a commercial capacity, and over the past decade, they succeeded in revolutionizing the Earth observation (EO) industry and expanding access to satellite-based data far beyond the traditional defense, intelligence and agricultural sectors.

The co-founders planned to design and build their own cubesats called Doves for launch into low Earth orbit. Their first satellite was built in the archetypal California garage. Successful fundraising permitted them to launch two demonstration satellites, Dove 1 and 2, in April 2013 and two more in November, by which time the company had announced plans for a 28-satellite constellation called Flock-1. The flock was launched from the International Space Station in 2014. The Doves on-orbit service would be initially be relatively brief due to atmospheric drag, but the low cost of manufacturing and rideshare launches would make possible rapid iteration of new generations. This iterative approach allowed Planet to rapidly improve the spacecraft capabilities and reliability while simultaneously serving customers, which was a wholly new approach in the industry. Latter generation Doves would be launched into higher orbits and see normal service lifetimes. The three Planet co-founders were inducted into the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame in 2022. Read more about the co-founders of Planet.

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In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from Robert H. Schingler, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Planet Labs PBC and one of six inductees to the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame in 2022, alongside his two co-founders. Planet was founded in 2010 as Cosmogia by former NASA scientists Will Marshall, Robbie Schingler and Dr. Christopher Boshuizen. The three scientists-turned-entrepreneurs had a singular vision: to image the entire Earth every day to make changes visible, accessible and actionable. They were the first to deploy cubesats in a commercial capacity, and over the past decade, they succeeded in revolutionizing the Earth observation (EO) industry and expanding access to satellite-based data far beyond the traditional defense, intelligence and agricultural sectors.

The co-founders planned to design and build their own cubesats called Doves for launch into low Earth orbit. Their first satellite was built in the archetypal California garage. Successful fundraising permitted them to launch two demonstration satellites, Dove 1 and 2, in April 2013 and two more in November, by which time the company had announced plans for a 28-satellite constellation called Flock-1. The flock was launched from the International Space Station in 2014. The Doves on-orbit service would be initially be relatively brief due to atmospheric drag, but the low cost of manufacturing and rideshare launches would make possible rapid iteration of new generations. This iterative approach allowed Planet to rapidly improve the spacecraft capabilities and reliability while simultaneously serving customers, which was a wholly new approach in the industry. Latter generation Doves would be launched into higher orbits and see normal service lifetimes. The three Planet co-founders were inducted into the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame in 2022. Read more about the co-founders of Planet.

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SSPI’s Making Leaders campaign is made possible with the support of our corporate partners

In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from Dr. William S. Marshall, Co-Founder and CEO of Planet Labs PBC and one of six inductees to the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame in 2022, alongside his two co-founders. Planet was founded in 2010 as Cosmogia by former NASA scientists Will Marshall, Robbie Schingler and Dr. Christopher Boshuizen. The three scientists-turned-entrepreneurs had a singular vision: to image the entire Earth every day to make changes visible, accessible and actionable. They were the first to deploy cubesats in a commercial capacity, and over the past decade, they succeeded in revolutionizing the Earth observation (EO) industry and expanding access to satellite-based data far beyond the traditional defense, intelligence and agricultural sectors.

The co-founders planned to design and build their own cubesats called Doves for launch into low Earth orbit. Their first satellite was built in the archetypal California garage. Successful fundraising permitted them to launch two demonstration satellites, Dove 1 and 2, in April 2013 and two more in November, by which time the company had announced plans for a 28-satellite constellation called Flock-1. The flock was launched from the International Space Station in 2014. The Doves on-orbit service would be initially be relatively brief due to atmospheric drag, but the low cost of manufacturing and rideshare launches would make possible rapid iteration of new generations. This iterative approach allowed Planet to rapidly improve the spacecraft capabilities and reliability while simultaneously serving customers, which was a wholly new approach in the industry. Latter generation Doves would be launched into higher orbits and see normal service lifetimes. The three Planet co-founders were inducted into the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame in 2022. Read more about the co-founders of Planet.

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In this Making Leaders podcast, we hear from Steve Bates, Director of Systems Engineering at Maxar Technologies and the 2022 SSPI Mentor of the Year. In his current role, he is responsible for managing a team of systems engineers and developing the safety roadmap for Maxar. Steve draws on his deep experience in aviation safety from a long and impressive career in the industry to help Maxar ensure that the company meets the demanding safety requirements for a crewed NASA spacecraft as part of the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) for Gateway, a vital part of NASA’s Artemis program. He is also responsible for preparing Maxar engineers to safely execute new missions as part of the company’s business development strategy.

Steve began his career in the U.S. Marine Corps where he worked primarily in electronic engineering. He went on to become an Engineering Manager at Boeing, where he led technical groups responsible for integration and architecture development of large networked systems, including developing and implementing Network Security requirements. While working at Boeing, Steve served as the FAA-approved Safety and Airworthiness Manager with complete responsibility for Flight Deck design and requirements on the 737 and 757. Learn more about Steve.

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