Virgin Orbit hires chief strategy officer
California-based space launch company recently announced it will be adding an industry leader to its executive team.
Virgin Orbit announced on Dec. 7 that Jim Simpson has joined the company as its new chief strategy officer.
“We’re very excited to have Jim joining Virgin Orbit,” Virgin Orbit Chief Executive Officer Dan Hart said. “Jim has run satellite companies, pushed the envelope of what can be done with smallsats, charted out exciting paths for some of the nation’s most successful aerospace businesses, and inked some of the biggest deals in commercial and government space history. It is terrific to welcome him to our team.”
Simpson has already been closely engaged with Virgin Orbit’s team and customer community serving as a member of Virgin Orbit’s Board of directors since May 2019.
“I’m incredibly impressed by the new capability that Virgin Orbit is bringing online,” Simpson said. “In my career, I’ve had a chance to work with a number of incredible rockets, but there is nothing else that can do what LauncherOne can do in terms of being so mobile and flexible, and bringing so much value to customers.”
Simpson said Virgin Orbit’s unique capabilities can unlock a whole new class of missions, and give its customers a chance to dream up
missions and strategies that simply have never been possible before.
“At Virgin Orbit, we get the opportunity to work with customers around the world to create incredible new things together,” Simpson said. “It is such an exciting time for our company and for this industry as a whole.”
Simpson’s previous work with governments and startups give him experience in the launch and satellite industries.
He recently finished his tenure as the CEO of Saturn Satellite Networks, where he led the evolution of the geostationary Earth Orbit field by changing the economics for emerging developing nations and established organizations in the sector.
Simpson also served as CEO of ABS, formerly Asia Broadcast Satellite, and served as the head of strategy for Aerojet Rocketdyne and Boeing Network and Space Systems.