Spencer Kelly, Technology TV Presenter

Spencer is a respected technology presenter and computer scientist, and as part of a life-long love affair with science and technology, graduated with a double first in Computer Science from Cambridge University. He has recently been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Technology by the University of Coventry.

Ito Takanori, METI

Mr. Takanori Ito is Deputy Director of Future Air Mobility Office in METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry).

He manages public-private conference for Air Transportation Revolution with MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and transport) where ministries, companies, local governments, universities, and other players discuss related topics such as regulations, standards and social acceptance based on business model or technology development to realize UAS in Japan.

Before he took his current position, he revised The Industrial Standardization Law in 2018 to establish fast track for developing JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) faster. He received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Tokyo University.

Robert Pearce, NASA

Mr. Pearce is responsible for leading aeronautics research mission strategic planning to guide the conduct of the agency’s aeronautics research and technology programs, as well as leading ARMD portfolio planning and assessments, mission directorate budget development and approval processes, and review and evaluation of all of NASA’s aeronautics research mission programs for strategic progress and relevance.

Dr Harini Kulatunga, Airbus

Harini Kulatunga is Head of Solutions in Airbus’ Urban Air Mobility (UAM) department. In this role, she steers the development of UAM customer solutions to meet market requirements.

Previously, Harini worked in Airbus’ Unmanned Aerial Systems program line as Head of Future Solutions on leading the development of emerging technologies and partner ecosystems for unmanned systems. Harini has a strong scientific research background, beginning her career as a post-doctoral researcher at Department of Computing, Imperial College London, before moving into research and management consulting positions. 

Dr Pippa Malmgren, H Robotics

Dr. Malmgren is the co-founder of H Robotics, a London based firm that makes HiSight, a rugged, modular, deep data drone and aerial intelligence system called HiSight. She is a former Economic Advisor to President George W. Bush and served on the Board of the DIT in the UK until June 2019. She is also a bestselling author of The Leadership Lab (Business Book of the Year 2019). She is one of the Fifty Top Inspiring Women in the UK and one of the Top 100 in Tech.

She has a BA from Mount Vernon College and an M.Sc. and PhD from LSE. She lectures at Sandhurst and for the Duke Fuqua Global Executive MBA.

Guillaume Thibault, Oliver Wyman

Guillaume Thibault is a Paris-based Partner at Oliver Wyman. He is an expert in strategy, offer design, and launch of new businesses within the Transportation, Services, Automotive, and Manufacturing industries. More recently, he has focused on the analysis and deployment of disruptive digital business models, and additionally serves as a fellow and co-leader of the New Mobility initiative within the Oliver Wyman Forum. He previously worked for Merrill Lynch and Forrester Research and has degrees from ESSEC Business School and Sciences-Po Paris.

Jay Merkle, US Federal Aviation Administration

As Executive Director of the Federal Aviation Administration's Unmanned Air Craft Systems Integration Office (AUS), Peter "Jay" Merkle is responsible for facilitating the FAA's safe integration of drones into the National Airspace System.

Prior to joining AUS, Merkle served as Deputy Vice President (DVP) of the Program Management Organization within the Air Traffic Organization. As the DVP, he worked with FAA operations and aviation users to ensure globally interoperable solutions for NextGen. He was also a key architect of the Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability program.

Merkle holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Central Florida and a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Tim Johnson, Civil Aviation Authority

Tim is Policy Director for the CAA, responsible for driving forward the CAA’s approach to major policy issues including EU Exit, innovation, airspace modernisation and consumer policy. Prior to joining the CAA in January 2014, he was Head of Strategy and latterly Head of Regulation at NATS. His earlier career was spent in Government, and included posts at HM Treasury, the Shareholder Executive and the MoD.  

François Sillion, Uber

François Sillion is the director of Uber's Advanced Technologies Centre in Paris, focusing on applications to air transport (Uber Elevate). The centre brings together scientists and engineers working on many exciting topics that impact Elevate's vision of future air transport, including artificial intelligence, airspace management, sensing & perception, autonomous control, energy management and communication networks.

François has held research positions at Inria, CNRS, Cornell University, M.I.T, Ecole Polytechnique and Microsoft research, and senior executive positions at Inria.

Darrell Swanson, Swanson Aviation

Darrell has established himself as a subject matter expert regarding electric aviation and how it will lead to a future of distributed aviation.  His knowledge encompasses both electric fixed wing and distributed electric propulsion VTOL aircraft infrastructure requirements as well as insights into how the industry could evolve to provide a truly distributed aviation system. 

He is an advisor to the UAM panel at ADS Group as well as a board member of the British Aviation Group, the largest trade body in the UK.  Darrell has over 20 years’ experience as an aviation consultant on airport masterplanning projects thru to airport acquisition advisory services.   

Dr. Anita Sengupta, ASX

Dr. Sengupta is an aerospace engineer, rocket scientist, pilot, and veteran of the space program. She worked for NASA for 16 years where her engineering projects included her PhD research on developing the ion propulsion system for the Dawn Mission.

After leaving NASA she led the development of the hyperloop as senior vice president of engineering systems at Virgin Hyperloop, a technology that can enable ground based travel in excess of airline speed.

Ricky Sandhu, Founder, SMALL

Ricky Sandhu, Founder + Director has over 15 years experience at one of the worlds leading architectural design practices Foster + Partners, where as one of the youngest shareholding Partners led some of the practices most complex + pioneering projects across the world.

Ricky Founded small. to focus on innovation in the built environment and enable great + combined intellectual efforts instead of simple, uncoordinated ones to ensure a brighter, healthier + more sustainable future.

Duncan Walker, Managing Director, SkyPorts Ltd

Duncan Walker is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Skyports Limited.  Duncan founded Skyports in 2018 to capture value from the emerging passenger and cargo drone market.  He has 20 years of commercial real estate experience and until January 2018 he was a Main Board Director at Helical plc, a FTSE listed investment and development company.  At Helical, Duncan was responsible for a £1bn investment portfolio of retail, office, retirement living and logistics properties.  Duncan started his career as a management consultant at Deloitte consulting. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics and Management from Oxford University. 

Mildred Troegeler, Boeing

Mildred Troegeler is the Director of Global Airspace Integration for Boeing NeXt, a business division building the ecosystem that will define the future of urban, regional and global mobility. She leads the airspace integration regulatory strategy across the company and works with regulators across the globe to enable the safe integration of autonomous systems into national airspace with a continued focus on safety. Mildred joined Boeing in  2015 as Director, Technical & Regulatory Affairs - Europe. In her previous role she was responsible for representing Boeing interests with all European institutions, most notably the European Commission, EASA and the European Parliament.

Pawan Srivastava, McFlyAero Infrastructure

With 15 years’ experience managing and investing in businesses across multiple sectors in Africa, Asia, Europe and the US, Pawan Srivastava is a prolific and successful entrepreneur. Since completing a business studies degree and subsequent MBA, he has established a strong reputation for recognising and developing new opportunities, building business networks, and mentoring start-ups.

Nikhil Anand, Founding Partner, The Aviary Project

Nik Anand is one of the Founding Partners of The Aviary Project, an open community dedicated to supporting the future of Aerial Mobility. Having completed his Master’s thesis with the Aerial Robotics Lab at Imperial College London in 2013, Nik has been developing eVTOL technologies for more than 5 years and was funded by Entrepreneur First to develop a cargo drone concept in 2016.

In November 2018, The Aviary Project hosted the first UAM conference in the UK but since then, his team has been working on a variety of projects to develop business models and network design strategies for UAM.

Filip Verhaeghe, (UN)MANNED

Filip Verhaeghe is founder, chairman and CEO of (UN)MANNED.

Together with his team, Filip is revolutionizing avionics instrument development and certification. The language "Sol" allows to specify system-level instrument requirements, from which both the software and the associated DO-178C certification evidence is automatically generated, with no manual tweaking required. Sol is very far beyond anything else on the market, and is proven. Certified instruments built with the technology are flying over Europe. The technology is currently used by major avionics companies, including both manned and unmanned aircraft manufacturers.

A particular focus of Filip is combining DAL A airworthiness certification with intelligent decision making. E.g. with Airbus, his team is working on DAL A certifiable computer vision for automated VFR landing on normal runways. Filip is particularly interested in the intersection of manned and unmanned aircraft, with intelligence and certification come together in safety-critical ways where a pilot is not available as fallback, with optionally piloted cockpit design in general, and urban mobility specifically, as core application area.

Ken Stewart, AiRXOS, part of GE Aviation

Ken Stewart serves as AiRXOS’ CEO, joining the organization in 2017 as Executive Product Manager, Digital. He brings more than 25‐years of technology industry leadership, telecom expertise, start‐up innovation, and executive management experience. Ken Stewart manages corporate direction and strategy at AiRXOS, directing company activity in technology, sales, marketing, alliances and channels, and support. In 2018, Stewart was recognized as one of the ‘Top 7 Drone Visionaries’ by Commercial UAV News.

Ali Husain, SkyGrid

Ali Husain, Chief Software Architect at SkyGrid, is a technologist with more than 10 years of industry experience, building various product platforms, ranging from developing reinforcement learning models, drone swarm software, ERP solutions to AI platforms. At SkyGrid, Ali is responsible for the development and execution of all software capabilities. He is a Director of Labs at SparkCognition, a leading AI company. Ali was previously Director of Solutions at SparkCognition, responsible for building out the company's natural language platform, DeepNLP. Ali led the development of Project Ares, a cyber training platform, winner of the 2016 Edison Award.

Andrew Sage, NATS

Andrew Sage is Head of Unmanned Traffic Management at NATS and is
responsible for the co-ordination of all of NATS’ activities in respect of drones.
This includes safety and awareness campaigns, integration of UTM into our dayto-
day operations, and supporting beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operators
as they seek to integrate into all classes of UK airspace. Andrew has been with
NATS since 2013, having spent 15 years as a director at independent aviation
consultancy Helios Technology (now Egis).

Jon Round, Civil Aviation Authority

Jon started his career as a Royal Navy Seaking helicopter pilot. In the 1980’s he transitioned into commercial aviation, flying fixed wing aircraft with Air Europe, Air 2000 and British Airways. At BA Jon held the position of Chief Pilot, Gatwick, before becoming General Manager, BA Flight Operations.

Following an MBA at Cranfield, interim roles at EASA and IATA, Jon joined the CAA in 2012 as Oversight Programme Manager, a role which developed into Safety Programme Manager within the Performance Based Regulation programme. In November 2015 he became Head of PBR and from March 2017 Head of Airspace, Air Traffic Management & Aerodromes.

Mike Gadd, Altitude Angel

Mike has almost 40 years of experience in aviation with 22 years in regulatory roles with the UK CAA and EASA. He has held lead roles in UAS, cyber, spaceplane and aircraft certification and safety programs and held chairmanship positions in international and national policy, rulemaking and standardisation activities, including ICAO and EUROCAE.

His knowledge and experience of the regulatory systems and processes and their
application is now focused on ensuring the safe, efficient and equitable integration of unmanned and automated aircraft into all classes of airspace to enable the societal and economic benefits these can bring.

Col. Ed Corrigan, Ministry Of Defence

Eddie joined the Army in 1986 in what was then the Royal Corps of Transport.  Throughout his career he has served on many operations including the first Gulf War, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Kuwait. 

He also deployed in support of the UN aid effort following the Pakistan earthquake.  In addition to operations he is an experienced capability planner, having introduced the OshKosh Heavy Equipment Transporter Capability into full service. He has spent a number of years in Germany both as a graduate of the German Armed Forces Staff College and Regimental Command. 

In his current role as Assistant Head Concepts and Force Development he is responsible for a diverse team driving logistics strategy, doctrine and force development.  He brings to the role significant experience from his time at HQ Army where he supported Future Army Structures and was the planning lead for SDSR 10 and the interoperability agenda.

Eddie is also the Vice Commodore of the RLC Sailing Association.

Peter Stockel, DSTL, UK Government

Peter Stockel graduated in Aeronautical Engineering from Manchester University in 1986. Initially working for GEC-Marconi Avionics developing safety-critical flight control systems for military aircraft, he then joined the UK MOD’s Defence Research Agency (DRA) at Farnborough in 1994.

He led a wide variety of systems research, technical advice and operational analysis studies into manned and unmanned air, weapons and C4ISR systems research, development, demonstration and acquisition projects. Several that successfully made it into UK operational service include the Merlin HC3 and Chinook HC2 helicopters, the Sentinel R1, the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter and the Storm Shadow missile.

During his subsequent career with the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Peter has enjoyed many senior roles in the management and delivery of R&D, national and international research leadership, organisational change design and strategic relationship management for UK Defence and Security. This also included several posts in the UK MOD Head Office, managing research, leading teams providing scientific advice and delivering senior decision support. He was awarded the MOD Chief Scientific Advisor’s (CSA) commendation for his contribution to the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

Latterly, as a part of the UK SDSR2015 Defence and Security innovation commitments, he has designed, led and delivered an exciting portfolio of new defence and security challenges for Robotic and Autonomous Systems, partnering with other UK government departments, the US DOD and other allies. He is currently a Dstl Fellow in Dstl’s Platform Systems Division.

Neil Cloughley, Faradair Aerospace

Neil Cloughley is Managing Director of Faradair® Aerospace Limited. Founded 2014 and an early champion of hybrid/electric flight within the new Urban/ Regional Air Mobility sector, Faradair® has won three business awards and three International start-up pitching competitions whilst developing the BEHA (Bio Electric Hybrid Aircraft), an aircraft that could transform regional and non-civilian flight opportunity.

Neil is an experienced Aviation industry executive and entrepreneur that spent 15+ years within the commercial aviation sector working with some of the largest aviation brands and financial institutions, recently advising the UK Government on future flight policy and opportunity for BEHA military applications. 

Arnaud Didey, Neoptera

Arnaud holds an MSc with Majors in Engineering Sciences, Fluid and Solid Mechanics. Arnaud later went on to graduate from ISAE-SUPAERO Aeronautical Engineering School with Majors in Spacecraft Systems & Commercial Aircraft Design

With 20 years experience in the Aerospace industry, Arnaud has been trusted by major Spacecraft and Aircraft manufacturers (Thales Alenia Space, Airbus and Airbus Defence & Space) to provide expert consultancy on Spacecraft Propulsion Systems and More Electric Aircraft.

More recently Arnaud founded Neoptera Aero to develop a unique tail-sitting eVTOL with a tilting body, for public services and commercial air transportation.

Maron Kristofersson, Aha.is

Maron is an experienced entrepreneur with 20 years of global experience across multiple industries, including 2 public listings.  Maron is the CEO and co-founder of Aha, which builds online marketplace businesses with instant deliveries. The company's first marketplace is now the leading instant delivery marketplace for grocery, hot food and retail goods in Iceland. 

The company is on the frontier of the energy transition in Iceland where Aha deliveries only using electric cars or drones. Maron has spoken at numerous conferences globally about the future of drone deliveries, the energy transition, last-mile logistics and the future of retail.

Marion Le Masson, Thales UK

Marion is the Digital Product Manager for SOARIZON® by Thales. Starting in the Thales Digital Factory team in Paris, she moved to England to continue the SOARIZON® journey.  Her mission is to help create a digitally connected ecosystem of global drone capability to deliver data through safe and secure operations. Marion will go above and beyond to ensure that project goals are met and the team performs to the best of their ability.

Spencer Kelly, Technology TV Presenter

Spencer is a respected technology presenter and computer scientist, and as part of a life-long love affair with science and technology, graduated with a double first in Computer Science from Cambridge University. He has recently been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Technology by the University of Coventry.

Davis Hackenberg, NASA

Davis Hackenberg is currently serving the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) as the Project Manager for the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) project and also serves as the Strategic Advisor for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) to the ARMD Associate Administrator.

He performs his duties from NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. Project Management duties for AAM include leading development and implementation of the UAM mission spanning all relevant ARMD project and center research activities with the goal of implementing the NASA UAM investment strategy in a manner that accelerates UAM.

Davis is responsible for strategic and technical management, including integration with multiple government agencies ensuring that the products of this effort are relevant and will be utilized by all customers and stakeholders.

Gwen Lighter, GoFly

Gwen Lighter is the CEO and founder of GoFly. She leads a team of over 3,500 innovators from over 100 countries creating a multitude of personal flying devices. Supported by Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, and 20+ aerospace organizational partners, GoFly is catalyzing the creation of jet packs, flying motorcycles, and personal flyers to make the dream of human flight a reality.

Fabien Nestmann, Volocopter

Truly passionate about moving people and giving them time back for the important things in life, Fabien joined Volocopter to achieve exactly that. While building up Uber in Germany as General Manager, he realized that innovation continues to challenge regulation and that cooperation is crucial for developing new mobility products and services. At Volocopter he works with legislators and cities to enable air taxi services globally. Before dedicating his work to the future of mobility, Fabien gained broad experience in the tech, consulting, and VC industries. 

Ilya Knaykov, Bartini

Ilya Khanykov is the co-founder of McFly Infrastructure, a development company for the eVTOL ground infrastructure, and Bartini, an engineering company for the eVTOL aerial vehicle. Ilya is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor with corporate finance background. Areas of expertise include innovation leadership, business architecture and investments, IoT and smart-cities.

Michael Darcy, Vertical Aerospace

Michael is responsible for developing the commercial side of eVTOL technology for Vertical Aerospace, from the product itself to the supporting infrastructure and operations.   

Michael has eight years’ experience as a director in disruptive technology. At Darktrace he established the Middle East market, leading multidiscipline teams to deliver and advise on cybersecurity solutions.  

An ambitious and highly motivated business leader, he has a proven track record of B2B sales management, and excels in relationship building, strategic planning, and hitting commercial targets. He is skilled in driving himself and his team to success in demanding and constantly changing environments. 

Tomohiro Fukuzawa, SkyDrive & CARTIVATOR

Tomohiro graduated from Tokyo University and worked at Toyota Motor as part global procurement. He became Co-Representative Director of CARTIVATOR in 2014 and established SkyDrive Inc in 2018.

Dr Seyed Mohseni, Samad Aerospace

Dr Seyed Mohseni is a serial entrepreneur founding a number of successful businesses with his academic background in aerospace engineering design. He holds an MSc in aerospace propulsion (Cranfield University) as well as an MBA and doctorate in gas turbine technology (Cranfield University).

Emma Simpson, Civil Aviation Authority

After completing a degree in Mathematics, Statistics and Operational Research, and a 5 year stint working in the travel  industry, Emma ‘fell’ into a career in air traffic control. This seemed to satisfy her need to exercise the logistical side of her brain as well as her passion for travel!

She joined NATS when it was still part of the CAA, and spent 11 years as an approach radar controller in Swanwick, working in the ‘London Terminal Airspace’ Area, and also getting heavily involved in operational ATC procedures, safety, hazard analysis, risk assessment and airspace design.

This was followed up with 5 years at Gatwick Tower as an aerodrome controller and operations expert. She became Manager of Innovation in November 2017 and subsequently Head of our newly formed Innovation Hub in 2018, now working as part of CSP.

Stu Olden, Williams Advanced Engineering

Stu leads the development of the Aerospace, Defence and Emerging Markets areas of the business. He has a wealth of technical, commercial and life experience, having served 26 years as a British Army engineer, and the last decade in industry as an engineering consultant and business developer in service and product delivery organisations. Stu has worked on a wide range of technology programmes across the value chain, and as a Chartered Engineer, a Project Management professional and a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management, is interested in the importance of optimising the mix of people, culture and technology to maximise operational performance and capability delivery. 

Thorsten Gröne, Cevotec

Thorsten Groene is the Managing Director of Cevotec GmbH and responsible for business strategy and operations. As co-founder of the company, he acquired a deep expertise in automated composites processes early on. Prior to Cevotec, he worked as a strategy consultant for international clients in the chemical industry. Thorsten holds an MBA from IESE Business School and has built up a worldwide network through his international assignments. 

Phil Whiffin, WMG, University of Warwick

Phil has 30 years' experience in engineering across multiple transport sectors, with a strong focus on electrification, working in Automotive, Rail, Off-highway and Aerospace. Phil was part of the early team leading electrification studies at JLR, as well as product launch, research projects, powertrain control and safety critical systems during his 23 years there. He then moved across to the rail sector to apply robust systems engineering approaches.

In the last 4 years Phil has been Chief Engineer Electrical and Electronic Systems at JCB. He led the initial studies into electrification that have recently resulted in JCB’s first electric excavator. Phil has been involved in many successful TSB and Innovate projects with both JLR and JCB and has a strong focus on delivery. Phil joined WMG in September 2018 to head the Advanced Propulsion Systems team.

Prof. Rahim Tafazolli

Rahim Tafazolli has been the Professor of Mobile and Satellite Communications at the University of Surrey since April 2000, Director of Institute of Communication Systems (ICS, formerly known as CCSR) since January 2010 and the Director of the 5G Innovation Centre since 2012.

Professor Tafazolli was the leader of study on “grand challenges in IoT” (Internet of Things) in the UK, 2011-2012, for RCUK (Research Council UK) and the UK TSB (Technology Strategy Board). He is regularly invited by governments to advise on 5G technologies and was advisor to the Mayor of London with regard to the London Infrastructure Investment 2050 Plan during May and June 2014.

Sir Brian Burridge, Royal Aeronautical Society

Sir Brian Burridge became Chief Executive of the Royal Aeronautical Society in October 2018. His earlier career included 10 years with Leonardo, a global high-tech manufacturer in the aerospace, defence and technology sectors. During that time, he chaired two of the Group’s businesses and held board positions in the trade association, ADS, and the Defence Growth Partnership where he also chaired its innovation hub.  Earlier, Sir Brian spent a full career as a pilot in the Royal Air Force holding a frontline command at every level in the Service, including the national joint command in the 2003 Iraq war.  

Clive Lewis, Achieving the Difference

As a leading aerospace strategy practice, dozens of blue chip industry clients call upon Achieving the Difference’s approach and knowledge to help them access and grow in aerospace.  Clive himself, sits on the Aerospace Growth Partnership strategy working group and ADS’s Urban Air Mobility Group for which he leads the Market Workstream.

Clive holds a Distinction grade MA in Marketing, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a Chartered Marketer, a member of the ADS Urban Air Mobility Group, Through-Life Service Group, Aerospace & Defence Export Focus Groups, a contributor to the Aerospace Growth Partnership strategy. 

Gary Cutts, Innovate UK

Gary has nearly 30 years experience in the Aerospace industry mainly working on Civil and Defence propulsion system for Rolls‐Royce. He has held engineering leadership positions across the product lifecycle covering technology acquisition, concept definition, development/certification and service management. He also held many global, executive leadership positions across the group including creating the System Design function and latterly leading the digital transformation of Engineering. Gary is also experienced in business development, customer consultancy and services creation.