The 2023 SmallSat Market: Size, Value and Growth Sectors

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.

Shalini is a Principal in Deloitte Consulting and is the leader of Deloitte’s commercial space practice

Shalini has over 20 years experience across industry and consulting, driving business stand up, mergers, acquisitions, restructuring and transformation activities across a multitude of industries including financial services, technology, media, telecom, private equity and space. Her focus is on driving business outcomes and value creation through organic and inorganic transformations.

Shalini leads Deloitte commercial space practice across industries, and with a significant focus on Technology and Aerospace sectors. She has spearheaded the creation of a singular global, cross industry and cross solutions practice that covers the gamut of the Space value chain from business strategy, go to market, front office operations, back office operations, supply chain and manufacturing operations and ecosystem plays to support

Shalini graduated in commerce and economics from University of Mumbai and subsequently earned an MBA from the Walter A. Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. She is also an avid artist, jewelry designer and lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two boys

Fletcher Franklin is a space industry consultant at BryceTech, where he leads projects analyzing and forecasting space industry trends. Prior to joining BryceTech, Mr. Franklin was a government affairs consultant representing space companies ranging from small startups to established primes before Congress and the executive branch on space policy issues. Mr. Franklin holds extensive experience analyzing the intersection of the government and commercial space sectors, and has demonstrated expertise in the federal budget and procurement processes. He holds a BA from Kenyon College and an MA in Global Security Studies from Johns Hopkins University.

Ward Hanson analyzes the economics and marketing of new technology.    Other areas of interest include the role of competition, policy issues involving the evolving role of interactivity, optimal product line pricing, and the emergence of the commercial space industry.  As a pioneer in studying the commercialization and impact of the Internet, he has published research articles, a leading text, and created online courses on Internet marketing. He has served as an expert witness in areas of patent validity, e-commerce, Internet advertising, and industry analysis. He has recently published a number of articles on the economics of new space and serves on the editorial board of the New Space journal.

Dr. Hanson has taught at Stanford since 1995, first at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, then at the Department of Economics and the Public Policy program as part of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Previous faculty positions include Purdue University and the University of Chicago.  He has a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.

Sita Sonty is Partner and Associate Director in the Aerospace And Defense and Public Sector practices of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). She held senior roles as a former U.S. diplomat and aerospace executive.

Sita made history as the Head of Human Spaceflight Sales at SpaceX, where she executed the first private spaceflight sales on the Crew Dragon on a Flyer and to the International Space Station. Sita also guided global market strategy for Starlink’s expansion Lower Earth Orbit Free as the next generation telecommunications market offering.

As Vice President for International Business with the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), Sita directed Business Review Teams on international defense and space sales pursuits, including capture management, risk mitigation, legal, tax, finance, supply chain, engineering, and product design.

A Director for National Security, Sita led Raytheon’s corporate engagement with U.S. Executive Branch agencies and ensured the corporation’s compliance with legal, regulatory, and policy frameworks for multiple governments.

Sita amassed over seventeen years of service as a career U.S. diplomat. Sita led the International Security Advisory Board bringing A&D companies’ strategic recommendations to Secretary Kerry; she also served as Chief of Staff for Legislative Affairs and Senior Advisor for Defense Sales to South and Central Asia.  Her overseas posts include Croatia, Libya, Syria, Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq (2004), and Egypt.

She graduated with distinction from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; studied at Jussieu in Paris (1998) and the Centre des Etudes Maghrebienne en Tunisie (CEMAT) (2001); and graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College in Political Science and Economics.  Her native tongue is Telugu; she also speaks Hindi, French, Arabic, Croatian, and Urdu.  Sita serves as Executive Board Member for Women in Aerospace, The Johns Hopkins University President’s Alumni Council, and the Washington Leadership Program.

Abhi Tripathi has been working in Human and Robotic Space flight for over 20 years. He is presently the Director of Mission Operations at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab (SSL).  The lab currently operates 3 NASA missions and has 4 more it is actively building and testing in preparation for launch.  This includes the twin spacecraft ESCAPADE mission to Mars.  Abhi is also an advisor to several exciting aerospace startups, both through his involvement at the Berkeley Skydeck Accelerator, and on his own.

Prior to his role at SSL, Abhi spent 10 years working at SpaceX, starting a month before the first launch of the F9.  He led certification (by NASA) of the Cargo and Crew Dragon programs at SpaceX.  These vehicles were certified faster than any visiting vehicles, before or since.  He served as the Dragon Mission Director from mission control on a dozen cargo re-supply missions to the International Space Station.  He also served as a Dragon Chief Engineer for Flight Reliability on the Crew Demo 1 and Demo 2 missions.  Before SpaceX, Abhi spent 10 years as an Aerospace Systems engineer at NASA Johnson Space Center.  There he worked on NASA’s long term planning and design work for Moon and Mars campaigns.

Abhi has degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan and University of Colorado.  He holds a Ph.D. in Geology/Micropaleontology from UCLA.