As Vice President of Business and Strategy at Virgin Orbit, Stephen Eisele is responsible for leading all sales and strategies around commercial and international business efforts, engaging with the civil, commercial and the new space small satellite community. Part of his initiatives includes initiating the Virgin “VIP” Program (or Virgin Interplanetary Program) for satellite missions to journey beyond LEO to GTO, the Moon, Mars and beyond. In addition, he has spearheaded Virgin Orbit’s international spaceport architecture, setting up spaceport partnerships around the world including in the UK, Japan, Italy and many more to be announced.
Prior to joining Virgin Orbit, Eisele served as a senior business development executive for Surrey Satellite Technology US, where he helped lead Surrey’s business growth opportunities through strategic partnerships, including OTB Missions.
Stephen previously served as Vice President of Space Services Inc, a commercial space holdings and investment company, where he managed multi-million dollar companies and start-ups; served as head of sales and marketing for Excalibur Almaz (EA), an international space exploration company created to provide routine, affordable access to and from space; and also worked as the Marketing Director for the X PRIZE Foundation’s Google Lunar Lander Challenge in 2007. Prior to working with entrepreneurial aerospace firms, Stephen worked as a senior analyst for DFI International (now Avascent Group) in Washington, DC, managing and researching numerous projects for Fortune 100 aerospace and defense firms.
Stephen holds a bachelor of arts in international studies from the Johns Hopkins University and a master of arts in international economics and strategic studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where he received the William C. Foster Award for “sound scholarship and a record of distinguished service and leadership.” He also holds a master’s certificate from the International Space University in space business.