Gwynne Shotwell

Gwynne Shotwell
Shotwell in August 2018
Born	Gwynne Rowley (1963-11-23) November 23, 1963 Evanston, Illinois, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Northwestern University (BS, MS)
Title	President and chief operating officer of SpaceX
Spouse	Robert Shotwell
Children	2

Gwynne Shotwell (née Rowley; born November 23, 1963) is an American businesswoman and engineer. She is the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, an American space transportation company, where she is responsible for day-to-day operations and company growth.

As of 2022, Shotwell is listed as the 31st most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. In 2020, she was included on Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Early life

Shotwell was born in Evanston, Illinois, as the middle of three daughters to a brain surgeon and an artist, and was raised in Libertyville, Illinois. In 1982, she graduated from Libertyville High School. In 1969, she watched a television broadcast of the Apollo 11 mission with her family, but remembers finding it "boring" and was not interested in space at the time. Shotwell excelled in both academics and athletics in high school, where she was on the cheerleading and Varsity basketball teams while achieving at the top of her class. Her interests changed during high school after her mother took her to a panel discussion at the Illinois Institute of Technology by the Society of Women Engineers, where a mechanical engineer in particular inspired Shotwell to become an engineer. Following this, she decided to apply to Northwestern University, where she received a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering, and later a Master of Science degree in applied mathematics.

Career

At the beginning of her career, Shotwell had an interview with IBM on the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which disturbed her and she did not get a job offer. Instead, Shotwell took a job in the automotive industry at Chrysler Corporation's management training program, which she initially enjoyed but later grew tired of and left to return to Northwestern for her graduate degree.

In 1988, Shotwell began work at the El Segundo research center of The Aerospace Corporation, and did technical work on military space research and development contracts. An early project she worked on was STS-39. During a ten-year tenure, she worked in thermal analysis. Shotwell worked in both space systems engineering and project management positions.

She left The Aerospace Corporation in 1998 to become director of the space systems division at Microcosm Inc. There, she served on the executive committee and was responsible for business development.

Shotwell left Microcosm in 2002 to join SpaceX, a private, commercial, space exploration company founded by Elon Musk in the same year. She convinced Musk that SpaceX should hire a dedicated employee to work on business development full-time during a visit to the company, but had not planned to join the company herself. Shotwell took the job two weeks later. In December 2008, Shotwell was promoted to company president following her role in the successful negotiation of the first Commercial Resupply Services contract with the NASA Associate Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier. This followed SpaceX's first successful launch of the Falcon 1 on its fourth attempt earlier in the year. She was responsible for leading the effort on building the Falcon Vehicle manifest to over 50 launches, generating $5 billion in revenue. This included a commercial connection to the International Space Station for resupplying services, where they were able to deliver cargo and supplies to the astronauts. Shotwell is currently the President and COO of SpaceX, responsible for day-to-day operations and managing all customer and strategic relations to support company growth.

She oversaw the first landing of an orbital rocket's first stage on land and on an ocean platform, the first relaunch and landing of a used orbital rocket, the first controlled flyback and recovery of a payload fairing, and the first re-flight of a commercial cargo spacecraft. SpaceX has a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA to deliver astronauts and science instruments to the International Space Station. On May 30, 2020, SpaceX became the first private company to launch two astronauts to Earth orbit.

On February 6, 2019, Polaris Industries announced that Shotwell would join their board of directors on March 1, 2019.

Shotwell has served on the California Space Authority Board of Directors and its executive committee after she was elected in 2004. She has served as an officer on the AIAA Space Systems Technical Committee and participates in a variety of STEM related programs. She led a committee that raised over $350,000 in scholarships for the Frank J. Redd Student Competition over 6 years.

Public outreach

Shotwell gave a TEDx Talk at TEDxChapmanU in June 2013 on the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. She speaks regularly to business audiences and gave a talk for the "Captains of Industry" series at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security in June 2014 on private entrepreneurial accomplishments in advancing spaceflight technology.

At the 2018 TED conference, Shotwell was interviewed by Chris Anderson about the future plans of SpaceX.

At the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing on September 28, 2018, Shotwell's talk was titled "Launching Our Future" and she discussed her vision and advancements for aerospace technology, as well as why diversity and the inclusion of women are necessary to advance as a society.

Starlink and the Russo-Ukrainian War

Main article: Starlink in the Russo-Ukrainian War

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Shotwell had been been negotiating with Ukraine for the launch of Starlink a month and a half before the invasion.

In October 2022 after the invasion had begun for several months, Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX, began negotiating a contract with Pentagon to buy Starlink satellite services for Ukraine.

According to biographer Walter Isaacson, when Musk backed out of it, Shotwell was furious at his reversal, asserting "The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me, literally." Quoted by Isaacson, Shotwell stated "Elon succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter and to the haters at the Pentagon who leaked the story."

In late 2022, Shotwell's SpaceX continued to make arrangements with government agencies to pay for increased Starlink service in Ukraine, with the terms of service being established by the military and the CIA. Those arrangements prompted the creation of Starshield, revealed in Janurary 2023. In June 2023, the Department of Defense officialized the contract with Shotwell's SpaceX to buy Starlink satellite services for Ukraine.

On February 8, 2023 Gwynne Shotwell, President of Starlink, announced that the company had taken measures to prevent the use of Starlink service to control combat drones.SpaceX restricted the licensing of Starlink communication technology to exclude direct military use of Starlink on weapon systems. The limitation restricted use by Ukraine of Starlink antennas on uncrewed surface vehicles, potentially shifting the balance of power in the naval war in the Black Sea. The same month, Elon Musk re-itered on Twitter "We will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3".

Shotwell has stated that "Ukrainians have leveraged [Starlink] in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement", as the free service was intended for humanitarian and defense purposes such as "providing broadband internet to hospitals, banks and families affected by Russia's invasion". Shotwell explained that her company agreed with Ukraine's military using Starlink for communications but never intended to have them use it as a weapon. She added "But then they started putting them on f---ing drones trying to blow up Russian ships. I’m happy to donate services for ambulances and hospitals and mothers [...] But it’s wrong to pay for military drone strikes."

Shotwell's statement drew criticism from supporters and politicians of Ukraine such as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Mykhailo Podolyak. A Ukrainian military official called her statement "strange" given that the country's use of Starlink as a combat tool is well-established. Podolyak commented that companies had to decide if they were "on the side of the right to freedom" or "on the Russian Federation's side and its 'right' to kill and seize territories".

Gwynne Shotwell has voiced against military funding of foreign governments by private companies, citing the US Foreign military sales program as an intermediary protection layer designed against that. She also complained that established defense contractors charged the government billions while Starlink services were expected charge-free.

Workplace culture at SpaceX

Shotwell has been criticized for her response to several cases of sexism, sexual harassment and assault at SpaceX.

Personal life

Shotwell is married to Robert Shotwell, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has two children from her first marriage to Leon Gurevich.

Honors and awards

• 2012: Women in Technology International Hall of Fame
• 2017: Satellite Executive of the Year
• 2018: Forbes' America's Top 50 Women In Tech
• 2020: Time 100 most influential people
• 2020: Satellite Executive of the Year
• 2020: Elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2020 for bringing affordable, commercially competitive space transportation to NASA and the US National Security Space Launch.

External links

• Shotwell, Gwynne (February 3, 2016). Gwynne Shotwell comments at Commercial Space Transportation Conference. Commercial Spaceflight. Event occurs at 2:43:15–3:10:05. Retrieved February 4, 2016. (after 2:53:00, and a review of video of several failed attempts to land a booster rocket on a drone ship, and then a successful return of an orbital first stage to a landing pad) It's awesome. You know, I don't think you get that kind of thrill in banking. It's extraordinary.