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Gwynne Shotwell (née Rowley, previously Gurevich; born November 23, 1963[1]) 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.[2]
Gwynne Shotwell | |
|---|---|
 Shotwell in August 2018 | |
| Born | Gwynne Rowley November 23, 1963 Evanston, Illinois, U.S. |
| Education | Northwestern University (BS, MS) |
| Title | President and chief operating officer of SpaceX |
| Spouse(s) | Leon Gurevich (div.) Robert Shotwell |
| Children | 2 |
As of 2023[update], Shotwell is listed as the 28th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.[3] She was ranked 54th on Fortune's list of Most Powerful Women in 2023.[4] In 2020, Time magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.[5] In 2018, she was listed as the most powerful female engineer by Business Insider.[6]
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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.[7] In 1982, she graduated from Libertyville High School.[8] In 1969 when she was 6 years old, 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.[7] 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.[9][10] 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.[7][11]
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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[11] but later grew tired of[7] and left to return to Northwestern for her graduate degree.[12]
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.[11] During a ten-year tenure, she worked in thermal analysis.[7] Shotwell worked in both space systems engineering and project management positions.[13]
She left The Aerospace Corporation in 1998 to become director of the space systems division at Microcosm Inc., a small rocket company in El Segundo.[7] There, she served on the executive committee and was responsible for business development.[14]
SpaceX
Shotwell left Microcosm in 2002 to join SpaceX, a private, commercial, space exploration company founded by Elon Musk in the same year.[15] She was introduced to Musk through her former Microcosm colleague Hans Koenigsmann who had joined SpaceX.[16] In that meeting, she convinced Musk that SpaceX should hire a dedicated employee to work on business development full-time, but had not planned to join the company herself. Shotwell took the job two weeks later in September 2002.[17] 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.[18] This followed SpaceX's first successful launch of the Falcon 1 on its fourth attempt earlier in the year.[19] 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.[13] Shotwell is the President and COO of SpaceX, responsible for day-to-day operations and managing all customer and strategic relations to support company growth.[20]
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.[13] 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.[21]
Shotwell has received particular praise from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson for her "phenomenal" leadership of SpaceX as it developed the Falcon 9 into the "workhorse" of the space launch sector.[22] Nelson had reportedly been concerned in 2022, after Elon Musk purchased Twitter, that it would be a distraction at SpaceX, but became more comfortable after meetings with Shotwell left him feeling reassured that she was in charge of day-to-day operations.[23][24]
In February 2019, Polaris Industries announced that Shotwell would join their board of directors in March 2019.[25]
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 six years.[26]
Shotwell has been criticized for her response to several alleged cases of sexism, sexual harassment and assault at SpaceX.[27][28]
Starlink
In Ukraine
Following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Shotwell led negotiations with government agencies for requested Starlink satellite services in the country,[29] which were at first donated by SpaceX.[30] These arrangements were later formalized in a DoD contract to buy Starlink for Ukraine.[31] Earlier, Shotwell had announced that her company took measures to prevent the use of Starlink to control combat drones.[32] She stated Ukrainians had used the service in ways not part of the agreement, as she had accepted to donate Starlink satellite services for communications, defense and humanitarian purposes such as "ambulances, hospitals and mothers" but had not intended it to be weaponized for drone strikes.[32][33][34]
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Shotwell gave a TEDx Talk at TEDxChapmanU in June 2013 on the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.[35] 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.[36]
At the 2018 TED conference, Shotwell was interviewed by Chris Anderson about the future plans of SpaceX.[37]
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.[38]
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Shotwell is married to an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has two children from a previous marriage with Leon Gurevich.[39][40]
Shotwell owns a ranch in Hamilton County, Texas, near the SpaceX Rocket Development and Test Facility in McGregor, Texas which she considers to be her "home office."[41]
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- 2012: Women in Technology International Hall of Fame[36]
- 2017: Satellite Executive of the Year[42]
- 2018: Forbes' America's Top 50 Women In Tech[43]
- 2020: Time 100 most influential people[44]
- 2020: Satellite Executive of the Year[45]
- 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.
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