Corporate Governance
Management Team
Abel Avellan
Mr. Avellan is AST’s Chairman, founder and Chief Executive Officer since its inception in 2017. Prior to founding AST, Mr. Avellan served as the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Emerging Markets Communications (EMC), a satellite-based communications services provider to maritime and other mobility markets, from 2000 until its sale for $550 million in July 2016. Mr. Avellan has over 25 years of success in the space industry and is an inventor on 24 U.S. patents. He was appointed as a Commissioner to the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development in 2024, named Satellite Teleport Executive of the Year in 2017, and received the Satellite Transaction of the Year award by Euroconsult in 2015. A proud United States citizen, Mr. Avellan resides in Florida with his family.
Scott Wisniewski
Mr. Wisniewski oversees commercialization efforts, product development, and regulatory affairs, as well as corporate development, capital markets and financing strategy, and investor relations. Since joining the company in 2021, he has driven significant corporate agreements and milestones for the company, including raising over $600 million of capital in the form of equity, convertible notes, and non-dilutive prepayments. Previously, Mr. Wisniewski was Managing Director of Technology, Media & Telecommunications Investment Banking at Barclays, advising clients on raising capital and M&A for over a decade. While at Barclays, he advised AST SpaceMobile on the 2021 business combination transaction, which raised $462.0 million in gross proceeds, and the 2019 strategic investment transaction, which raised $110.0 million of gross proceeds. Earlier in his career, he was a management consultant focused on supplier development and a mechanical design engineer. Mr. Wisniewski received a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Dartmouth College and a Master of Business Administration degree from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Dr. Huiwen Yao
Dr. Yao brings 30+ years’ successful experience in engineering team building and management, system architecture, research and technology development and program execution in communications satellites.
Previously, he was the Senior Director of Commercial Payload/RF Engineering in the Space Systems Group of Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (previously Orbital ATK). He was a major contributor to the success of the commercial satellite business of Orbital/Orbital ATK with more than 40 GEO communications satellites delivered.
Dr. Yao is the author of more than 55 technical papers and a book chapter in the fields of communications systems, antennas, microwave/RF components and EM simulations/CAD. He has been granted thirteen U.S. and international patents. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Beijing Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in electronic physics from the University of Maryland.
Shanti Gupta
Shanti Gupta serves as AST SpaceMobile’s Chief Operating Officer overseeing the company’s global operations, including supply chain, planning, cost management, information technology, and human resource operations. Mr. Gupta is responsible for developing and implementing the operational strategies to scale the company’s operations as it transitions into full scale manufacturing and production, and building a growth oriented operating model as an innovative and leading satellite manufacturing organization while driving cost efficiencies. Mr. Gupta brings 25 years of global experience in developing and implementing growth strategies, scaling operations, business transformations, finance and accounting, risk management, and building high performing teams.
Mr. Gupta joined AST SpaceMobile in September 2021 as Chief Accounting Officer and established the global finance and accounting operations, led the planning and cost strategies, implemented enterprise resource planning and related operations systems, and was instrumental in scaling the global operations of the company. He held progressive level of responsibilities including leading the supply chain and information technology organizations, streamlining the company’s operations, managing strategic vendor relationships and negotiations, risk management, and policy and governance.
Mr. Gupta worked at Big 4 audit and consulting firms in India and New York, United States for more than two decades where he advised Fortune 500 companies and Private Equity firms on M&A and divestiture transactions ranging from $100 million to $80 billion, finance transformations, IPOs, SEC reporting and compliance, and policy and governance. During his career, Mr. Gupta conceptualized and led several growth initiatives and technology innovations that resulted in scalable and sustainable high growth businesses. Prior to joining AST SpaceMobile, Mr. Gupta worked with Ernst & Young LLP in New York from 2014 where he was a Partner.
Mr. Gupta earned his Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University, India. He is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the United States and is also a Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Andrew Johnson
Mr. Johnson is an experienced business leader with 25 years of diverse legal experience across emerging markets, capital markets and international operations. As Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Officer at AST SpaceMobile, he oversees all aspects of accounting, reporting, treasury, compliance, risk management and legal matters across the globe.
Prior to joining the company, Mr. Johnson served as the Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary since 2014, and as the Chief Corporate Development Officer since September 2022 of 3D Systems Corporation, a publicly traded company that provides comprehensive 3D printing solutions in the industrial and healthcare segments. Mr. Johnson joined 3D Systems Corporation in July 2006 and has held senior management positions since then including serving as Interim President and Chief Executive Officer from October 2015 to April 2016 and interim Chief Financial Officer from October 2023 to December 2023. During his time with 3D Systems Corporation, Mr. Johnson was responsible for leading its merger and acquisition efforts, establishing strategic partnerships, and overseeing global legal matters, including corporate, securities, contracts, litigation, labor, and employment. Prior to joining 3D Systems Corporation, Mr. Johnson was an associate with Hunton and Williams LLP on the capital markets team.
Mr. Johnson received an MBA from the University of Michigan with High Distinction, a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, diplomacy & foreign affairs, and religion from Miami University.
Chris Ivory
Mr. Ivory brings over 26 years of senior-level experience in the satellite and telecommunications industry. Most recently, he was Executive Vice President and General Manager of commercial solutions for Globecomm, where he served as business unit leader for satellite services across all commercial vertical market segments.
Previously, Mr. Ivory served as Vice President of Land Solutions for Global Eagle and Senior Vice President of Government, Enterprise and Channel Partners for EMC. He also held leadership positions with several other telecom companies in the U.S., Mexico and Argentina. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from the State University of New York at Courtland and also studied at Universidad de Oviedo in Spain.
Maya Bernal
Maya Bernal serves as AST SpaceMobile’s Chief Accounting Officer, overseeing the company’s financial operations, corporate accounting, external reporting, and internal controls. She has more than 15 years of experience in finance, accounting, internal controls and policies and process transformations, gained through progressive roles in finance and accounting within several large public companies. She joined AST SpaceMobile in April 2022 as External Reporting and Technical Accounting lead and since then has progressively held increasing level of responsibilities in all aspects of accounting and reporting, including transforming and streamlining processes and controls. She is a certified Public Accountant and began her career with Ernst & Young LLP. Ms. Bernal holds a Master and Bachelor of Accounting from Florida International University.
Roy Sofer
Mr. Sofer brings over twenty years of senior-level experience in the communication and semiconductor industries. He has vast experience in silicon development and communication chipset with a strong background in the automotive market, broadband communication, VoIP, and wireless backhaul. Prior to AST, Mr. Sofer managed Intel’s automotive radar system and architecture within the Automotive business unit. Before that, as VP of Research and Development at SatixFy, he led multidisciplinary groups during the company’s first Satcom product rollout and managed Ceragon Networks Digital, including Mix Signal development.
Mr. Sofer started his professional career at Texas Instruments, where he led various projects at the DSPS group.
Mr. Sofer holds a B.Sc. in Communication Engineering from Ben Gurion University and a degree from the Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration at Tel Aviv University.
Dr. Mark McLaren
Dr. McLaren has over 30 years of highly successful spacecraft industry experience and over a decade in satellite program leadership. He brings a strong technical background in control systems design and analysis, and software and spacecraft systems engineering.
Previously, he was an Executive Director, Program Manager at Maxar (previously Space Systems Loral, SSL), where he led four large geostationary communications satellite programs from inception through launch.
He is the author of 17 papers, presentations, and reports published in various refereed journals, conference proceedings and NASA Technical Reports in the fields of control systems design, control-structure optimization and numerical methods in engineering design and analysis. He has been granted two U.S. patents.
Dr. McLaren received a BSc (Honors) in physics from Massey University in New Zealand, plus M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Cincinnati.
Sriram Jayasimha
Mr. Jayasimha brings a 30-year successful track record of IP creation and product design for the global telecommunications markets. He has authored 42 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications in an array of digital-signal-processing applications, including: mobility, satellite communications, modem, VLSI and instrumentation signal processing.
A named inventor on 21 U.S. and European patents, Mr. Jayasimha was a fellow of the Center of Advanced Engineering Study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He earned his B.Tech and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Dr. Raymond Sedwick
Dr. Raymond J. Sedwick is a Keystone Associate Professor and the Director of the Space Power and Propulsion Laboratory in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Maryland. His research interests broadly include in-space power generation and propulsion, formation flight technologies and novel space architectures.
He is an associate fellow of the AIAA, a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts fellow, an associate editor of the AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, and currently serves as chair of the AIAA Nuclear and Future Flight Technical Committee. Dr. Sedwick received a B.S. in aerospace engineering from Penn State University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.