Gwynn Shotwell

President and Chief Operating Officer, Space Exploration Technologies Inc.

Gwynne Shotwell is president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, a corporation founded in 2000 that designs, manufactures, and launches advanced spacecraft and rockets for government and commercial customers. She started as the company’s vice president of business development in 2002. Shotwell began her career in 1988 at the El Segundo Research Center of Aerospace Corp., where she worked in the realm of military space research and development, specifically in thermal analysis. She then went to work for the rocket-builder Microcosm. She received a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University.