An Italian space company offering Ground Segment as a Service (GSaaS) for the global space industry has reinforced its senior leadership team for further growth following a series of milestone achievements.
Leaf Space, which employs 50 staff at its headquarters in Italy and operates close to 30 ground stations in 16 locations worldwide, successfully closed its Series B fundraise in 2023 with more than €30 mission of total investment.
In September the company recorded more than 15,000 tracked passes of satellites in orbit during a single calendar month - an increase of 50 percent over the year and a new high for the firm that was set up in a garage in Milan a decade ago.
Cristina Zanchi is the company's new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), following an extensive recruitment process led by Co-Founders Jonata Puglia and Giovanni Pandolfi Bortoletto. Ms. Zanchi boasts a wealth of experience in senior leadership roles within the telecommunications industry, as well as previous positions at household name companies such as Orange, KLM and Shell.
Previous CEO Jonata Puglia, who will move into a strategic role supporting new strategic partnerships, said: "During the last 10 years, our company has gone from strength to strength and this appointment marks a pivotal moment in the history of Leaf Space.
“With new investment successfully secured and a host of significant operational achievements in place, the foundations are in place for another exciting decade of growth and success."
Giovanni Pandolfi Bortoletto, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, added: "We are growing fast - in the last year we activated eight new sites worldwide, including the establishment of our own teleports in Chile, Mexico and Iceland.
“We will soon get to a global coverage with more than 30 active ground stations, also with Ka-band capabilities, which, together with our innovative concept of operations and ease of use, enable us to serve the market in a new way.
“This, together with the strengthen management team will allow to execute our vision to seamlessly connect space and enable the sustainable development of the space ecosystem,” he said.
Commenting on her new role, Cristina Zanchi stated: "I'm thrilled to be joining one of the brightest stars in the global space ecosystem. Leaf Space has an impressive story of disruption in the sector, sustained growth thanks to a very talented and committed team. I'm looking forward to meeting partners and clients, old and new, as we begin this new chapter together".
A further personnel addition saw the arrival of a new Chief Financial Officer, Gian Luca Ottino, to the Leaf Space team. Mr Ottino brings with him strong international management experience in fast paced growth companies in the telecommunication and SaaS environment.
Leaf Space operates a fully owned, globally distributed network of ground stations, empowering satellite operators to communicate with their spacecraft in the simplest and most flexible way. The company enables TT&C and payload data transmissions via an easy-to-use interface, a proprietary autonomous scheduling software, and its network's global coverage.
Ground segment specialist Leaf Space boosts leadership team
