Speakers

Speaker profile

Will Whitehorn is Chair of Space-Comm Expo.  He is also Chair, Deputy Chair or a Non-Executive Director of several public bodies and companies including The Royal Air Force, Good Energy PLC, Seraphim Space Investment Trust PLC, the Glasgow SEC /SSE Hydro, The Scottish Gallery and AAC Clyde Space AB.

In 2019, Will joined UKspace as President of the trade association which represents the UK space industry. In 2020, Will became Chair of Craneware PLC, an Edinburgh based company, which is engaged in the development, licensing and ongoing support of computer software for the United States healthcare industry.

Having learned to fly as a 16 year old RAF cadet and completing an MA Hons at Aberdeen University, he has spent substantially all his working life in the transport and technology industries.

Starting out as a helicopter crewman in the North Sea Oil Industry, he went on to become a graduate trainee with Thomas Cook and eventually joined Virgin in 1986 where he established a career as Sir Richard Branson’s Corporate Affairs Advisor and Brand Development Director for the Group globally. He helped develop Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Trains and Virgin Media as businesses and went onto become the first President of Virgin Galactic taking the business from a dream to reality. In 2010 he left Virgin to embark on a non-executive career and was a founder shareholder in Purplebricks Group PLC.

He is a Fellow of The Royal Aeronautical Society and the Marketing Society and Vice President of The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport having been President in 2016. He holds the Royal Aeronautical Society’s prestigious Geoffrey Pardoe Space Award for services to the industry.