Smallsat mission integrator and bus manufacturer Kongsberg NanoAvionics has appointed Atle Wøllo as its new CEO. Wøllo is replacing Žilvinas Kvedaravicius, who became interim CEO last year, following the departure of co-founder and former CEO Vytenis J. Buzas in 2023.

Wøllo, with educational background in business administration and electronic engineering, comes from Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace where most recently, and prior to this latest appointment, he held the position as the senior vice president special programs, and was president of Kongsberg Aviation Maintenance Services division.

During his time as president of Kongsberg Aviation Maintenance Services, he led a turnaround and business transformation into a healthy margin company with significant revenue growth. With 30 years of experience and as a long-time employee of Kongsberg, he is very familiar with both the defence and wider aerospace industry.

“This is a fantastic time to join NanoAvionics, one of the prime smallsat manufacturers and mission operators in Europe,” Atle Wøllo said. “Their track record of successful and sophisticated missions as well as their outstanding customer list speaks for themselves.

“As we are entering the next evolution of the space industry with Space 3.0 and a strategic focus on mission longevity, performance, reliability, and interoperability, we intend to capture more of the global market share. Already having a fantastic and mission experienced team and the industry’s largest standard satellite platform portfolio puts us in a great position. It will allow us to cater for both commercial constellations on standardised buses as well as governments with sophisticated and customized missions.”

Harald Aarø, a Chairman of the NanoAvionics board and Executive Vice President Business Development and Strategy at Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace said: ” Wøllo’s strong leadership skills and experiences together with his capability to foster excellent teams, and further strengthen operations is a new steppingstone for the company. He also has a fantastic track record working on business development and partnership side with both governments and primes. This vast experience will be very beneficial, in particular to strengthening NanoAvionics’s position in large space programs.”

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