Manfredi Lefebvre d'Ovidio

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Chairman

Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio de Clunieres di Balsorano is Chairman of Heritage Group, a diversified conglomerate with interests in the cruise industry, property and financial investments. From a young age Manfredi worked in the family business before undertaking his own business ventures. Having taken over the helm of Silversea Cruises which his father had started, Manfredi turned it into the wortld leader in ultra-luxury cruises and sold two-thirds of the company to Royal Caribbean in June 2018 for $1 billion. Heritage group recently acquired the majority of high-end tour operator Abercrombie & Kent. Manfredi  is also President of the Monaco Chamber of Shipping, Member of Executive Committee WTTC (World Tourism and Travel Council) and Chevalier de l’Ordre de Saint Charles and Grimaldi.

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Marco Villa

BS, MS, DE

Advisor

Marco's entire career has been devoted to the aerospace industry, most of it in USA, where he became Director of Mission Operations at SpaceX and subsequently joined American firm Tyvak which he helped develop into a full-service internationally recognized leader in the field of small satellites before becoming CEO of  Tyvak International. Aside from his solid expertise in almost all technical and operational aspects related to the development, manufacture and launch of satellites, Marco is an expert in corporate   strategy and business execution in high technology industries. He holds a M.S./D.E. in Aerospace Engineering and an M.S. in Engineering Management from the University of Kansas; a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, from Politecnico di Milano.

Alexander Erlank

PhD., MEng, BEng

Electronics Engineer

Alex grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and discovered his interest in space while working on CubeSat projects at Stellenbosch University's Electronic Systems Lab (known for having built South Africa's first satellite in the 90s). Alex continued to gain experience with CubeSats after moving to the UK to pursue a PhD in Electronic Engineering at the Surrey Space Centre. His research focussed on novel system architectures for improving the reliability of low-cost satellites. Most recently, Alex has been working as a Senior Electronic Design Engineer at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) in England, where he contributed to the design of subsystems and payloads for microsatellites. He also holds a MEng (Research) in Electronic Engineering and a BEng Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Stellenbosch University.

Francesco M. Bongiovanni

Dr.Engr, MBA(Harvard)

Founder & CEO

Francesco is a serial entrepreneur, an author of books on subjects relating to economics and European matters and a composer of classical symphonic and jazz music. A former investment banker in Wall Street and London, he acquired broad international business experience, living and working in Europe, Asia and USA. Francesco has been active in new enterprises, private equity, M&A, strategic advisory services,  corporate finance and fund raising in a variety of sectors. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School as well as a doctorate in chemical engineering  He was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre de Saint Charles title for his humanitarian and biodiversity protection endeavours. His passion for new, disruptive technologies  led him to launch OSM.

Yann Gouy

Ing. Gen.

Software Engineer

Passionate about space and rocketry since he was a child, Yann grew up designing and launching amateur rockets. For most to the last 20 years he has been involved in a variety of aerospace  engineering projects in France, including Astrium, Thalès Alenia Space and Akka Technology where he was also CTO for an internal nanosatellites project.. While his talents are diverse, Yann is a specialist in embedded software and a hands-on test bench engineer with expertise spanning three areas: R&D development, embedded software and test benches, which he sees as innovation, constrained environment and testing. Yann holds a general engineering diploma from ECAM Arts et Metiers in Lyon.

Cristina Levis

BA, ME&F

Director

An expert in the world of international corporate finance, Cristina started her career at a boutique financial services firm in Switzerland  before joining the Securitisation team of Finanziaria Internazionale in Italy and then managing their  branch in Luxembourg.  She subsequently became Chief Business Development Officer and Managing Director of Silversea Expeditions (Silversea Cruises group) before raising close to 100 million € in seed capital for her own travel venture. Cristina was subsequently appointed Chief Investment Officer of Monaco-based diversified conglomerate Heritage Group. She holds a BA and a Master in Economics and Finance from Cà Foscari University.

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Gabriele Trani

Dr. Aerospace Engr.

Mechanical Engineer

Gabriele mixes a passion for exploration and discovery of space with an extensive, practical and multidisciplinary experience in the aerospace engineering sector. Throughout his close to 20 years career in aerospace, as a hands-on mechanical and thermal engineer Gabriele has developed and built machines and systems of great precision and complexity. Most of his career in aerospace has been devoted to mechanical and thermal engneering work as well as AIT (assembly, integration and testing) activities. Gabriele  has been working on a variety of projects of firms such as  Thalés Alenia, Airbus as well as on projects such as ESA's "Euclid" satellite. He holds an Engineering degree in Aerospace from Politecnico di Torino and is the author of various aerospace engineering papers.

Valerie Caminati

BA

Office Manager

With a background of more than 20 years of administrative and office management experience in France, Italy and Monaco, Valérie brings strong organizational skills and adaptability to the environment of a young company such as Orbital Solutions.  Throughout her professional career she has been exposed to executive-assistance and office management positions in a variety of business sectors ranging from luxury cruises to high fashion and high-end real estate companies.  Valerie holds a bachelor degree (Trilingual Executive Assistant / French-Italian-English) and a B.A. (Italian Literature & Culture-Russian minor). 

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