Inmarsat’s Nick Shave appointed Chair of UKspace

01 July 2020

Nick Shave, Vice President for Strategic Programmes at Inmarsat, has taken over as Chair of UKspace, the trade association of the UK space industry.

On his appointment Nick described space as a “critical strategic asset for the nation” and called for “even greater collaboration between the space industry and government as a new National Space Strategy is developed”.

Nick assumes the role from Graham Peters who was in the post from March 2018. Recognising Graham’s contribution to raising the profile of the UK’s space industry, Nick said: “On behalf of the sector, I would like to pay tribute to Graham for his strong commitment and excellent leadership over the past two years, which has moved the space sector forward significantly in a number of areas.”

Strong partner

Looking ahead to his time as Chair, Nick added: “The UK has some of the world’s leading established space companies plus a growing innovation base with lots of great collaboration and pull through from academia. With the government’s upcoming Comprehensive Spending Review and the Integrated Review, our sector will be a strong partner to help the government meet its policy objectives to support the economy to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic. The space sector is ready to work alongside the UK Space Agency, the Ministry of Defence, other government departments and academia to deliver the capability and services needed to grow the sector towards the prosperity goal shared by industry and government of 10% of the global space market by 2030.

“I’m very much looking forward to starting my role on behalf of the whole UK space industry, representing the full value chain including services, manufacturing, applications providers and SMEs, as we deliver growth for the future of our sector nationally and internationally. Working together, we can enable the UK to become a modern space power.”

John Hanley, Vice President Consulting Services – Space, Defence and Intelligence, UK at CGI, will be working Alongside Nick as Vice-Chair UKspace for the same period. It is the custom and practice in UKspace that the Vice-Chair will then assume the role of Chair for the following two years, from July 2022.

UKspace President Will Whitehorn said: “The UK space industry is at a crucial stage in its growth as the nation looks beyond COVID-19 and Brexit towards an uncertain world in which this country has to play a key role as a space-faring nation. We welcome Nick as Chair. He has vast experience of operating on both the global and national stage at Inmarsat, and indeed within UKspace. He will now be able to build on the key role that Graham Peters has played in kicking off the sector’s response to COVID-19 and help build a strategy for our industry and nation out at the final frontier.”