Sanjay Bhandari

Chair

Sanjay Bhandari chairs the Board of the Satellite Applications Catapult. Sanjay has extensive experience in the professional services sector, most recently as a partner at EY where amongst his other successes he served as Chief Innovation Officer and his leadership led to significant growth in the firm’s Financial Services technology business.

He is now pursuing a career as an independent board member, and is an active and recognised leader of equality, diversity, and inclusion practice. He is a member of the Government-sponsored Parker review into the ethnic diversity of UK boards, Chair at Kick It Out, a Non-Executive at the Lawn Tennis Association and a Board Trustee at GreaterSport Manchester.

Sanjay joins the Satellite Applications Catapult at a pivotal time for the space industry in the UK. With opportunities flowing from advances in technology and the UK’s innovation ecosystem, this sector is a massive opportunity for UK PLC and thus a significant focus for government, industry, and investors. Working with the Board and management team, Sanjay sees great opportunity to unlock the potential of the space industry for the benefit of UK PLC and to address some of the biggest issues facing society globally.

John Abbott

CEO

John Abbott is the new CEO of the Satellite Applications Catapult. He joined the Catapult from the Real Estate Registry in Saudi Arabia, where he was Chief Digital Officer. John was instrumental in the delivery of the Kingdom’s first ever registry of land ownership as part of a public-private partnership supported by the Public Investment Fund.

John was previously Director of Digital Data and Technology and a member of the Executive Board at HM Land Registry, where he led a successful £200m digital transformation programme and the organisation’s pioneering open innovation programme, Digital Street. Prior to this he was Head of Digital Products at Ordnance Survey where he was responsible for digitising and publishing the organisation’s geospatial data as well as the Innovations Lab and Geovation, a successful start-up incubator, which has supported more than 150 early-stage businesses which together have raised £130m. Earlier roles included Product Director at Mimecast, the UK tech company acquired by Permira for $5.8Bn. He has an MBA from Imperial College London and is married with three children.

Manjari Chandran-Ramesh

Non-Executive Director

Manjari Chandran-Ramesh is a partner at Amadeus Capital. Her investment focus is on AI, Robotics and Quantum Technologies with experience through the whole life cycle of investment including exits (Ravelin by WorldPay, TheySay by Aptean). After starting her career in academia, over the past 14 years, she has built businesses focused on tough-to-commercialise deep tech from University Intellectual Property, gaining both investor and operational experience. Manjari is on the Strategic Advisory Board that advises the UK Government’s National Quantum Technologies Programme and is also a member of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub Committee, a mentor for Creative Destruction Labs and a Kauffman Fellow of Class 28.

The Rt Hon Tobias Ellwood

Non-Executive Director

The Rt Hon Tobias Ellwood was the conservative MP for Bournemouth East from May 2005 to May 2024, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence from June 2017 to July 2019 and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from July 2014 to June 2017.

Ruth Mallors-Ray

Non-Executive Director

Ruth Mallors-Ray is a consultant who fosters collaboration across industry, government, and academia. Her portfolio spans sectors such as manufacturing, aviation, and emerging fields like hydrogen. Ruth was formerly Chief Operating Officer of the Aerospace Technology Institute and Director of the Aerospace, Aviation and Defence Knowledge Transfer Network. Currently, she serves as Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority’s Environmental Sustainability Panel and is a NED for the National Composites Centre. A Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Ruth was awarded an OBE in 2015 for her services to science and innovation.

Tony Mather

Non-Executive Director

Tony Mather has spent over 30 years working in technology and digital transformation most recently as CIO at the Atomic Weapons Establishment where he was responsible for a substantial information and technology change portfolio. He has been Business Transformation Director at the Musgrave Group, CIO and member of the Board of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and held leadership roles in Insurance (Friends Provident), Media (Clear Channel International), Transportation (British Airways), FMCG (PepsiCo), Retail (Safeway Stores plc), and the Industrial sector (The BOC Group).

Colin McInnes

Non-Executive Director

Colin McInnes is James Watt Chair, Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Glasgow, where he holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies.

His long-term programme of research spans a range of emerging space technologies, spacecraft orbital dynamics and space resources. He aims to devise, develop and demonstrate new ideas and technologies which can underpin the space applications of the future.

He is a former member of the Scottish Science Advisory Council and a former Chair of the UK Space Agency Space Technology Advisory Committee.  Colin is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Academy of Engineering, and was made MBE in 2014 for services to Space Research, Science and Technology.

Craig Clark

Non-Executive Director

Craig Clark is a visionary space engineer and successful entrepreneur. He is renowned for his pioneering work on commercialising small satellites, in particular CubeSats. In 2005, Craig founded Clyde Space Ltd, Glasgow’s first space company. Amongst other achievements, including the Queen’s Award for Enterprise (2017), Clyde Space produced UKube-1, Scotland’s first satellite, which was launched in July 2014.

Craig is a Non-Executive Director of the Glasgow Science Centre, is the Chair of Space Scotland and a member of the UK Space Sector Council. Craig has an MBE for services to Technology and Innovation and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Caroline Artis

Non-Executive Director

Caroline was the Senior Partner for London at EY, a member of the UK leadership team, as well as leading a $0.5bn business within EY covering all types of businesses from FTSE 100 to fast growth. She was also Office Managing partner for the London Office and co-chaired the “Future of Work project” exploring how professional services will respond in the post pandemic world. She recently retired from the partnership and is now an Ambassador for EY as well as taking trustee roles in a number of not-for-profit organisations as well as some NED roles.

With a deep interest in the areas of Research, Education, Innovation and Social Inclusion, Caroline has taken on a number of roles across a variety of organisations. She is a Trustee and Chair of the Finance committee at Catch22, a large not-for-profit business, and is the Chair of the Trustees of Support through Court, a charity dedicated to providing free assistance to people facing court proceedings with no legal representation. She is also a trustee at EORTC, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer.

Stewart Miller

Non-Executive Director

Stewart is an experienced industrial leader with a reputation in leading business transformation both for recovery and growth. As someone who has always invested in personal learning and development coupled with an engineer’s interest in the application of new technologies, Stewart has hands on experience of digital transformation and enabling Innovation, most recently in his role as the CEO of the UK National Robotarium, and previously as CTO of Innovate UK and as SVP of Leonardo UK Innovation and Technology Group.

Stewart has had a broad career in engineering, ranging from Electronic Design through Engineering Management and Business Development to Senior Business Management, and he has worked predominantly in the Aerospace and Defence sector for Leonardo, BAE Systems, GDUK and Thales, as well as a spell in DE&S.

Stewart’s skills lie in turning concepts and theories into practical approaches that transform business for the better, always conscious of the impact of transformation on the people involved and the world around us.