Gwynne Shotwell, 1963

Businesswoman and engineer, the President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, and grew up in Libertyville, Illinois. From an early age, Shotwell was interested in machines and vehicles, fixing things around the house and repairing her bike. Space was never her passion, but when she was thinking about what she will be as a grown-up, her mother took her to a Society of Women Engineer’s event, which inspired her to study mechanical engineering. After high school, she attended Northwestern University, from which she received a bachelor’s degree with honors and continued studying for a master’s degree in applied mathematics.
 
Shotwell wanted to pursue a career in the automotive industry and worked for a while at Chrysler Corporation. A few years later, she decided to focus on spacecraft engineering and started working at the Aerospace Corporation research center. For ten years, she worked on thermal analysis, space shuttle integration, spacecraft design, and infrared signature target modeling. At 35, she joined Microcosm Inc, where she was the director of the space systems division. Four years later, a former colleague introduced her to Elon Mask and his new startup – SpaceX, aiming to sell reusable rockets to commercial satellite companies at the lowest possible cost. She became the vice president of business development at SpaceX, and within six years, she promoted to be the President and Chief Operating Officer. In this position, she is responsible for the company’s operations and managing customer and strategic relations, turning Musk’s visions into a viable business. Under her leadership, the company signed on a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA, and its net worth grew over $7 billion.
 
In addition to her work at SpaceX, Shotwell is devoted to promoting STEM education programs. She also serves at the Advisory Committee of the United States Export-Import Bank as well as at the Federal Aviation Administration. She is an advisory council for Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and a fellow member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She gives speeches at various business forums and authored dozens of papers on space-related subjects.
 

More Interesting Anecdotes:

• She was one of three women in a class of 36 students at Northwestern University.
• After college, she was recruited by an HVAC company but got rejected when they realized she is a woman.
• She was the seventh employee to join SpaceX.
• She has two children from her first marriage, a son and a daughter.
• She met her second husband while volunteering at the University of Southern California; they both helped students with their satellite projects.
• She watched the launch of Falcon 1 (the first successful launch of Space X rocket) on her laptop in a hotel bathroom, she did not want the noise to disturb her sleeping husband.