Meet the speakers

​Eytan Stibbe
Astronaut

In April 2022, Eytan Stibbe was a crew member of the Ax-1 first commercial astronaut crew to the International Space Station together with former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, Larry Connor and Mark Pathy. Eytan created the Rakia Mission in space, which was assembled by the Israeli private and public sectors, including educators, students, scientists and artists with the vision that space is for all. The Rakia Mission represents the first attempt to apply impact metrics to a space mission, and considering Eytan’s background in the impact investment field, this was a natural path to take.

Eytan Stibbe, Founding partner of Vital Capital, has been involved with investing in developing countries for over 30 years and is considered a driving force behind the Impact model for investment in infrastructure development. He has professional experience working across a variety of sectors, including agriculture, education, healthcare and utilities. Examples include creation of international financial solutions for the design and construction of rural and urban communities, regional air traffic control systems and STEM focused educational institutes. These large-scale business ventures, require deep understanding of the community needs, a unique insight and vision from conception through execution, and are guided by two principles: humanitarian objectives and economic stability.

Eytan Stibbe lives in Israel, is a board member of the Center for African Studies at Ben Gurion University, a member of the World Economic Forum as well as a governor and board member at several universities and NGOs dedicated to supporting the education, wellbeing and culture of underprivileged communities.​

​Tejpaul Bhatia
​Chief Revenue Officer, Axiom Space
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With 25 years of startup and strategic leadership experience at some of the world’s biggest companies and three investor-backed, high-growth startups, Tejpaul Bhatia leads revenue generation and future monetization strategy for the commercial development of space as Chief Revenue Officer at Axiom Space. Prior to joining Axiom, he led External Strategic Narrative for the Office of the CIO at Google, where he met with C-suite executives at Fortune 100 corporations to discuss the future of work, supporting over $4B in sales pipeline.

Tej first joined Google as the Startup Ecosystem Manager in New York to establish and grow Google Cloud’s presence with startup founders, venture capital firms, and family offices; he previously was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Citi Ventures. As a startup founder for 10 years prior, Tej served as Chief Operating Officer for an educational technology company, Explain Everything, CEO of video chatting platform Chatwala, and CEO of Kaptur, an app that enables users to instantly aggregate all photos taken at any event in seconds. Before founding Kaptur, Tej was Senior Manager of Product and International Strategy for ESPN, where he launched ESPN3 in the US, Mexico, Brazil, and Europe.

Tej holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Columbia University. He has served in non-profit leadership and board positions at the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Startup Leadership Program.

Joost van Tooren
Human Space Flight Programme Manager Future Programmes, ArianeGroup

Joost joined ArianeGroup in 2015 and is currently responsible for the Human Space Flight Programme within the Future Programmes directorate. In this role, he is responsible for preparing the technical, programmatic and economic aspects of developing a European Human Space Transportation Service for Europe. Furthermore, he has been responsible for Space Logistics Services development since 2018, continuing his work he performed during the 3 previous years in the strategy directorate, where he was responsible for the Research & Technology and Innovation strategy of the company.

Before joining ArianeGroup, he worked at Airbus Defence and Space - Military Aircraft in Munich, Germany, where he was responsible for Flight Guidance for fighter aircraft and drones and later on for all Flight Critical Systems and vehicle engineering for drone programmes.

Joost has an Aerospace Engineering Master of Science degree from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and is currently based in Paris.

Kirsten MacDonell
Research and Payloads Group Leader, European Space Agency
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**replacing Bernardo Patti**

Angelique van Ombergen
Co-Moderator 

​Angelique Van Ombergen graduated with a PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in 2017. She continued her research on spaceflight-induced brain changes during her postdoctoral studies and is currently a visiting professor at the university.

​She joined the European Space Agency in 2019 and works as Discipline Lead for Life Sciences in the ESA SciSpacE Team (HRE), overseeing ESA’s biology and health research activities across several ground and space platforms such as the International Space Station, parabolic flight and bedrest.

She is an avid science communicator and is the author of several books, including three non-fiction children's books that have been translated in several languages.

Pieter van Beekhuizen
Co-Moderator
 
Pieter van Beekhuizen has worked his whole professional life in the space domain, first with ESRO and later with ESA, and has occupied during this period a large variety of different staff functions and management responsibilities within ESA

His last assignment was Head of ESA Industrial Cost Auditing and Return Division which has included industrial costs audits and the provision of the industrial geo return data to ESA Member States. In this capacity he was involved in multiple programme reviews and chaired various Management and Cost panels for large ESA programme procurements.

During the last years at ESA he was also involved in the European initiatives for space commercialisation opportunities/projects.

Following his retirement from ESA he started a consultancy company (Bexperience) providing consultancy and support services for various clients in different countries and continents.

He is Board member of SSPF, a foundation set-up to financially support young professionals and/or students in the Dutch space sector to apply for space studies programs.

He has also recently joined the Board of NVR, the Netherlands Space Society and is a member of the Executive Board of the Colombian Space Agency.

Within IAF he has been nominated as Vice-Chair of the CLIODN committee (Committee for Liaison International Organisations and Developing Nations).

Furthermore he has served as moderator and as panel member in space related events at multiple occasions.