Italian ground segment as a service (GSaaS) company Leaf Space has appointed Cristina Zanchi as its new CEO. The previous CEO Jonata Puglia will move into a strategic role supporting Zanchi and focus on facilitating new strategic partnerships.
Zanchi boasts experience in senior leadership roles within the telecommunications industry and at companies such as Orange, KLM, and Shell. Her track record for defining and executing strategic planning, with an emphasis on elevating customer experience and operational excellence, was seen as a major asset for Leaf Space as it seeks to deliver upon its vision for product innovation and further expansion as part of the new space economy.
“From the moment we met Cristina, we could tell that she possessed the experience, vision and ambition required to move our business forward and expand our customer base,” said Puglia. “What’s more, the fresh perspective that her background enabled is already proving an asset. I’m very much looking forward to working alongside her.”
In addition, Gian Luca Ottino is taking up the role of chief financial officer at Leaf Space. Ottino has extensive international management experience in growth companies in the telecommunication and SaaS environments.
Leaf Space employs 50 staff from its headquarters in Italy and operates close to 30 ground stations in 16 locations worldwide. It successfully closed its EUR30 million Series B fundraising last year. Meanwhile, last month, the company recorded more than 15,000 tracked passes of satellites in orbit during a single calendar month – an increase of 50% over the past year and a new high for the firm that was set up in a garage in Milan ten years ago.
“We are growing fast,” said Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Giovanni Pandolfi Bortoletto. “In the last year, we activated eight new sites worldwide, including our own teleports in Chile, Mexico and Iceland. We will soon get to a global coverage with more than 30 active ground stations, also with Ka-band capabilities, which, together with our innovative concept of operations and ease of use, enable us to serve the market in a new way.”
