30 Facts About Gwynne Shotwell

Gwynne Shotwell is an American businesswoman and engineer.

Gwynne Shotwell is the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, an American space transportation company, where she is responsible for day-to-day operations and company growth.

Gwynne Shotwell was ranked 54th on Fortune's list of Most Powerful Women in 2023.

Gwynne Shotwell was born in Evanston, Illinois, as the middle of three daughters to a brain surgeon and an artist, and was raised in Libertyville, Illinois.

Gwynne Shotwell excelled in both academics and athletics in high school, where she was on the cheerleading and varsity basketball teams while achieving at the top of her class.

Gwynne Shotwell's interests changed during high school after her mother took her to a panel discussion at the Illinois Institute of Technology by the Society of Women Engineers, where a mechanical engineer in particular inspired Shotwell to become an engineer.

At the beginning of her career, Gwynne Shotwell had an interview with IBM on the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which disturbed her and she did not get a job offer.

In 1988, Gwynne Shotwell began work at the El Segundo research center of The Aerospace Corporation, and did technical work on military space research and development contracts.

Gwynne Shotwell worked in both space systems engineering and project management positions.

Gwynne Shotwell left The Aerospace Corporation in 1998 to become director of the space systems division at Microcosm Inc.

Gwynne Shotwell left Microcosm in 2002 to join SpaceX, a private, commercial, space exploration company founded by Elon Musk in the same year.

Gwynne Shotwell was introduced to Musk through her former Microcosm colleague Hans Koenigsmann who had joined SpaceX.

Gwynne Shotwell took the job two weeks later in September 2002.

In December 2008, Gwynne Shotwell was promoted to company president following her role in the successful negotiation of the first Commercial Resupply Services contract with the NASA Associate Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier.

Gwynne Shotwell was responsible for leading the effort on building the Falcon Vehicle manifest to over 50 launches, generating $5 billion in revenue.

Gwynne Shotwell is the President and COO of SpaceX, responsible for day-to-day operations and managing all customer and strategic relations to support company growth.

Gwynne Shotwell oversaw the first landing of an orbital rocket's first stage on land and on an ocean platform, the first relaunch and landing of a used orbital rocket, the first controlled flyback and recovery of a payload fairing, and the first re-flight of a commercial cargo spacecraft.

Gwynne Shotwell has received particular praise from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson for her "phenomenal" leadership of SpaceX as it developed the Falcon 9 into the "workhorse" of the space launch sector.

Nelson had reportedly been concerned in 2022, after Elon Musk purchased Twitter, that it would be a distraction at SpaceX, but became more comfortable after meetings with Gwynne Shotwell left him feeling reassured that she was in charge of day-to-day operations.

In February 2019, Polaris Industries announced that Gwynne Shotwell would join their board of directors in March 2019.

Gwynne Shotwell has served on the California Space Authority Board of Directors and its executive committee after she was elected in 2004.

Gwynne Shotwell has served as an officer on the AIAA Space Systems Technical Committee and participates in a variety of STEM related programs.

Gwynne Shotwell led a committee that raised over $350,000 in scholarships for the Frank J Redd Student Competition over six years.

Gwynne Shotwell stated Ukrainians had used the service in ways not part of the agreement, as she had accepted to donate Starlink satellite services for communications, defense and humanitarian purposes such as "ambulances, hospitals and mothers" but had not intended it to be weaponized for drone strikes.

Gwynne Shotwell gave a TEDx Talk at TEDxChapmanU in June 2013 on the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Gwynne Shotwell speaks regularly to business audiences and gave a talk for the "Captains of Industry" series at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security in June 2014 on private entrepreneurial accomplishments in advancing spaceflight technology.

At the 2018 TED conference, Gwynne Shotwell was interviewed by Chris Anderson about the future plans of SpaceX.

At the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing on September 28,2018, Gwynne Shotwell's talk was titled "Launching Our Future" and she discussed her vision and advancements for aerospace technology, as well as why diversity and the inclusion of women are necessary to advance as a society.

Gwynne Shotwell is married to an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Gwynne Shotwell has two children from a previous marriage with Leon Gurevich.