Susmita Mohanty

Co-founder and CEO, Earth2Orbit
India

SUSMITA MOHANTY is a spaceship designer and serial space entrepreneur. She is the cofounder and CEO of EARTH2ORBIT, India’s first private space start-up. She has cofounded and led two other companies, MOONFRONT in San Francisco [2001-2007] and LIQUIFER in Vienna [2004-ongoing]. Before turning entrepreneur, Susmita worked in business development for the International Space Station program at Boeing in California. She also worked on Shuttle-Mir missions at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Since 1998, Susmita has worked with the Americans, Japanese, Europeans, Russians and Indians in various capacities, as employee, consultant, contractor, entrepreneur and advisor. In 2005, Susmita was honored on Capitol Hill [Washington DC] with the International Achievement Award for promoting international cooperation through entrepreneurial space ventures. In 2012, she was voted into Financial Times’ list of “25 Indians to Watch”. In 2016, she was nominated to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Future Council for Space Technologies. Educated in India, France, and Sweden, Susmita holds multiple degrees including a PhD.