Tim Solms selected as new Slingshot Aerospace CEO. Photo: Slingshot Aerospace

Slingshot Aerospace announced Feb 7. it is appointing Tim Solms, former executive at Dun & Bradstreet, Microsoft, Dell and VMware, as their new CEO. Solms will also have a seat on the Slingshot board of directors. 

Solms previously headed Dun & Bradstreet’s Public Sector business as the executive vice president. Prior to that he was the general manager at Microsoft overseeing the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) business. He also previously managed all DoD and NATO business for VMware. Solms served 18 years in the U.S. Army as an officer and Apache attack helicopter pilot. 

David Godwin, co-founder, and president of Slingshot Aerospace said “Slingshot selected Tim because he is a proven operational leader who is execution focused, has extensive experience in both commercial and government organizations, and shares our mission of making space safe, sustainable, and secure. Tim is well positioned to take Slingshot to the next level and steer the organization through our next chapter of growth.” 

The selection of a new CEO comes at a time of substantial growth for the company. Slingshot was recently selected by the United States Department of Commerce’s Office of Space Commerce (OSC) to provide Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) space situational awareness (SSA) data and services for the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) Consolidated Pathfinder project. 

Solms will be responsible for leading the company’s growth and continued expansion of Slingshot Global Sensor Network to provide satellite tracking, space traffic coordination, and space modeling and simulation solutions to government and commercial customers. 

Slingshot Aerospace’s previous CEO was Melanie Stricklan, one of the company’s co-founders, who left the company last year. She was named Satellite Executive of the Year for 2022.