He studied Mechanical Engineering at Loughborough, undertaking a placement year during his studies and graduated with a first-class degree. After graduating, Jay joined GKN Aerospace’s Fast Track program after initially meeting the employer at a Milkround careers fair, and was based across the UK, Germany, and California throughout his time at the company.
Gaining his first CEO role at Danco Machines, a small private equity-backed company, Jay learned about crisis management – a skill he has developed over the course many years and has assisted in his career progression. After this, he joined Ascent Aerospace as COO, later becoming President of Integration and Automation, living in France for a year whilst restructuring the company through acquisitions.
Jay’s home has been Silicon Valley for over 15 years, recently he held another COO role for an emerging aerospace startup, followed by some consulting and advisory work for other hard-tech companies. He describes this as a high-risk, high-reward type environment. Through the local network, he learned about the Xona opportunity to further build on his career skillsets.
He was attracted to the technical complexity of the role at Xona, as well as the potential for professional growth. The alumnus states that he finds growing a business to be rewarding and looks forward to building a strong team within this new role.
He said:
“I’m excited to get to the point where there is enough of an initial constellation in place of satellites, whereby, customers are really seeing something tangible that the company has developed. I’m keen to see the Xona’s GPS technology ‘leapfrog’ the current generation and become more tangible and useful for customers.
“I’m also excited about the challenge of scaling a complex, technical product: the company is a diamond in the rough right now, but I enjoy building companies, putting the right processes in, scaling them up from an early stage. I’m looking forward to taking the company from the prototyping and proof-of-concept stage to executing at scale.”
Jay advises students to take advantage of the opportunities that the University provides: “Get industry experience early on through programmes like the year-out programme at Loughborough. This can provide a good launch pad into your career.” He urges aerospace students to seek diverse experiences, trialling different functions such as quality engineering, process engineering, and design engineering to build a broad skillset and prepare for a successful and impactful career.
He credits the strong foundation he developed at Loughborough through engagement with his course and he recommends the placement programme offered by the University.
“It gave me exposure to companies with an international mindset during a time of widespread globalisation. These industry connections were instrumental in launching my early career and securing positions with companies that had an international focus.”
The University wishes Jay massive success in his new role at Xona!