MOJAVE, Calif. – Today, Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline, announced John S. Rego has joined the company as its new Chief Financial Officer. Rego brings nearly three decades of finance, accounting and operations experience to the commercial space company.
As CFO, Rego will provide overall strategic and operational direction to Virgin Galactic’s accounting, finance, financial planning and analysis, treasury, risk and tax activities. He will work with Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides and the senior management team to build strategic financial and capital plans to achieve corporate objectives.
“Virgin Galactic is rapidly moving toward our commercial spaceflight operations later this year,” Whitesides said. “John has deep experience in scaling high-growth businesses for sustainable success. We are proud to have him join our team.”
Rego’s nearly 30-year financial career is rooted in leadership and management positions. He joins Virgin Galactic after serving as CFO for AppSense, Inc., a U.K.-based enterprise software company, headquartered in New York. He spent nearly eight years as executive vice president, CFO and treasurer for Vonage Holdings Corp. in New Jersey, where he raised $1.3 billion in capital, guided the company through exponential growth from zero to approximately 2.5 million customers and more than $900 million in revenues within six years. Other experience includes senior leadership positions at Petra Solar, Inc., RCN Corporation and Winstar Communications, among others.
A graduate of Rutgers University, Rego earned his CPA license in 1985 in the state of New Jersey.
Virgin Galactic, owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and aabar Investments PJS, is on track to be the world’s first commercial spaceline. To date, the company has accepted more than $80 million in deposits from approximately 680 individuals, which is 20% more than the total number of people who have ever gone to space. The new spaceship (SpaceShipTwo, VSS Enterprise) and carrier craft (WhiteKnightTwo, VMS Eve) have both been developed for Virgin Galactic’s vehicle fleet by Mojave-based Scaled Composites. Founded by Burt Rutan, Scaled developed SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize as the world’s first privately developed manned spacecraft. Virgin Galactic’s new vehicles, which will be manufactured by The Spaceship Company in Mojave, Calif., share much of the same basic design, but are being built to carry six customers, or the equivalent scientific research payload, on suborbital space flights. The vehicles will allow an out-of-the-seat, zero-gravity experience with astounding views of the planet from the black sky of space for tourist astronauts and a unique microgravity platform for researchers. The VSS Enterprise and VMS Eve test flight program is well under way, leading to Virgin Galactic commercial operations, which will be based at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
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