Virgin Galactic hires Disney executive as new CEO

Virgin Galactic announced July 15 it is bringing in a Disney executive as the company’s new chief executive officer, with the company’s longtime chief executive moving into a new role.
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                        WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic announced July 15 it is bringing in a Disney executive as the company’s new chief executive officer, with the company’s longtime chief executive moving into a new role.
Virgin Galactic announced shortly after markets closed that Michael Colglazier will become chief executive, effective July 20. Colglazier previously was president and managing director of Disney Parks International, the part of Disney that oversees its amusement parks in the United States and elsewhere.
George Whitesides, who has been chief executive of Virgin Galactic since 2010, will remain with the company, becoming its first “chief space officer” focused on future business opportunities, including point-to-point high-speed travel and orbital spaceflight. Whitesides will also serve as chair of the company’s space advisory board.
Both Colglazier and Whitesides described the leadership change as part of an overall company transition, as the company nears the end of the development of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane for space tourism and research applications, an effort that has taken many years longer than expected.
“The next decade for Virgin Galactic will be commercially-focused, and it is the perfect moment for us to bring a visionary commercial leader like Michael to take the company forward,” Whitesides said in a statement announcing the transition. “I look forward to supporting Michael as the Company realizes Richard Branson’s vision to share the experience of spaceflight with people around the world, now turning my focus to building the next generation of aerospace vehicles and experiences.”
“I am thrilled to join the talented team at Virgin Galactic at this inflection point in the company’s journey,” Colglazier said in the statement. “George’s vision and outstanding leadership have enabled Virgin Galactic to reach this point, and I am excited to work with him in his role as Chief Space Officer where he will spearhead our future development efforts.”
Virgin Galactic has not set a date for beginning commercial operations, although the company stated after the most recent unpowered test flight of SpaceShipTwo June 25 that it would soon be ready to begin a final series of powered test flights. The company previously said it would begin commercial operations in mid-2020, but backed away from that schedule earlier this year.
The company has also recently been emphasizing future opportunities. The company announced June 22 it had a Space Act Agreement with NASA to develop a “private orbital astronaut readiness program” that would involve identifying potential customers, handling training and arranging for transportation to the International Space Station. That effort would likely involve buying seats on commercial crew vehicles developed by Boeing or SpaceX.
Virgin Galactic announced a separate Space Act Agreement in May to study technologies for point-to-point transportation. The company has previously discussed leveraging SpaceShipTwo technologies for high-speed transportation, although it has not set a timetable for fielding such vehicles. Doing so would likely be expensive and time consuming, given the need for passenger certification not needed for spacecraft.
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