Stephen Attenborough

Got your ticket for the world’s first passenger carrying commercial spaceline yet?

With the rest of his London team at Virgin Galactic, Stephen Attenborough is getting ready to open the gates of space travel to tourists.

Twinkling with insights into business innovation and development, the scintillating story of how Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has become a reality is one that Stephen draws on as an engaging keynote speaker at industry events and conferences.

As he strives alongside hundereds of rocket scientists, engineers, and designers to create something new and lasting, Stephen delivers practicable actions and unique messages regarding the impact of new technologies on business, and how to combine them with people to drive the growth of an organisation.

After becoming its first full-time employee in 2004, Stephen has since been spearheading Virgin Galactic’s ongoing sales, development, marketing, PR, licencing, partnerships and customer initiatives as its Commercial Director.

So far the project has attracted over $50 million in deposits from future astronauts.

Before that, Stephen worked for more than 15 years at Gartmore Investment Management, a major London-based investment management firm, where his responsibilities focused on the company’s relationship with institutional and high net worth clients.

He has also worked in the non-tourism areas of other science-related applications for the space vehicles. In 2010, he was instrumental in securing a deal for Virgin Galactic’s first external equity partnership, which involved a sale of 32% of the company to Abu Dhabi’s AABAR Investments PJSC for $280m.

His speaking topics include:

- The story of Virgin Galactic

- Impact of new technologies on businesses

- People and technology: getting the right mix

- Business innovation and growth