Executive Vice President General Counsel, The Extraterrestrial Mining Company
Michael Hewins has over 35 years of senior executive positions in the space industry in law, global strategy, finance, sales, and risk management, He has served on five boards. Throughout his career he has advocated for and produced significant intellectual property for the various organizations.
Michael was the Deputy CEO, COO, Company Secretary of NewSat Ltd, $32 million teleport operator with a strategic plan to launch its own satellites to control costs and realize a significant increase in revenue and margins. As COO, he was responsible for the sales, marketing, engineering, teleport operations, HR, and IT functions with later added responsibility for funding and acted as the Interim CFO for a period during the capital raising. He raised $640 million in debt and equity funding, convincing key suppliers to amend their contracts to satisfy lenders and working with stakeholders to find creative ways to overcome contractual issues. During this period, he and his IT team saved the satellite project by devising a plan that repaired a thoroughly corrupted IT network and regained the required security status, allowing access to NSA keys to operate the satellite when launched.
Michael spent three years in Sydney Australia as Managing Director and Board Member of AstroVision Australia, a public company which had licensed AstroVision’s proprietary technology to launch and operate a geostationary satellite. Prior to AstroVision Australia, he was the Chairmen and CEO of AstroVision Inc. in the US, a start-up with the intent to build, launch, and operate the first private geostationary remote sensing satellite system. He was the initial investor in the project, raised additional capital, wrote the business plan, obtained FCC and NOAA licensing for orbital slots, frequencies and bringing images to earth and proved the company’s innovative frequency application met operating requirements without disrupting the functioning of other satellites.
The first half of Michael’s career was in the space insurance business. His clients included Space Systems Loral, Shinawatra Satellite (Thailand), Measat (Malaysia), APT Satellite (Hong Kong), Indonesia, Japan (Superbird, NHK, Japan Airline Pool), Hispasat, Telesat Canada, LKEI (commercial Proton rocket venture), Intelsat, and generated sales of over 250$ million.
Michael worked and lived in Paris for three years while working for Arianespace, the European launch company as its first Director of Risk Management and their reinsurance company, S3R. He designed and marketed the first launch-risk guarantee program and managed the reinsurance backing the guarantee which generated $300 million of profit in three years.
Michael is an active member of the bar, with a Juris Doctor (Suffolk University), B.A. (Wake Forest University), earned credits toward an Electrical Engineering Degree at the University of Maryland, and attended the International Law program at The Hague. He speaks French.