Payam Banazadeh

Payam Banazadeh is CEO & Co-Founder of Capella Space, a venture backed Silicon Valley company building satellites capable of imaging earth throughout the day and night in all weather and light conditions. Payam graduated Manga Cum Laude with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and received the 2012 Texas Outstanding Scholar & Leader Award for his superior academic performance and exceptional leadership. While at NASA JPL he received the NASA Mariner Award for his leadership on two multi-million dollar missions and NASA Discovery Award for his outstanding performance in formulating new concepts and projects for NASA. After his career at NASA JPL Payam left to receive his graduate business degree from Stanford University with sponsorship from the National Science Foundation (NSF). While at Stanford Payam Co-Founded Capella Space with William Woods with the hope of monitoring our planet from space and providing transparency into different industries. Most recently Payam was selected to be on the prestigious “Forbes 30 under 30” list in 2017 and Capella has been recognized by New York Times, Bloomberg, and recently Inc magazine as one of the top 25 disruptive companies in the world.