Meet the team behind Volansi’s flying robots. Each week we share stories from the team at Volansi highlighting their journey to joining the team, how they help keep our drones taking off, and some quirky fun along the way.
John Steen
Title at Volansi: Director of Sales and Business Development, Defense Solutions
Joined the team: 2021
Hometown: Charleston, South Carolina
Tell us a little bit about your background and the work you did before joining the Volansi team?
Prior to joining Volansi I served 23 years in the U.S. Army. I flew the Apache and Kiowa Warrior during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. I retired in 2018 and went to work for a defense contractor in the UAS field. I joined Volansi in July 2021.
In your own words, what do you do at Volansi?
I seek opportunities to promote Volansi, and its products, to the defense and federal market. I ensure that customer requirements are understood by the Volansi team so that we build products that meet the needs of our Warfighters.
What has been your favorite project so far at Volansi?
What do you like to do in your spare time?
In my spare time I hunt, fish, and spend time with my Family.
Who are your heroes in aviation, drone, or logistics history? Why?
My heroes are the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines that build, fix and fuel the aircraft. They do hours of hard work in demanding conditions so that pilots can support the Warfighters on the ground.
We are in the dawn of unmanned flight and autonomous mobility. What are the applications that excite you most?
I am most excited about the advent of Interconnected drone networks that provide both multi-role capabilities to customers.
Wesley Zheng is a Co-founder and Chief of Staff of Volansi, where he helps drive product development and engineering solutions to enable drone logistics. As Chief of Staff, Wesley is helping build an outstanding team that can take the company to the next level.
Ahmad Ziada is Vice President of Production and Maintenance at Volansi. He has extensive leadership experience in Operations, Engineering and Product Development and is an energetic, engaging and thoughtful leader who creates an environment of collaboration and excitement. His passion is bringing people, processes and tools together to create a successful business. At Volansi he is responsible for internal operations, including quality, supply chain, manufacturing and sustaining engineering as well as New Product Introduction (NPI).
Mike Jackson is Volansi’s Vice President of Global Operations. In this capacity he oversees planning, resourcing, and execution of Volansi’s commercial drone delivery and defense operations. Additionally, Mike is responsible for Volansi’s account management and customer success programs.
Stephen Morris is the Vice President of Aircraft Engineering at Volansi. In this role he serves as the lead engineer for the company’s aircraft design division. Prior to joining Volansi, he held the position of Director of Advanced Technologies at Neptune Medical and Chief Technology Officer at Martin UAV, among many other roles in the aerospace industry. Stephen holds a BS (Summa Cum Laude) in Mechanical Engineering from Bucknell University and an MS and PhD in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Stanford University.
As Senior Vice President – Global Sales and Business Development, Marvin leads a team focused on global market expansion. In this role, he also leads a government affairs group working directly with policymakers to ensure Volansi’s interests and market needs are supported around the world.
Mike Guerchon is the Senior Vice President of People at Volansi. In this role, he leads the people organization as they support the growth and development of high-performing teams. Mike leads recruiting, learning and development, people operations, facilities, security and IT. This all enables a great culture in support of our rapidly growing global company.
Mark Mesler is the Chief Financial Officer at Volansi. In this role, he spearheads the company’s financial and capital raising initiatives, as well as implements infrastructure so the company can strategically scale to meet its global market opportunities.
Shane Hastings is the Vice President of Program Management at Volansi. In this role, Shane and his team manage the product portfolio from ideation through execution.
Paul Ricci is the CEO of Qualifacts + Credible. Prior to joining Qualifacts+Credible in December 2020, Paul Ricci was the chairman and CEO of Nuance Communications. While at Nuance, Ricci transformed the company from a small imaging software publisher into a $2 billion leading provider of conversational speech and AI solutions, with 14,000 employees worldwide. During his tenure, the company successfully developed a pioneering healthcare technology business, became a leading global provider of customer self-service solutions, and built one of the world’s largest independent automotive software businesses, now Cerence (NASDAQ:CRNC).
Joe Horowitz is the Managing General Partner of Icon Ventures, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm with offices in Palo Alto and San Francisco. A veteran of the venture capital industry, he founded Icon in 2003 and has overseen its growth, from $100 million in assets under management to $1.1 billion. Joe’s venture capital experience includes a 10-year tenure at U.S. Venture Partners, where the first deal that he worked on was the seed financing of Sun Microsystems. He was also Chairman and CEO of Geocast Network Systems, a broadband infrastructure company backed by Mayfield, Kleiner Perkins and Institutional Venture Partners.At Icon, Joe has had 16 successful exits to date. He has been particularly active in the security space with early investments in FireEye (FEYE), Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and Proofpoint (PFPT) that today are publicly-traded companies with multibillion-dollar market valuations. Other notable exits include Aster Data (Teradata), Clicker (CBS), Infinera (INFN), KIXEYE (Stillfront), Meebo (Google), Mimosa Systems (Iron Mountain), Ocarina Networks (Dell), Opcity (News Corp), Posterous (Twitter), SiTime (MegaChips), Teladoc (TDOC) and True[x]Media (Fox).Current Icon portfolio companies that Joe is on the Board of or actively involved with include Area 1 Security, Global Worldwide, PlayStudios, Synack, TuneIn and Volansi.Joe received his MBA from the Wharton Graduate School of Business. As an undergraduate, he earned his BA degree in economics from Columbia University, in addition to three years of study at Columbia’s School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. He currently serves on the board of the National Venture Capital Association and was previously a board member of the Western Association of Venture Capitalist.
Poh Sim Gan is the Vice President of Finance at Volansi. Poh Sim has held roles in financial leadership for global manufacturing and technology companies throughout her career. Prior to joining Volansi, she was most recently the Chief Financial Officer at Openwave Mobility, where she also previously held the roles of Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller. She has also held leadership positions at Netlogic Microsystems, Marvell Semiconductor, Riverstone Networks and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Poh Sim holds a Bachelor of Accountancy (Honors) from the National University of Singapore and has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1993.