Meet Felix Motzki, the CTO of Reflex Aerospace, a German NewSpace startup and satellite manufacturer. Felix oversees the development and delivery of Reflex’s innovative customer satellites, but before Reflex, Felix spent the majority of his career in engineering. He joined us on Episode 51 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast to discuss his transition into a C-level leadership role and what attracted him to Reflex Aerospace. 

Why reflex aerospace? What are you doing differently to bring value to this crowded space?

When they first approached me, I thought they were just another satellite company. But our interesting approach, and what’s really specific to us, is that we want to approach the mass or lower-cost market. When I say lower-cost, it’s still expensive stuff, but you’re not shooting for the 20-30-ton satellites that cost hundreds of millions. Now, we want to attack that segment of 50-500 kilograms, which is a segment that can’t be covered with a CubeSat. We want to do everything that you can’t do with the CubeSat at around 500 kilograms. 

There are a lot of companies, but they usually offer a standard bus or a modular system that can be put together to offer something similar. That’s explicitly not what we do. We actually build a satellite for that customer. It will always be a custom bus, whether the customer wants 1, 2, 3 or 30. We still want to do it fast. We were launching our first satellite in 2 months, which is quite a short timeframe. We do that by not focusing so much on developing a standard platform but on developing standard processes. We are working on innovating the design process to streamline it and make customised designs as fast as possible. 

How did you find that transition from being an engineer to leadership?

I’ve taken the decision the transition really well. It was a learning experience, and I’m still learning after many years as a manager. I’ll probably never stop. I probably should never stop. It was a very hard decision for me to take because I was very happy developing electronics and software. There, if there’s a problem, if you just work longer, you either find a solution or figure out there is no solution. This is quite a thankful job, and it’s paid very well. And it’s exciting and interesting. I could disconnect from it when I went home in the evening or during the weekend. I knew managing people was going to be different, but it took me several months after I was offered the leadership position to get used to it. I do not regret it. I would have been a good engineer amongst millions of other good engineers. My talent is probably more managerial, which is where I can stand out.

What has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned from a management perspective?

I’m not sure if I could name one biggest lesson because I’ve learned a million lessons. I’m learning every day. There are some key experiences which I will always remember and which will always make me think more deeply. For example, the first time I had to fire somebody was the hardest day in my professional career. It was somebody I had not hired myself, and the person was really not helping the team at all. They were holding back the team, and it was clear that we had to let him go. Still, I remember that day very well, which taught me a very important lesson. You have to invest in and hire the right people. It pays off for sure. You cannot invest too much time in finding the right people. You don’t want to put just anybody in that position, so it’s important to find the right fit. 

To hear more from Felix about his talent attraction philosophy, tune into Episode 51 of The Satellite & NewSpace Matters Podcast here.

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.