New CEO for Starship Technologies
Starship Technologies, the global provider of autonomous delivery services, has announced that Alastair Westgarth has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately.
“I’ve been following Starship Technologies’ progress for a considerable time now,” said Westgarth. “Autonomous delivery is changing logistics as we know it, impacting billions of people around the world. The team at Starship has been developing and perfecting the technology and its operations for years, since creating the robot delivery category in 2014. The pandemic fast-tracked wider awareness of contactless delivery and now many more customers and businesses understand its convenience, ease and environmental benefits. I’m excited about this opportunity and looking forward to helping the company scale both on campuses and in neighborhoods, giving millions more people access to this market-leading, convenient, safe and environmentally friendly delivery service.”
Westgarth has more than 30 years’ experience and was most recently CEO at Alphabet’s Loon, which started as part of X, Google’s Moonshot Factory, and focused on bringing internet access to unserved and underserved communities around the world via a network of balloons operating on the edge of space. He has deep tech expertise and has built and run several companies. Prior to joining Loon in 2017, he served as CEO at Quintel Solutions, was a vice president at Nortel and director of engineering at Bell Mobility. Westgarth holds a degree in electrical engineering from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
“Alastair shares our belief that we are building something that will make the world of delivery better for everyone,” said Janus Friis, co-founder of Starship. “Last-mile delivery is notoriously costly, inefficient and harms the environment from excessive congestion and pollution. We think Alastair has the right experience and mindset to help Starship continue to grow its position as a leader in reshaping last-mile delivery, which will impact the movement of things on a much larger scale.”
Starship’s co-founder Ahti Heinla, who is now taking on the role of CTO, added: “When we created Starship in 2014, we wanted to make peoples’ lives easier and upend the way people received goods. We’ve seen that vision come to life over the past few years and our technology is now ready to truly scale. Alastair’s global leadership and tech skills will be vital in helping us take Starship to the next stage in our growth journey.”
