Libby Jackson
Senior teams rehearse for crises they expect and freeze when the actual one arrives. The gap between a documented decision protocol and a leader who can run one in real time is where most organisations are exposed. Mission control culture closes that gap, and very few people in business have lived inside it.
Libby Jackson is a former International Space Station Flight Director who shows leaders how mission control teams make sound decisions when the cost of getting it wrong is total.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Libby Jackson
- She ran live operations on the European module of the International Space Station as Columbus Flight Director, a seat where decisions are made in minutes with crew lives in the loop. That experience is rare on a corporate stage.
- She built and led the UK Space Agency education programme for Tim Peake’s Principia mission, an outreach effort that reached more than two million students and around one in three UK schools, evidence of operational leadership at national scale.
- Her account of decision-making under pressure draws on procedures used in mission control rooms, not metaphor, giving senior teams a working vocabulary for handling ambiguity and failure.
- An OBE for services to the space sector and the 2023 Leif Erikson Exploration History Award place her credentials inside the small group of British human spaceflight leaders that buyers can name.
- She translates highly technical environments for non-technical audiences without softening the substance, useful for boards and leadership teams that want rigour without the jargon.
Biography highlights
- Columbus Flight Director, European Space Agency Mission Control for the International Space Station, Munich.
- Head of Space, Science Museum, London, since March 2025, the first holder of the role.
- Former Head of Space Exploration, UK Space Agency, with prior responsibility for the Human Exploration Programme.
- OBE, 2023 New Year Honours, for services to the Space Sector. 2023 Leif Erikson Exploration History Award, Exploration Museum, Iceland.
- BSc Physics, Imperial College London; MSc Astronautics and Space Engineering, Cranfield. Honorary DSc, University of Kent. Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
- Author of A Galaxy of Her Own (2017) and Space Explorers (2020), both Penguin. Regular BBC science contributor including Stargazing Live.
Biography
A Flight Director on the International Space Station has minutes, not hours, to make calls that involve crew safety, multinational politics, and millions of pounds of hardware. Libby Jackson held that seat at the European Space Agency’s Columbus Control Centre in Munich, the European module of the ISS. Seven years inside mission control gave her a working knowledge of how senior teams hold together when consequences are immediate and irreversible.
She moved to the UK Space Agency in 2014, where she ran education and outreach for Tim Peake’s Principia mission, the British astronaut’s flight to the ISS. The programme reached more than two million students and around one in three UK schools, an operational result on a national scale. She later became Head of Space Exploration, coordinating UK investments across human and robotic missions, the ISS, and lunar and Mars activity.
In March 2025 she took up a new post as Head of Space at the Science Museum in London, the first person to hold that title. Her two books, A Galaxy of Her Own and Space Explorers, both published by Penguin, sit alongside an OBE for services to the space sector and the 2023 Leif Erikson Exploration History Award from the Exploration Museum in Iceland.
For corporate audiences, the value sits in what mission control teaches about composure, sequencing and trust under load. Jackson does not offer the space career as inspiration. She uses it as a working case study in how trained teams make decisions when the data is incomplete, the clock is short, and the cost of error is absolute.
Key speaking topics
- Decision-making under operational pressure
- Mission control leadership and team coordination
- Human spaceflight and the future of exploration
- Risk, failure, and recovery in complex systems
- The Artemis programme and the return to the Moon
- Women in science and engineering
- Translating technical work for non-technical audiences
Ideal for
- Boards and executive teams preparing for crisis decision-making and incident leadership
- Heads of operations, engineering and safety in high-consequence sectors such as energy, aviation, healthcare and defence
- Transformation and innovation leaders working through high-stakes technical change
- Corporate STEM, early careers and women in leadership programmes seeking a credible British voice in space
Audience outcomes
- A working picture of how mission control teams structure decisions when consequences are immediate
- Specific lessons from the Columbus and Principia missions on coordination across multinational expert teams
- A clearer view of where corporate decision processes break down compared with operational environments built around failure
- Renewed confidence in the value of preparation, role clarity and handover discipline as leadership tools
- A sharper sense of where the next decade of human spaceflight is heading, and what that means for industries adjacent to it
Talks
A working account of how flight directors and their teams make sound calls when the data is incomplete and the clock is short.
Key takeaways:
- How mission control structures roles, handovers and authority for high-consequence decisions
- What corporate leaders can borrow from procedural cultures built around failure
- Where business decision processes most often break down compared with operational environments
An insider view of the Artemis programme and what the return to the Moon means for industry, science and international collaboration.
Key takeaways:
- The strategic logic behind Artemis and the partners shaping it
- The commercial and technological implications for sectors adjacent to space
- What the next decade of human exploration is likely to deliver
A clear, jargon-free explanation of how spaceflight actually works, built for non-technical audiences without losing the substance.
Key takeaways:
- The core engineering and physics behind getting humans into orbit
- How complex technical programmes are managed end to end
- A practical model for translating technical work to senior, non-specialist audiences
A personal account of the path from school physics to the flight director’s seat at European mission control.
Key takeaways:
- The career steps and decisions that lead into human spaceflight
- The role of mentors, sponsors and persistence in technical careers
- Lessons for organisations building pipelines of women into engineering and science
Videos
Books
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Asia Pacific | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Europe | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Middle East & Africa | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| South America | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| United Kingdom | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US East Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US West Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Virtual | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |