Lee Steinke

Lee Steinke is the Chief Operating Officer at CisLunar Industries and a Partner at aerospace and defense consulting firm Elara Nova. She has performed in executive roles on contracts for NASA, DARPA, Space Force, AFRL, DIU, and commercial customers. As a partner to Space Force and NewSpace Nexus, she led the Space Futures Workshop with Industry to explore commercial views on the future of space and document the implications of those views for US national security. Prior to working in aerospace and defense, she was an executive and licensed professional scientist in the energy industry. Lee has held integral strategic, operational, and technical roles within companies that ranged in size from fledgling startup to Fortune-11 titan and deployed capital from public markets, private equity, venture capital, and angel investment. She serves on various advisory and review boards, is well published on technical topics, and is a sought-after speaker who has been featured on the TEDx stage. She holds an MBA from Wharton, an MS from Yale, and a BA from UNC-Chapel Hill, and is a proud alumna of the U.S. Army War College National Security Seminar.