In this episode of The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast, Kristina Wagner, chief technology officer and chief digital officer at OHB SE, joins Roman Wecker to discuss leading an end-to-end space business and why combining technology and digital mandates accelerates transformation. She explores how software defined space and AI-driven simulation are reshaping design and production, the push for innovation in a volatile geopolitical landscape, and what it takes to scale from bespoke builds to larger constellations with minimal legacy constraints.

Kristina shares how her team drives firm wide industrialization, the role of a supervisory board technology committee, and why domain expertise matters as much as AI technique. She also covers talent and leadership: recruiting early career engineers, onboarding faster with AI, cultivating curiosity and resilience, and creating innovation through cognitive and experiential diversity. Her advice for women in tech leadership: be bold, take risks, and think big.

Below is a full transcript of the episode, which has been lightly edited for clarity.

Welcome to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of diversified solutions across senior-level executive search, leadership, assessment and development, team and organizational effectiveness, and culture shaping. Every day, we speak with leaders around the world about how they're meeting rising expectations and managing through volatile times, thinking about individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Roman Wecker: Hi, I'm Roman Wecker, a partner in Heidrick and Struggles Frankfurt office and the Regional Practice Managing Partner for the Industrial Business in Europe and Africa. In today's podcast I'm excited to speak to Kristina Wagner, chief technology officer and chief digital officer at OHB. OHB is one of Europe's leading space and technology companies, known for delivering cutting-edge solutions in aerospace, satellite systems and digital innovation. Before joining OHB, Kristina held senior leadership roles across the tech and industrial landscape, driving transformation and digital strategy at scale. Kristina, welcome, and thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. 

Kristina Wagner: Hi Roman. Thanks for having me, happy to be here.

Roman Wecker: So Kristina, let's start with section one, core challenges of a CTO today. [Regarding your] role at OHB, can you share a little bit more about why you hold both titles, and how does that reflect the strategic goals of the company? 

Kristina Wagner: I’ll give a little bit of insight on OHB, because you need to understand that in order to understand how we structured the role. OHB is an end-to-end space company. So we are doing launcher, we are doing satellites or in orbit services, and then ground and processing services of space data. And the company was founded 1981, grew as a start-up, as a garage, okay, and grew a lot during the past years. So there are now two things. On the one hand side, when you consider the technology role, then it's a lot about end-to-end space technologies, meaning building appropriate satellites for certain launchers. And then on the other hand side, which is a super interesting topic, to say what will you later as technologies deploy on the satellite, what will you do on ground. And those end-to-end relevant technologies are something where I'm considering the strategy and driving certain lighthouse projects. On the other hand side, of course digitalization is super crucial for our company, so given the growth and also the impulses we currently see when it comes to industrialization.

Roman Wecker: Where do you sit exactly within the organizational structure and whom do you report to? 

Kristina Wagner: So I'm reporting to the CEO and owner of OHP. So on the one hand side, I have this small strategic team, defining strategy, capturing targets, and then pushing also dedicated lighthouse projects. And then on the other hand, the CIO, so IT is reporting to me. We have a small digital team pushing, actually, the change within the organization. And I'm also in charge of a large company-wide transformation program which helps us actually to do the digitalization, industrialization, and prepare to actually steer the company at scale. 

Roman Wecker: And is this, in your opinion, an ideal setup to also collaborate across the executive team and across borders, or could there be even a better organizational setup?

Kristina Wagner: Given that there's, on the one hand side, quite different technology stacks with the dedicated divisions, but then on the other hand side, having technologies which disrupt end-to-end. And I tell you, for instance, reusability of launches is something which is very crucial. Then, when you consider software-related topics, then so software-defined space systems. You know, all the disruptive changes you are nowadays seeing an automotive, given software-defined architectures and AI capable systems, the same is true for space. So that's why I believe this is a really good setup and you know, what we have done in addition is we have set up a technology committee with the supervisory board. This is actually something I made also quite good experience in my previous company with.

Roman Wecker: What are the core challenges you face today as a technology leader, and how are broader macro forces like geopolitical uncertainty, talent scarcity, or global competition shaping your priorities?

Kristina Wagner: It is shaping it a lot. So look, maybe giving you an outside-in view in that industry and also being quite new within the space industry, so I'm working in space since one and a half years. There's quite a complex way of steering or driving decisions when it comes to our agency's customers, okay, because you need to align European interests and also consider national interests. The invest behavior is a bit different in Europe than in the US, and also the risk awareness is a bit different. 

To give you a few facts: so within Europe, you as a taxpayer are paying roughly 18 euros per year for space services. It's almost four times, four to five times more when considering the US. What you get out of those 18 euros is quite a lot. So European navigation, for instance, but also many Earth observation programs, which are helping us to answer questions when it comes to climate, for instance, measuring the net two emissions we have in cities. So many, many interesting services. But in general, decisions are taking a bit longer. This is new for me, to be honest, and this is also sometimes a bit challenging, I would say. 

On the other hand, I think it's one of the most interesting times to be in space, okay. What you have is, on the one hand, importance of sovereignty, so each modern society needs a modern infrastructure, and we saw actually within the current geopolitical circumstances and Ukraine, how important Starlink is. So of course we need a European answer, and we are working on that, so to contribute here is super cool. Then the second is, what is also super interesting being in space, it’s actually the economic factor. So it's a really huge market.

There are predictions from the World Economic Forum and McKinsey saying that the market will be up to 1.8 trillion, and this is approximately today's pharma market, or saying for the German guys, the automotive guys, it's maybe 50-60% of today's automotive market, so it's really huge. And then you have like this real human aspect in it, so curiosity, understanding humanity, understanding the universe, and maybe also contributing or pushing the next evolutionary step of multi-planetary life. So all this is so interesting. So I would say on the one hand there are a few challenges coming with the setup, but on the other hand it's a super interesting time.

Roman Wecker: Now, super interesting. Thank you so much. So you talked already a little bit about slow decision-making process and there's overall a lot of this talk and discussion about AI. So let's talk a little bit in our second section about AI talent and the future of technical leadership and starting with AI. So how is artificial intelligence affecting your operations and what kind of capabilities are becoming more critical as a result?

Kristina Wagner: So I think the capabilities of boards, for instance, those are in everybody's life quite, quite active when you see the pure operations. What is interesting is, within space you have a lot of data and a lot of simulation, because the circumstances within space are super hard, so you need to simulate, giving you a bit of an intuition for that. So when you consider temperatures, you have plus-100 degree, minus-100 degree, depending on if you are facing the sun side or not. You have a super high load of acoustic and vibrations during the launch. You have vacuum and so on. So there's a high, high need and many, many data available to optimize your design. So this is something that is super relevant in general in the industry. So far, our company was not producing that much for large scale. So when you think, so we are mastering with AI the complexity of our products, right? When you consider mastering a high volume, then those questions are just arising now because we have the opportunities to deliver larger constellations. And here I believe we are in a good position because we don't have so much legacy, so it's [a] super, super good time.

Roman Wecker: Yes, then you have a chance to just come from what you saw, a lagging position, but immediately jump into a leading position if, as some others, you don't have any legacy. So that's obviously great. When we talk about AI, there's obviously always then also the discussion that it will take away a lot of burden. On the other hand, it will also take away a lot of simple tasks. So for talent, that is certainly also changing the landscape. How to attract talent? I think space overall is pretty attractive for talent. But how are you approaching the challenge of building the next generation of technical leaders within OHB, and is there any specific skills or mindset or experience you prioritize when developing future CTO-caliber talent? 

Kristina Wagner: I think what is crucial is to have a passion for space, is very important for us, then also having a strong technical background or interest is relevant. And then when it comes to AI, then of course, I mean, there's all the office processes, I think that's obvious and all our – I mean it's not so hard to use, right? So it's maybe rather a question of enterprise architecture, how to approach that, which is not always easy as well, because we have many confidential, so we have high requirements on our infrastructure. But what is also interesting is that actually our systems needs to be AI-capable. So the real, the artifacts like our products, and here, a good domain expertise is even more important than the pure techniques you need in AI.

Roman Wecker: And recurring once more to AI, are you seeing already maybe a shift in how leadership or leadership potential is defined in technical roles?

Kristina Wagner: For us, it's still a bit early phases, I would say. So there is definitely a change because knowledge is much more available, and we can even utilize much faster the knowledge we have in-house. So this, this helps a lot. We are also trying, therefore, and also because we are growing a lot, to be honest, we are trying to recruit a lot of young people. And then you can say, of course AI helps us to onboard those young talents much faster. 

Roman Wecker: And maybe as a last question in that section, as a leader, what have you found to be the most important ingredients for steering innovation and execution in such a high-stakes, high complexity field like aerospace tech?

Kristina Wagner: You must dare to think big. You need to have passion for what you are doing. I think you need to bear imperfection and maybe also not understanding everything. And, you know, actually from the space industry, you can learn quite nicely that thinking big is super important. If you consider the Apollo moment back in the late 60s, beginning 70s from Kennedy, so this was very big dreaming, and if you see the success of – I mean for sure nowadays SpaceX is the most successful space company. SpaceX started with the vision to fly to Mars and the reusable rockets are just the way to get there, and Starlink is just a way to finance the reusable rockets, okay. So this thinking big is super relevant when doing space.

Roman Wecker: Super. So Kristina, let's talk in our third section about women in tech leadership. So my first question would be what role does diversity, not only gender but also cognitive and experiential diversity, play in shaping your technology teams? 

Kristina Wagner: This is super fundamental. Innovation can only happen when bringing together different perspectives. So also having people with experience in different technology stacks, incubating maybe technologies in domains they were not built for. This is very fundamental, and the different perspectives of solving a problem creates a lot of creativity. 

Roman Wecker: So now you've personally built a successful career in industries that are still heavily male-dominated. So what have maybe been some of the most important lessons you have learnt along that journey?

Kristina Wagner: I was always running for topics or jobs, I would say, I have passion for that helped a lot for this internal navigation. And then just being bold, do your thing, this is important.

Roman Wecker: What maybe single piece of advice would you give to women aspiring to leadership roles in tech or engineering?

Kristina Wagner: Dare to take risk, dare to go for the unknown and just do it.

Roman Wecker: And are there any habits or mentors or experiences or guidelines that made a defining difference for you?

Kristina Wagner: For sure, there were many, many people along the way that inspired me, that helped me. I had two important mentors, one female mentor, which was so interesting for me, because she has her own way to actually do leadership, staying very authentic. And then, on the other hand, I had the honor to work with some advisory board members, having a lot of experience to push innovation either in software or in space, and to challenge those people with the experience, to be challenged from those, also was great. So dare to also use your senior leaders.

Roman Wecker: Yes, thank you so much for that. And as a final question, what would you like to see change or accelerate when it comes to gender equity in tech leadership?

Kristina Wagner: I would love to see more females with a technical or science background, and I would love to see those in real executive C-level jobs.

Roman Wecker: Kristina, thank you so much for making the time to speak with us today.

Kristina Wagner: Thank you. It was a pleasure, Roman.

Thanks for listening to The Heidrick and Struggles Leadership Podcast. To make sure you don't miss the next conversation, please subscribe to our channel on your preferred podcast app. And if you're listening via LinkedIn or YouTube, why not share this with your connections? Until next time.

About the interviewer

Dr. Roman Wecker (rwecker@heidrick.com) is the regional managing partner of the Industrial Practice for Europe and Africa; he is based in the Frankfurt office.