Space & Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) will present the organization’s 2024 Mentor of the Year Award to Joan Tang Mancuso, Marketing & Business Development Consultant and former marketing and sales executive at multiple global communications enterprises.
Joan will be honored on October 21 at SSPI’s 19th Annual Future Leaders Celebration for the attention, support, wisdom and guidance she has provided to young professionals and colleagues throughout and after her career in the industry. During the Celebration, SSPI will also honor the “20 Under 35” space and satellite professionals to watch in the coming years and present three of them with its Promise Award for outstanding achievement.
The 2024 Future Leaders Celebration will occur live on October 21st at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, in conjunction with Silicon Valley Space Week 2024, produced by SatNews Publishers. The proceeds of the Celebration go to fund SSPI’s educational, professional development and industry growth initiatives.
“Joan is one of those invaluable people who do the quiet, persistent work of mentoring the coming generation of leaders in our business,” said SSPI executive director Robert Bell. “She does it because it needs to be done and for the deep satisfaction it brings. I look forward to interviewing her in front of the audience at the Future Leaders Celebration.
The SSPI 2024 Mentor of the Year
Joan Tang Mancuso
Consultant, Marketing & Business Development
Joan Mancuso has provided expert guidance, mentorship and support to young people in the space & satellite industry throughout her more-than-30-year career and long after retiring from full-time work. As a member of the SSPI Mid-Atlantic Chapter Board, she spearheaded the creation, promotion and implementation of a scholarship program to help inner city high school students with STEM education.
An inaugural participant in SSPI-WISE’s Mentorship program, Joan mentored four different women across three countries, guiding them through career development, job changes, promotions and professional and personal challenges. Of particular note, she guided one mentee through a successful career transition from a technical role to a managerial position and helped another advance her career while navigating a difficult international relocation. Joan has also provided her insights and expertise to broader groups of women and industry professionals through a number of SSPI-WISE panels and online discussions.
Joan began her career in the space & satellite industry as Director of Global Sales & Marketing at COMSAT in 1983. Over the next three decades she served in a variety of senior marketing and sales positions for other key players in the evolution of the industry, including AT&T, GE and L-3. Throughout her career, Joan was responsible for managing and growing complex sales organizations and played a major role in successfully closing multi-million-dollar contracts in Asia, South America and throughout the United States.
She was responsible for the establishment of the pioneering VSAT network at the Staten Island Teleport, as well as the development of specialized network solutions for multiple rural and remote communities worldwide. Following her service as Vice President of Sales & Marketing at L-3, Joan applied her extensive managerial expertise to advising non-profits and small start-ups, first as part of Broadband International LLC and then as an independent consultant.
Joan’s colleagues and mentees consistently describe her as highly competent, dedicated and willing to accept and complete any assignment, no matter how challenging. She has been known throughout her career as a “go-to” person when launching new products, breaking into new markets or revamping existing ones. Even after retiring from full-time work in the industry, Joan continues to dedicate time to helping and guiding others, through her roles with the SSPI Mid-Atlantic Chapter and SSPI-WISE. She has volunteered at George Washington University, the Newseum and, most recently, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she has and continues to mentor students, volunteers and interns.
About SSPI
Founded in 1983, Space & Satellite Professionals International (www.sspi.org) is on a mission to make the space and satellite industry one of the world’s best at attracting and engaging the talent that powers innovation. The space and satellite business has never seen a time of greater experimentation and disruption than we see today. Investment is the fuel for transformation, but people are the engine. SSPI helps the industry attract, develop and retain the talented people it needs to keep the engine turning. People who connect through high-profile events and gain recognition from prestigious awards. People who rely on SSPI for a broader understanding of the industry as much as for individual networking and career mentoring. From young people seeking a career path to industry veterans with wisdom to share, SSPI connects them all. Talent, investment and opportunity flow to industries that make a difference. SSPI is the only organization that also promotes the enormous value of space and satellite through dramatic stories of our technologies and companies making a better world. Those stories overturn misconceptions about the industry that hold it back. They inspire our people and attract new ones to the industry. They help justify investment and give new customers a reason to care about our services and products. Through the stories we tell and the people we serve, SSPI inspires the growth of the $1 trillion space economy of the future.
