Umer Khan is the Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Relativity Space, which is on a mission to become the next great commercial launch company. He leads software engineering for rockets, including design, simulation, launch, flight, recovery, and mission control. He is also responsible for technology infrastructure, including artificial intelligence, business applications, cybersecurity, and factory automation.
Umer has more than 25 years of experience in leading software, technology, and security teams at high-growth R&D companies. Prior to joining Relativity Space, Umer was Chief Information and Security Officer at MaxLinear, a leading semiconductor firm where he scaled business applications, engineering systems, IT infrastructure, and security. Before that, Umer was Vice President of Information Technology and Security at SpaceX, where he spent more than nine years enabling mission-critical launch, control, and recovery as well as full-scale USA-based manufacturing. Umer also held various technical leadership roles at Broadcom Corporation over 13 years.
Umer has served as an author, editor, and reviewer for several technical publications related to networking, security, and UNIX, and his Cisco Security Specialist’s Guide to PIX Firewalls book became a best-seller in the industry. He holds 30+ professional certifications and has filed for three US patents.
Umer has a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering with concentration in software from Illinois Tech, an MS in Information Security Engineering from SANS Technology Institute, and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.