Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
Santh SathyaCEO, Founder, CFO, Chairman of the BoardSanth Sathya founded LuftCar - an autonomous air and road mobility eVTOL mobility company in March 2021. He is also the CEO of LuftCar and serves on its board of directors. Santh deeply cares for environment sustainability and is a relentless innovator of technologies that solve complex problems, improve lives, build social equity, and fuel progress. Before launching LuftCar, Santh served as the Director of Strategy for L3Harris, managing $ 2B P&L for the Sector CEO. Santh was head of systems engineering at Boeing - Insitu drones, and led Model Based Systems Engineering and digital twin development. He held a position as Vice President of Strategy for Johnson Controls joint venture in Asia Pacific, where he laid out a five-year strategy for EVs, Electrification and Smart Cities, increasing revenue by 25% in energy and transportation markets. Santh managed operations for a $ 1B P&L at GE Energy, where he pioneered lean product development. Santh's greatest accomplishment was in developing and building 300 hydrogen fuel cell cars for Ford Motor Company. Santh has core expertise in hydrogen fuel cells, propulsion, AI architectures and lean start up.
Santh has a MBA from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, MS in mechanical engineering from Ohio University and BS in Mechanical Engineering from College of Engineering, Guindy. Santh also holds an Artificial Intelligence Strategy Certification from MIT.
Santh works full time for LuftCar - 40 hrs a week
Alan SpringsVice President Design (Part Time)Mr. Springs has combined his excitement of fluid dynamics, engineering, and business development in both his personal and professional lives. Prior to joining LuftCar, Mr. Spring provided consulting for BarberWind Turbines before joining them as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Engineer, bringing a novel wind turbine design from concept to prototype development in 2017. Alan brings a strong entrepreneurial spirit to LuftCar. Leaving the large corporate environment, he joined a three-person engineering start-up in 1995. Thanks to the success and growth of the business, the company was soon acquired by QuEST Global, where Alan continued his career growth leading the successful integration of the two offices, and the continued growth and maturity of the engineering teams and the company. During his tenure, Alan served as the Engineering Director and Chief Engineer working in the Aviation and Power Generation Sectors covering diverse engineering programs, including multiple new product introductions.
Alan reports to Santh Sathya, CEO of LuftCar.
Alan works part time for LuftCar - 20 hrs a week
Doug LampeVP Systems & Digital (Part Time)Doug Lampe is a member of our Executive Leadership Team at LuftCar. Doug puts his leadership qualities into marketing the LuftCar concept and building customer relations. Doug spent the previous six years with Deloitte Consulting as Vice President of Technical Architecture and Chief Architect leading multiple technology platforms. While serving with Deloitte, Mr. Lampe served as a leader within their Delivery Center practice through a time of growth from 400 to over 2,000 employees.
Before joining Deloitte, Doug had a distinguished career at Lockheed Martin holding many technology-focused roles and leading teams performing both system integration and application development. His time at Lockheed provided insight into Supply Chain Management, Manufacturing, Quality Management, Product Support, and Engineering. Doug’s leadership in the area of data analytics was instrumental in Lockheed Martin becoming the first Department of Defense contractor to win the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Doug holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida and an M.S. in Engineering Management and Industrial Engineering from the University of Florida. He is also a graduate of Lockheed Martin's Operations Leadership Development Program.
Doug reports to Santh Sathya, CEO of LuftCar.
Doug works part time for LuftCar - 20 hrs a week
Daphne DixonVice President of Business DevelopmentDaphne is responsible for growing markets, customer acquisition and government relations in the United States. Daphne in her other career as CEO of CT Clean Cities Coalition, integrates the 17 Global Sustainable Development Goals into local, metric-driven programs and initiatives.
Her key strengths are: Get community buy in from municipal, business, businesses, and community members on hydrogen and air mobility technologies and develop customer and investor relations globally.
Daphne graduated from the UCLA.
Daphne reports to Santh Sathya, CEO of LuftCar.
Daphne works full time for LuftCar - 40 hrs a week, Saleem AhmedPresident - Middle East MarketsWith a wealth of 26 years’ experience working for organizations such as L&T, Citibank, First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Sharjah Islamic bank (SIB) across India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, Saleem’s true passion lies in driving innovative ideas, develop product roadmaps and in building world class teams. He has also been Chairman of Industry bodies such as the UAE banking federation's Digital committee and has authored seminal publications for the Arab Monetary Fund and is a member of the AMF Fintech working group.
As the President of Middle East and Africa for LuftCar, Saleem is building and spearheading its expansion and go-to-market strategy, with the vision to build ecosystems in partnership with Government bodies and the private sector to revolutionize transportation (in ways not thought possible) while contributing to a better and cleaner world.
Saleem reports to Santh Sathya, CEO of LuftCar. He currently works part-time for the company and spends approximately 40 hours/week on LuftCar items, he is based in the UAE.
Suresh KannappanVP - Supply Chain Development (Part Time)Suresh brings extensive supply chain expertise from companies like Pfizer and IBM. He has more than a decade of advanced sourcing and pricing negotiations leadership experience.
Suresh will serve as VP - Supply chain and strategically source suppliers for building prototypes.
Suresh reports to Santh Sathya, CEO of LuftCar.
Suresh works part time for LuftCar - 20 hrs a week
Jan Kulow Advisory Board Member (Part Time)Jan-Frederic Kulow is the LuftCar representative for the European market, guiding Luft Car business growth in Europe and acting as a touch point for European partners.
Jan is a strong aviation professional with managerial and piloting experience. He helped building up one German airline start-up by setting up a business intelligence department and being responsible for the airline’s strategy assessment, controlling, reporting and data management. He has piloted aircrafts for the Airbus A320 Family. Jan supported the development of aerospace industry with governmental mandate from North Rhine Westphalia, Germany. Currently, he is managing operational risks and safety for a large consulting firm in Aachen, Germany.
Jan-Frederic holds a master’s degree in International Management- Aviation Business form the German International University (former IUBH) and bachelor’s degree in Aviation Business and Piloting from the HTW Saar, Germany. In addition, Jan has secured various certificates with aviation reference and data management. Currently, Jan is working at DSS+ Sustainable Solutions (former DuPont S.S.) in the role of manager.
Jan reports to Santh Sathya, CEO of LuftCar.
Jan works part time for LuftCar - 10 hrs a week