Celeste Ford

Celeste Ford is Board Chair and Founder of Stellar Solutions, Inc., a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award-winning aerospace engineering company with the vision to satisfy customers’ critical needs while realizing employees’ dream jobs. She is General Partner at Stellar Ventures.

Ford founded Stellar Solutions in 1995 and served as CEO until 2018 with the mission to deliver high-impact performance for defense, intelligence, commercial, civil and international clients. She established Stellar Solutions Foundation in 1998, QuakeFinder humanitarian R&D program in 2001, and expanded Stellar’s global presence with companies in the United Kingdom and France in 2003 and 2017, respectively. She launched Stellar Ventures in 2022 to invest in the next generation of space technology companies. 

Ford’s numerous honors include Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Baldrige Foundation and the National Association of Women Business Owners, Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame, Entrepreneur of the Year from Ernest & Young, and Small Business Executive of the Year from National Defense Industry Association. Under her leadership, Stellar Solutions has been named a Fortune Magazine Great Place to Work® since 2014. 

Ford is a member of numerous public, private and nonprofit Boards, including the Board of Trustees at the University of Notre Dame and the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Associate Fellow. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Science from Stanford University, both in Aerospace Engineering. She and her husband Kevin have three grown children.