Heart Aerospace has announced the appointment of Brittany Churchill as Vice President of Operations and member of the Executive Leadership Team and the promotion of Cole Randle to Chief of Staff and Head of Corporate Affairs, and his appointment to the Executive Leadership Team.
As VP of Operations, Churchill will lead Heart’s integrated manufacturing and operations organization, including production, quality, safety, supply chain, facilities, and manufacturing engineering. A mechanical engineer and manufacturing executive, she brings deep experience scaling complex hardware programs across commercial aviation, traditional aerospace, and next-generation space launch.
At Heart, Churchill will drive the industrialization of the ES-30 regional hybrid-electric aircraft, directing its transition from prototype to full-rate production. Her initial priorities include finalizing the Heart X1 prototype, overseeing manufacturing of the X2 demonstrator, and building out the ES-30 production system.
As Chief of Staff, Randle will direct the Office of the CEO (OCEO), overseeing strategic planning, executive operations and communications, and cross-functional strategic initiatives. In his concurrent role as Head of Corporate Affairs, Randle will lead Heart’s global positioning strategy, driving engagement with media, governments, partners, and the public.
Since joining Heart in 2024 as Head of Strategic Engagement, Randle has overseen the company’s external affairs strategy and operated its core strategy and governance forums following Heart’s $107 million Series B fundraise. His expanded mandate comes as Heart accelerates stakeholder engagement ahead of the first flight of the Heart X1 prototype, set to become the largest electric aircraft ever to fly, and scales operations at its El Segundo headquarters.
A corporate affairs executive and lawyer, Randle began his career at the White House as a traveling aide to President Barack Obama, where he executed presidential engagements and ensured the continuity of White House operations during official travel to all 50 US states and 30 countries. He played a key role in shaping the global presentation of Obama’s leadership, supporting strategic messaging, public engagement, and foreign diplomacy across two presidential terms.
After public service, Randle practiced corporate law at the New York and London offices of Freshfields, advising European industrial and high-growth technology companies on U.S. corporate governance matters. His practice focused on board operations and corporate secretary responsibilities, public company disclosure strategy, sustainability policy and reporting, and special situations and transactions with US-EU dimensions.
Prior to joining Heart, Randle was a strategic advisor at transatlantic corporate affairs consultancies Finsbury (now FGS Global) and Freuds. He advised executive teams on communicating corporate strategy to boards and financial audiences, shaped the external profiles of senior leaders, built in-house corporate affairs teams, and led integrated corporate positioning initiatives that leveraged media engagement, investor relations, and public affairs to drive strategic outcomes.
Churchill joins Heart from ABL Space Systems (now Long Wall), where she served as Vice President of Operations. At ABL, she led the vertically integrated manufacturing of the RS1 launch vehicle, an orbital rocket developed for commercial satellite providers and the U.S. Space Force.
Previously, she served as Production Manager at SpaceX during a pivotal shift from single use to rapidly reusable launch systems. Based at the company’s Hawthorne, CA headquarters, Churchill led a 70-person team responsible for production and refurbishment of components for the Falcon 9, the company’s flagship orbital launch vehicle, helping scale SpaceX’s high-throughput manufacturing model.
In her early career, Churchill served as a Senior Engineer at Delta Air Lines TechOps, overseeing subsystem reliability for the carrier’s Boeing 757, 767, and 777 fleets before directing powerplant reliability of the 717’s Rolls-Royce BR715 engine. She began her career at Boeing as a structural design engineer on the 777X program, supporting fuselage development at the company’s Everett Production Facility and advanced R&D at Boeing’s Huntsville, Alabama location.
“Brittany embodies American excellence in next-generation aerospace manufacturing,” said Anders Forslund, Founder and CEO of Heart Aerospace. “She’s helped drive the culture of speed, iteration, and integration that defines the modern space race and now she’s bringing that mindset to electric aviation. Her technical leadership will be critical as Heart builds an advanced industrial system to deliver on our mission.”
Churchill holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech and an M.B.A. from MIT. She joins Heart’s Executive Leadership Team effective immediately and is based at the company’s El Segundo headquarters.
“Cole brings a rare combination of strategic vision and operational command to the role of Chief of Staff, driving focus at the executive level while ensuring leadership priorities translate into coordinated action across Heart’s stakeholder map,” said Anders Forslund, Founder and CEO of Heart Aerospace. “In deeptech, where scale demands a broad coalition built around technical ambition, Cole is turning Heart’s vision for electric flight into the momentum needed to make the future of aviation real.”
Randle holds a B.A. in Political Economy from Washington University in St. Louis and a J.D. from Duke. He joins the Executive Leadership Team effective immediately.
