A pair of C-level executives are out at RS21 as the Albuquerque data and analytics company projects record revenue growth and continued hiring this year.
Charles Rath, RS21's president and CEO, said Thursday Matthew Ennis and Jamie Ter Beest "are no longer with the company," as of Tuesday. Ennis was RS21's chief product and strategy officer, and Ter Beest was the company's chief technology officer.
Ennis' hiring came in April 2023, at the same time RS21 brought on another C-level executive, Dr. Mark Epstein, as its chief medical officer. Epstein departed RS21 in September 2023.
The company brought on Ter Beest as CTO in October 2023. Later that year it hired Kurt Kuntzelman as chief defense and space officer, who's still with the company.
"When you go from one level to the next as fast as we do, the needs change," Rath said. "We're very committed to performance and hitting our goals, and we're not afraid to make tough staffing decisions to get there."
He pointed to increased demand for RS21's artificial intelligence and data services as a core part of the company's ongoing growth. Its New Mexico customer portfolio has "doubled" this year, including new projects with the state Environment Department and the Early Childhood Education and Care Department, and one of its core products, an AI-based satellite software called the Space Prognostic AI Custodian Ecosystem, or SPAICE, has a "massive" customer pipeline, Rath said.
That software platform is "system and asset agnostic," he added, which means the company can provide it to customers in other markets, besides space. Rath said markets in energy and transportation, for instance, could use the platform to monitor the health of assets in those sectors; RS21 is currently exploring opportunities in both of those markets, he added.
Specifically, Rath said RS21 projects revenue between $12 million and $15 million in fiscal year 2024. The company pulled in around $11 million in 2022 and around $8.5 million in 2023.
To help facilitate its growth, Rath said RS21 recently promoted Katie Webster, Ph.D., to chief solutions architect. She joins the company's five-person executive suite alongside Rath, Kuntzelman, Chief Operations Officer Missi Rogers and Chief Financial Officer Michael Ladd.
The company also expects to hire more executives, Rath said, but he didn't provide a timeframe for when that hiring could happen or on specific positions. RS21 doesn't plan to fill the chief medical officer position vacated by Epstein in September, he added.
"The same people that are involved in an organization that goes from $0 to $10 million are not always the same people that are going to take it from $10 to $100 million," Rath said. "Given our strategy and what we believe is going to make us successful, we've decided to go in a different direction and really double down in our go-to-market strategy."
RS21 employs around 70 people and currently has five open positions listed on its website, all located outside New Mexico.
But Rath said he envisions hiring in New Mexico, as well as outside the state, this year as the company grows into new and existing markets. He didn't provide a specific estimate on how many employees RS21 could look to hire throughout the rest of 2024.
Closing another investment round could be in the cards this year, too, Rath added. RS21, which was founded in 2015, announced a $3 million investment in July 2023, the company's first chunk of external funding.
