Almost three years after Nathan Kundtz stepped down from the CEO role at Kymeta, the Redmond-based communications technology startup has officially named S. Douglas Hutcheson and Walter Berger its co-CEOs.
Hutcheson has served as Kymeta's executive chairman since 2019, overseeing leadership of the company. Hutcheson said the co-CEO announcement, which was made earlier this month, is mostly formalizing a leadership structure that has been in place for some time.
"The activities of the CEO role have been really just fully covered during this time period," Hutcheson said, adding that the announcement recognizes "what a great job Walter has done in the last two years, and the effectiveness that we have, the two of us, working together."
Hutcheson will keep his role as executive chairman. Berger, who also joined the company in 2019, has been serving as president and chief operating officer. The co-CEO roles took effect at the start of September. Berger will maintain his role as president.
Prior to joining Kymeta, Berger was the COO and CFO of the medical technology company Nuvectra. Hutcheson, meanwhile, was the CEO of Leap Wireless International.
Kymeta, founded in 2012, makes mobile antennas designed to improve communications in difficult terrains. Its technology is aimed at first responders, the military, intelligence agencies and private commercial companies. The U.S. Forest Service uses Kymeta's technology. The company raised $30 million from Hanwha Systems in December and over $85 million in a funding round led by Gates Frontier, the personal investment firm of Bill Gates, in August 2020.
The company is trying to future proof its antennas by making them compatible with the next generation of low-Earth orbit satellites. Earlier this month, Kymeta successfully tested its antenna with satellites from OneWeb.
Hutcheson said Kymeta currently has more than 200 full-time employees, with roughly 80% to 85% of them based in Redmond. He didn't put a number on how big the company plans to be a year from now.
"A lot of our growth now is going to be people that we bring on board to get close to our customers and take care of them, so as we grow you'll see a lot of geographic dispersion of our people," Hutcheson said. "Part will grow here in Redmond. Obviously, as you grow, many functions grow, but the primary thing we'll see growth in now is the manufacturing side of things."
