Royal Aeronautical Society appoints new president

The Royal Aeronautical Society has announced that Air Commodore Peter Round FRAeS has taken over as President of the Society at its AGM.

The meeting, held on May 4^th, also elected Karissa Khan MRAeS as President-Elect and she will take over office in 2023.

The President provides leadership of the Council and of the Society in pursuit of its objectives. He or she upholds the values, and reputation of the Society as well as the interests of the members. The President is an ambassador of the Society representing it at key engagements, influencing the global standing of the Society in furthering the advancement of aeronautical art, science and engineering.

Air Commodore Peter Round joined the RAF in 1979 as a university cadet whilst reading metallurgy at Manchester University. After officer and flying training, he flew Buccaneers in the maritime strike/attack role from RAF Lossiemouth. He became a RAF Qualified Flying Instructor in 1990 and a T37 Instructor Pilot and Flight Commander at the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training School at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas in 1992.

After a further highly distinguished career in the RAF, in operational, managerial and advisory roles, based both in the UK and America, he returned to the UK in 2010 and was appointed Assistant Director Flying Training with responsibility for all aspects of pre-OCU flying training for the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force and the introduction of the United Kingdom Military Flying Training System.

In 2012 he became the Capability, Armament and Technology Director at the European Defence Agency, where he was responsible for more than 100 Capability and R&T programs including the EU ‘Flagship 4’ RPAS, Cyber Defence, Air-to-Air Refuelling and GovSatCom programmes. He oversaw the relationship with OCCAR and defence industries for capability issues across the whole defence domain.

Today he is the Chairman of Kleos Space a new space company based in Luxembourg, UK and the USA. Kleos has its own constellation of satellites and delivers RF derived geospatial intelligence from space. He is also a consulting senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and runs his own consultancy.

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