Jasper Ryan

London Business School

“Insatiably curious engineer and entrepreneur, driving impact from high-rise construction to advanced satellite engines.”

Hometown: Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Fun Fact About Yourself: I love rock-climbing and bouldering and was hugely excited to watch the climbing events in the Paris Olympics!

Undergraduate School and Major: Bachelor of Civil Engineering, Bachelor of Creative Intelligence & Innovation at University of Technology Sydney

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Head of Strategy and Business Development, Founding member at VXB Aerospace

What makes London such a great place to earn an MBA degree? Being based in London gives a significant advantage to LBS MBAs. It’s a hub for global companies (London has big finance and startup ecosystems), which strengthens career and industry collaboration opportunities. Due to its proximity to Europe, the US, Middle East and Africa, it boosts the international presence at the school and creates the opportunity to explore new regions through global projects and student treks.

London Business School is one of the most culturally and professionally diverse MBA programs in the world. How do you see these global perspectives enhancing the value of your business education over the next two years? I’m excited to further my understanding of the cultural nuances affecting business practices in different countries, particularly in the Middle East and Asia. This has been critical at VXB when engaging with satellite manufacturers in Japan and Korea. I enjoyed discovering the stark cultural differences in our business behaviours when hosting delegations, building relationships, and tailoring our marketing strategies. The space industry has a strong emphasis on international collaboration, and I’m looking forward to learning more from my international peers at LBS about the unique cultural influences on business practices in our home countries.

Part of my MBA goals involve enabling the commercialisation of deep-tech research via new ventures and boosting the space sector. While I’m familiar with the entrepreneurship side, I’m interested to learn from my peers about the investment side from VC up to PE, as well as learn strategy from the consultants and policy from the lawyers and public servants. I’m interested in bringing together what I learn from each area to form a deeper understanding of how businesses scale from startups to multi-nationals.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of London Business School’s MBA curriculum and programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? In terms of program and curriculum, the flexibility of the LBS MBA program content and length was a big standout for me. It gave me an additional layer of confidence knowing that, based on the opportunities I pursued in the first part of the course, I’d be able to double-down on the right area for me with tailored content in the second year and even extend my studies to the full 21-months if I need to do so.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at London Business School? Both LBS’ The Entrepreneurship Lab (TEL) and the Entrepreneurship Club. I deeply enjoy helping startup founders build their business case, and the emphasis on strategy that is required to setup sustainable ventures and create ambitious long-term visions. I look forward to sharing my entrepreneurship and teaching experience with members of the Entrepreneurship Club and TEL, and hope to be useful to anyone planning to launch a venture during the class. I’m also excited to build cross-club opportunities that capitalise on entrepreneurship skills (e.g. collaborating with the Consulting Club to develop strategies to cultivate intrapreneurship in large organisations).

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Rather than a specific event, it’s the overall progress I’ve made in entrepreneurship over the past two years that I’m proud of as my biggest career accomplishment. I quit a stable job to become a founding member of VXB Aerospace, driven by the belief that we could make exciting breakthroughs for the space industry and that I had the transferable skills to help make it a big success. Alongside the other two members of the founding team, Alex Ryan and Zach Levey, we grew the company to nine people in a year, won $2M in grant funding and completed two products in record time, putting Australia on the map as the 11th country capable of building Hall effect propulsion for the next generation of satellites. Starting without any space industry experience, I worked hard to build a strong enough technical understanding of systems engineering and propulsion to effectively understand our customers’ needs, shape our strategy around them, and ensure our product teams were aligned.

What is your unique quality that will enable you to make a big contribution to the Class of 2026?
My entrepreneurial drive and passion for the space sector. The space industry is nascent but growing at an incredible speed – there are ~8,000 satellites in orbit today and 30,000-60,000 expected in the next decade, with entirely new services. Space is not isolated as an individual sector, but is actually a capability enabler and disrupter to most other industries. I’m interested in exploring with my classmates how it might disrupt and enable opportunities in each of our industries.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into London Business School’s MBA program?  Make sure your reasons for joining LBS are specific to you. Speak to as many alumni as you can to build a strong understanding of what the school offers and how it aligns with your goals, then shape your case in the application around that.  Good luck!

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