Akshay Patel is a Director in the Strategic Advisory Group at PJT Partners, based in New York. ​Akshay has over 10 years of experience in the aerospace and satellite industry across finance, business development and engineering. Through his years of experience as an advisor, start up operator and engineer, Akshay has built relationships across the landscape of traditional aerospace and new space companies.​

Priori to joining PJT,  Akshay was Vice President of Corporate Development at OneWeb where he led all M&A, partnership, and new business efforts. Prior to Oneweb, he was the Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at Planetary Resources where he led the company’s strategic planning, sales and partnerships activities. ​

Akshay also spent 5 years in investment banking at Morgan Stanley based in New York. As part of the Media Comms group, Akshay focused on advising companies across the satellite industry value chain including the advising on sale of Skybox Imaging to Google, the merger of DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, and the IPO of Intelsat. ​

Prior to Morgan Stanley, Akshay was an aerospace engineer at Lockheed Martin where he designed and built telecommunication and remote sensing satellites. In addition, he published one of the first small satellite market studies in the industry​

Akshay has a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University.