Virgin Galactic Hires Former Disney HR Exec as Chief People Officer

Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s space-tourism company, announced last Thursday that Aparna Chitale will join on September 30, 2021 as its Chief People Officer.

As CPO, Chitale will report directly to CEO Michael Colgaizier. Her job’s main focus will be around making Virgin Galactic a top place to work for talent. She will also lead all aspects of human resources, diversity, equity & inclusion, talent acquisition, employee experience, learning and development and compensation and benefits.

Chitale has been working in the human resources space for over two decades and is an experienced leader in scaling global teams at both private and public companies. She most recently served as VP of Human Resources at Disney Parks Experiences and Products, where she led HR strategy for the company’s International Parks business in Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. She also led HR for Disney’s engineering, maintenance and safety teams.

At Disney, Chitale developed holistic people strategies, which included diversity and inclusion programming, that supported business priorities across corporate functions, engineering, international parks and the cruise line businesses. Before Disney, Chitale led HR for Avaya India PVT Ltd., where she helped grow the team from 50 to 1,200+ employees.

“I’m delighted to welcome Aparna to the Virgin Galactic team,” CEO Michael Colgaizier said in a press release. “She has an outstanding track record building and supporting highly skilled teams across engineering, maintenance, safety, and technical services. Aparna also brings deep experience hiring and developing top talent in global destinations around the world to support rapid growth. This unique background, combined with her proven ability to foster a high performance culture rooted in a diverse and inclusive work environment, will support Virgin Galactic’s ambitious growth strategy.”