Melissa Swisher is Chief Revenue Officer at SkySafe, a company delivering the intelligence organizations need to detect, analyze, and act in today’s increasingly complex airspace environment.
SkySafe specializes in airspace intelligence — providing real-time drone detection, analytics, and forensic capabilities that help organizations determine whether a drone is authorized, where it originated, how it’s flying, and in some cases, who is operating it. The company works with state agencies, public safety organizations, and major event operators to bring greater visibility and accountability to the skies above critical infrastructure and large public gatherings.
As Chief Revenue Officer, Melissa leads SkySafe’s strategic partnerships and revenue growth initiatives, helping expand the company’s footprint across government and commercial markets. She brings extensive C-level experience, having played key roles in two successful IPOs — SuccessFactors and Castlight Health — as well as multiple strategic acquisitions. Prior to SkySafe, she co-founded Socrates.ai, which was recently acquired by Simpplr. Known for building high-performing teams and driving customer-focused growth, Melissa combines operational expertise with a deep understanding of scaling emerging technologies.
In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, Melissa discusses the evolution of airspace intelligence, the biggest gaps in current drone defense systems, what new legislation means for local law enforcement, and how organizations are preparing for large-scale global events in an era of rapidly expanding drone activity.
Charles Acknin is Co-Founder and CEO of Skyways. Skyways is building unmanned aircraft systems designed to revolutionize autonomous cargo transportation. Unlike many competitors still in development, Skyways’ aircraft are operational today — carrying meaningful payloads over significant distances for both military and commercial customers. Based in Austin, Skyways is now shifting toward mass production of its autonomous aircraft, building confidence through real-world cargo missions that could ultimately enable future passenger applications.
At Skyways, Charles leads the company’s strategic vision and oversees operations, product development, and growth initiatives in autonomous aviation.
Prior to Skyways, Charles co-founded and served as CEO of Elixir Labs. Before that, he was a Senior Software Engineer at Google, where he worked on the company’s search engine for nearly five years and spent a year advancing Google’s mission of universal accessibility.
Earlier in his career, Charles held engineering roles at Oracle, Cosworld-Asia in Shanghai, and Amadeus. He also participated in Google Summer of Code, contributing to the open-source version control system Subversion.
Charles holds a Master of Science in Software Engineering from Oxford Brookes University and a Master of Science in Computer Science from SUPINFO.
In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, Charles shares how Skyways is turning autonomous cargo drones from experimental technology into dependable, scalable logistics systems.