Peter Cannito

Bio

Pete Cannito is the Chairman and CEO of Redwire. With more than 25 years of experience in the defense, technology, and government services industries, he formed the company, set the vision and currently provides the strategic direction to build a high growth, premier space infrastructure business.
Prior to his current role, he served as the CEO of Polaris Alpha, a high-tech solutions provider developing systems for the Department of Defense and intelligence community. Pete was responsible for 1,400 employees across 19 locations and 1 in the UK, including numerous classified facilities. Under Pete’s leadership, Polaris Alpha’s revenues tripled in size in two years, and the company acquired and integrated five high-tech add-ons. Pete previously held executive roles at EOIR Technologies, led a team of software and systems engineers at Booz Allen Hamilton, and started a company focused on enterprise mobile computing.
Pete is an operating partner with AEI Industrial, a private equity investor with more than $3 billion in assets under management and currently serves as Chairman of BigBear.ai and board member for Edge Autonomy, Firefly Aerospace and American Pacific.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Delaware, an MBA from the University of Maryland, and served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.