Long Beach, California, United States, April 2025 – Karin Kuo has been appointed as Chief People Officer at Vast, a visionary space technology company pioneering the development of next-generation space stations. In her new role, Karin will spearhead Vast’s global people strategy, talent acquisition, leadership development, and organizational culture initiatives as the company accelerates its journey towards long-term human habitation in space.
Prior to this appointment, Karin Kuo served as Senior Vice President, People at Vast, where she played a pivotal role in scaling the organization’s workforce and enhancing its employee experience. She previously served as Vice President, People at Vast, setting the early foundations of the company’s talent strategy during its critical growth phase.
Before joining Vast, Karin was Vice President, People at Relativity Space, where she helped scale the workforce from 100 to nearly 1,000 employees within 2.5 years, leading all people and talent acquisition strategies during the company’s rapid expansion.
Earlier, she served as Vice President, Talent at Onica by Rackspace Technology, overseeing HR and talent operations across U.S. and Canadian markets and successfully leading people initiatives through a major acquisition.
Karin’s earlier leadership roles included Vice President, People & Operations at Grindr, Senior Strategist at Luminary Labs, and leadership positions in Samsung’s Global Strategy Group, GE Capital, and Deloitte Consulting. Across these roles, she built deep expertise in HR strategy, talent management, organizational design, and global consulting.
About Vast
Vast is a trailblazing space technology company founded in 2021 by Jed McCaleb. Dedicated to developing humanity’s future in space, Vast is building Haven-1, anticipated to be the world’s first commercial space station, targeted for launch in 2026. The company is also working on Haven-2, a successor to the ISS, aiming to serve NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program. With a vision of creating artificial gravity habitations, Vast is committed to enabling long-term human thriving in space.
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