Merged into Astra, ticker now ASTR
HOL

Completed

Astra

ASTR
First $149.25
Merger $127.50
15%
Merger +6mo $75.30
50%
Merger +1yr $23.25
84%
Recent $1.25
99%

Holicity Inc.

Raised
$250M
CIK
1814329
SPAC Ticker
HOL
Merger
Astra
Merged Ticker
ASTR
Focus
Technology, Media, Telecommunications, TMT
External link: SEC Filings

SPAC Team

Leadership

Craig McCaw serves as the Chairman and CEO of Holicity Inc. He is an industry pioneer, visionary investor, serial entrepreneur and deeply experienced operator with an extensive deal-making history. Over the course of his career, Mr. McCaw has founded, controlled, assembled and financed significant enterprises across cable, broadcast, cellular, fiber, satellite, communications technologies, intellectual property (digital rights management and memory technologies) and wireless broadband. As a pioneering investor, he has created numerous scaled public businesses in high-growth, competitive markets through rollups, acquisitions, mergers, both independently and in partnerships with other public corporations, and private equity firms.

Mr. McCaw has shown repeated foresight in identifying and investing in key trends that have shaped the global telecommunications, media and technology markets. In bringing vision into reality, Mr. McCaw has also consistently built cohesive executive teams and culture-led organizations to execute within competitive markets. He led companies including McCaw Cellular Communications, Nextel Communications and Clearwire that developed technologies and deployed assets underlying today’s wireless networks and bolstered the explosive growth in mobile services. Some of Mr. McCaw’s contributions to TMT innovation include: the advent and ubiquitous availability of wireless cellular and PCS networks, the evolution of local only mobile services to nation-wide long distance and nationwide roaming, the development of push-to-talk services, and the upgrade of early generations of wireless networks to 4G, which enabled the development of next-generation applications including rich mobile media and mobile broadband.

Today, Mr. McCaw is building Pendrell into an operating and financial investment platform where he serves as Chairman and co-CEO. Mr. McCaw also is Chairman and CEO of Eagle River Inc., a private equity firm he controls, as well as President of the COM Family Foundation which supports educational, environmental and international economic development. He is currently on the Global Advisory Board for Khan Academy, a non-profit educational organization founded in 2008, and a Global Board Member of The Nature Conservancy. Throughout his career, Mr. McCaw has served on a number of corporate and philanthropic boards including Conservation International, National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, The Academy of Achievement, Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Friends of Nelson Mandela Foundation and is immediate past Chairman of the Board of The Nature Conservancy. Mr. McCaw was selected to serve on our board of directors due to his experience as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Holicity Inc. and his expertise and experience in acquiring and operating TMT businesses.

Randy Russell has served as our Chief Investment Officer since our formation. He joined Pendrell in November 2019 as the CEO and co-Founder of Pendrell Financial Services, a newly formed Pendrell subsidiary, where he helps to drive corporate strategy, deal sourcing and transaction execution for Pendrell. He also serves as a member of Pendrell’s Board of Directors. In addition, he is a member of the Boards of Directors for Hello Alice and RVH Solutions, two of Pendrell’s investment portfolio companies.

Prior to Pendrell, Mr. Russell had almost 20 years of experience in the Financial Services industry and served as the Americas Head of Media & Telecom investment banking at Deutsche Bank Securities (NYSE: DB) and was a Senior Managing Director on the Global Technology, Media & Telecom investment banking team at Bank of America (NYSE: BAC). In addition to managing key client relationships across the TMT sector, Mr. Russell has significant transaction experience with leading private equity firms. Mr. Russell has completed more than $230 billion in public and private market transactions across corporate acquisitions and divestitures, leveraged buyouts, IPOs, tracking stock creation, new issue debt securities and refinancing activity for investment grade to highly leveraged issuers. Mr. Russell has been a trusted advisor to high-profile c-suite executives, management teams and board of director’s members across a variety of communications, media and technology companies and was a key advisor to various McCaw entities during his career as an investment banker before being recruited to join Pendrell.

Before starting his career in finance, Randy was an Officer and Naval Aviator in the United States Marine Corps and rose to the rank of Major in the USMC Reserves. He participated in various global deployments including service with several forward deployed Marine Expeditionary Units and received the Navy and Marine Corp Achievement Medal for leadership, as well as other commendations. Mr. Russell holds an MBA in Finance from the Johns Carey Business School, where he serves on the Dean’s Alumni Advisory Board. He graduated from the Aviation Safety Officers Program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California and received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Delaware.

Steve Ednie has served as our Chief Financial Officer and Secretary since our formation. He also serves as Chief Financial Officer of Pendrell since September 2014. Mr. Ednie is an experienced financial executive with an extensive background in domestic and international accounting and tax matters, serving most recently as Chief Accounting Officer of Clearwire from October 2010 to April 2014, and as Vice President-Tax and Chief Tax Officer from 2004 to April 2014. Before joining Clearwire, Mr. Ednie served as the Director of Tax of Expedia, Inc., an Internet-based travel website company, from 2002 to 2004, as Executive Director–Tax and Chief Tax Officer of XO Communications Inc., a telecommunications company, from 1997 to 2002, and as Tax Manager of MIDCOM Communications, Inc., a telecommunications company, from 1996 to 1997. Mr. Ednie began his professional career at Coopers & Lybrand, LLP, an accounting firm, where he was a Senior Associate. Mr. Ednie has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the University of Washington.

R. Gerard Salemme serves as a Director of Holicity Inc. Mr. Salemme has served as Co-Chief Executive Officer and Director of Pendrell since October 2018 and has served in various capacities for Pendrell since 2011. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Altaeros,Inc., Onclave Networks, Inc and ContentGuard, Inc., and is Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustee at The Langley School. He was CEO of the Wireless Network Development Group, LLC., and served on the Board of Directors of EarthLink, Inc., Clearwire Corp, Chairman of RECON Dynamics LLC, ICO North America, Inc., and Taqua, LLC and is a Partner in Eagle River Partners, LLC, a private investment firm.

Mr. Salemme has over 30 years of experience in business and government, as a founder and Executive Vice President-Strategy, Policy and External Affairs of Clearwire from 2004 to 2010, and prior to that as Senior Vice President, External Affairs of XO. Prior to joining XO, Mr. Salemme held senior executive positions with AT&T Corporation and McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. He also held the position of Senior Telecommunications Policy Analyst for the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance from 1987 to 1991 and served as Chief of Staff to Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts from 1976 to 1984. Mr. Salemme earned a B.A. in Political Science and Economics and an M.A. in Economics from Boston College. Mr. Salemme was selected to serve on our board of directors due to his expertise and experience in acquiring and operating TMT businesses.

Dennis Weibling will serve as a director as of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part. Mr. Weibling is currently the Managing Director of Rally Capital LLC, a private equity firm based in Kirkland, Washington. Rally Capital was formed in late 2004 to invest primarily in telecommunications companies. From 2006 until its sale in October 2019, Mr. Weibling served on the board of directors of Sotheby’s for which he served as chairman of the audit and finance committees. He served as interim Chief Financial Officer at Sotheby’s until March 2016. He currently serves as a Trustee for Seattle Pacific University. As a result of Rally Capital’s and other investments, Mr. Weibling serves on the boards of the following private companies: Rise Communities LLC, Tempered Networks, Bestworth Rommel, LLC, Red Bison Corporation, Sarcos Robotics, Inc. and Far West Fabricators, LLC, and previously served as a director of Teledesic Corporation.

Mr. Weibling was a partner at Clark Nuber & Co., a certified public accounting firm located in Bellevue, Washington from 1986 to 1993. He also served as President of Eagle River, Inc., from October 1993 through December 2001, and as Vice Chairman of Eagle River Investments from January 2002 through November 2004. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Nextel Communications Inc. from October 1995 to March 1996 and as a Director of Nextel from July 1995 until April 2004. At Nextel, he was a Member and Chairman of the operations, audit, finance, and compensation committees at various times during that period. Mr. Weibling served as a board member of Nextel Partners from 1998 to 2006, for which he chaired the audit committee. His other public board was XO Communications, Inc. where he served from 1996-2003. He served on both the compensation and audit committees for the company. Mr. Weibling was selected to serve on our board of directors due to his expertise and experience in acquiring and operating TMT businesses.

Wayne Perry will serve as a director as of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part. Mr. Perry is the Chief Executive Officer of Shotgun Creek Investments LLC – a private investment firm that builds and owns office buildings and apartments in the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Perry is an honors graduate of the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington and of the Lewis and Clark Law School. Mr. Perry also has an LL.M. in taxation from New York University.

Mr. Perry started his career working for a Seattle law firm and then became General Counsel and later President of McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc. Mr. Perry went on to be Chief Executive Officer of NextLink Communications, Inc. and then Edge Wireless, LLC. Mr. Perry was elected to the Wireless Industry’s Hall of Fame in 2011. In addition to being a little league baseball coach, Wayne has been a longtime Boy Scout Volunteer (Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, etc.) and served as 34th President of the Boy Scouts of America. Wayne and his wife Christine are currently volunteers of the BSA at the local, national and world levels. Mr. Perry was selected to serve on our board of directors due to his expertise and experience in acquiring and operating TMT businesses.

Cathleen A. Massey will serve as a director as of the effective date of the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part. Ms. Massey has served as a Government Affairs lead for four large telecommunications companies, most recently as Vice President, Federal Regulatory, T-Mobile US, Inc. from February 2016 to the present and Senior Policy Counsel from May 2014 to February 2016. Prior to joining T-Mobile, Ms. Massey was Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Public Policy for Clearwire Corporation, from December 2008 to September 2013, leading up to its acquisition by Sprint/Softbank.

Ms. Massey has also served as a Deputy Chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and as a Vice President for AT&T Wireless and XO Communications. She has worked in the wireless industry for more than 25 years, beginning as a regulatory attorney for cellular telephone industry pioneer McCaw Cellular Communications. Ms. Massey received her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and her B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University. Ms. Massey was selected to serve on our board of directors due to her expertise and experience in acquiring and operating TMT businesses.