Ben MacWilliams, the former SpaceX executive who led Starlink’s market access across more than 20 African countries, has joined Nigerian autonomous systems company Terra Industries as vice president of strategy.

Terra said MacWilliams will lead market access and government strategy as it deploys “sovereign defence systems” across the Global South. The appointment follows the close of Terra’s seed round at approximately $52m, including an $18m final tranche announced last week.

MacWilliams previously served as Starlink’s director of market access, where he worked directly with presidents and regulators to bring the satellite internet service into markets including Botswana, Burundi and Liberia. Before leading Starlink’s Africa expansion, he oversaw market access for the Middle East and Central Eurasia.

At Terra, he will be responsible for opening government and regulatory channels for a hardware portfolio that includes Archer, a long-range VTOL surveillance drone; Kama, an interceptor drone; Kallon, a solar-powered sentry tower; and Druma, an autonomous ground robot. The company also sells ArtemisOS, a software platform that coordinates its systems.

Terra was founded in 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka and positions itself as a vertically integrated defence prime rather than a single-product drone vendor. It says its systems already protect assets worth about $11bn, mostly in energy and mining, and that it is on track to record more than $100m in contract bookings by the end of the year.

The company has made African data sovereignty central to its pitch, arguing that dependence on suppliers from China, Russia and Europe leaves governments with fragmented systems and security risks. Its backers include 8VC, Lux Capital, Silent Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, Nova Global, Belief Capital, SV Angel and Norleo Space Investments.

MacWilliams’ hiring signals that Terra intends to compete as much on political access as on hardware. At Starlink, he was associated with a market-entry strategy that often relied on direct engagement with heads of state to accelerate regulatory approvals. That approach helped Starlink expand rapidly in Africa, but it also drew scrutiny.

According to reporting by ProPublica, MacWilliams was present in a March meeting in Washington where Starlink representatives pressed Gambian officials to approve a licence. The report described a broader pattern of U.S. diplomatic involvement in Starlink’s market access efforts, including interventions by senior State Department officials. Starlink has not responded to those specific allegations, and Terra did not comment on how it plans to handle government negotiations.

Defence procurement is more sensitive than commercial internet access. National governments typically subject military contracts to stricter review, and foreign-backed defence companies can face political resistance even when they offer local manufacturing. Terra’s planned offices in Washington, London and San Francisco, alongside a factory in Ghana, suggest it is positioning itself as an internationally backed but locally rooted supplier.

The company’s immediate challenge is execution. It must convert contract bookings into delivered hardware, scale production at its Pax-2 facility in Ghana and prove that its systems can operate reliably in demanding environments. MacWilliams’ network may help open doors, but it does not remove the need for regulatory approvals, export controls and durable local partnerships.

Terra’s capital base also remains small compared with Western defence-tech rivals such as Anduril or Shield AI. The company has raised about $52m in seed funding, which will need to stretch across manufacturing, international expansion and government engagement. The hire of a former Starlink market access lead gives Terra a clearer path to senior decision-makers, but whether that translates into sustainable defence contracts across the Global South remains to be seen.