Vice President, Government Relations, Astra

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Edward Hearst is Vice President for Government Relations at Astra. Mr. Hearst is an experienced attorney, government leader, and Silicon Valley executive, with a distinguished career in law, global business and public service. He is also known as an expert on technology, telecommunications and international trade.

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Mr. Hearst has extensive government experience. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury for International Affairs (Acting/Preforming the Duties of) and as Senior Advisor in the U.S. Secretary of Commerce’s office of Policy and Strategic Planning. Earlier in his career, he served as Senior Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, where his responsibilities included international trade, exports, technology, and telecommunications. He also served as a senior attorney at Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

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Mr. Hearst has extensive experience in global technology companies. He was part of the turnaround team at BlackBerry, where he was Vice President for Government Affairs and

Government Business Development. Prior to BlackBerry, Mr. Hearst was Vice President,

Global Government Affairs at SAP and Sybase and Vice President at Commerce One.

Mr. Hearst serves on the board of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. In addition, he has served on the boards of the National Cyber Security Alliance, the U.S. Information Technology Office in China (USITO) and the Information Technology Industry Council. Mr. Hearst also served as a Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies Roundtable on China and is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

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Mr. Hearst is a Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his B.A. and J.D.