Shefali Sharma

Shefali Sharma grew up in India and moved to the UK in pursuit of higher education in engineering. She completed an apprenticeship in Aircraft Engineering before joining Cranfield University, where she earned a Master's degree in Astronautics and Space Engineering. She later completed executive education in strategy at London Business School. Her trajectory in the UK defence and space ecosystem took her through a series of increasingly senior commercial and strategic roles, including positions at Oxford Space Systems — where she was mentored by serial engineering entrepreneur Mike Lawton — In-Space Missions Limited, and the UK Department for International Trade. She has been recognised as a Global Young Innovator by Innovate UK and a Promising SME Leader by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

The relationships and technical understanding Shefali developed across the UK space and defence sector in those years directly informed the founding of Oxford Dynamics in 2020. Working alongside Mike Lawton and Dr Edward Jackson at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Harwell Campus, she co-founded a company built on a conviction shared from her years in the field: that the most pressing challenge in modern defence was not hardware, but intelligence — specifically, the ability to process multi-source data in real time, reason across it, and support operators making life-or-death decisions in contested, communications-denied environments.

As CEO and Co-Founder of Oxford Dynamics, Shefali leads the company's strategy, growth, and delivery, with a focus on deploying AI systems that operate under genuine operational constraints rather than controlled laboratory conditions. Under her leadership, Oxford Dynamics developed AVIS — a multi-agent, multi-modal AI intelligence engine — alongside SR-1 for drone detection and Strider, a semi-autonomous ground robot for hazardous environments. The company built its entire initial commercial track record from government contracts and revenue, without external equity, until receiving its first investment from BAE Systems in August 2025.

That strategic investment from BAE Systems marked a significant milestone: integrating Oxford Dynamics' technology into BAE's Prophesea defence platform and launching a broader partnership across air, land, sea, space, and cyber domains. The company subsequently won a contract under the UK MOD's DDAD Framework to deliver AVIS as part of the British Army's ASGARD digital transformation programme. Shefali has spoken publicly about her experience managing the cultural transition from India to the UK and navigating imposter syndrome in a male-dominated industry, making her a prominent voice for women and British Asians in STEM and deep tech.