space prize judge

Sita Sonty

Sreelakshmi Sita Sonty (Sita) serves as the Partner and Associate Director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Washington, DC. She joined BCG from SpaceX and before that, Sierra Nevada Corporation, serving as their Vice President, International. Additionally, Sonty spent parts of her career at the U.S. Department of State and served as Director for Foreign Policy and National Security at Raytheon International. Prior to her time at Raytheon, Sita amassed over fifteen years of service as a Foreign Service Officer. She graduated with distinction from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, earning a Master’s in Conflict Management, African Studies, and Development Finance. She studied abroad through the Vassar-Wesleyan Program in Paris and the Centre des Etudes Maghrebienne en Tunisie (CEMAT) Summer Fellowship. She graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, earning her Bachelor’s in Political Science and Economics and the Densmore Berry Collins Award for the Best Political Science Thesis. Her native tongue is Telugu; she also speaks Hindi, French, Arabic, Croatian, and Urdu. Sita received two individual Superior Honor Awards from the State Department for her work on the Israel-Lebanon war in Summer 2006 and for her Economic Statecraft Program in Southeast Europe in Summer 2013. She has also received the Linguist Award for her fluency in Serbo-Croatian. Sita serves as Executive Board Member for the Washington Leadership Program, and served as Co-Chair of the Defense and Security Working Group for the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU). Sita is the proud mother to Jairam and Ananda.