Kitty Hawk Nabs GC From Alphabet’s Wing as it Sets Air Taxi Test

Kitty Hawk Corp., an air taxi startup looking to put a pilotless shuttle in the sky, has hired Nancy Egan as chief policy and administrative officer.

Egan joined Kitty Hawk within the last month from her role as general counsel for Wing Aviation LLC, the drone delivery unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc. Scott Coriell, a Wing spokesman, confirmed that the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is searching for Egan’s replacement.

Kitty Hawk is one of several companies operating in the air taxi space. Former Google executive Sebastian Thrun, a German-born computer scientist, started the Mountain View, Calif.-based company in 2010 and serves as its CEO. Kitty Hawk has the financial backing of Google co-founder and billionaire Larry Page.

Egan’s move comes less than a month after Archer Aviation Inc., another Palo Alto-based electric aviation startup, hired chief legal officer Andrew Missan. He joined Archer from FitBit Inc., where Missan served as general counsel through the fitness startup’s $2.1 billion sale to Alphabet, which closed earlier this year.

Another Kitty Hawk rival includes Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Joby Aviation LLC, which last year acquired the former flying car unit of Uber Technologies Inc. Joby went public in August by merging with a special purpose acquisition company.

Egan and Kitty Hawk didn’t respond to requests for comment about her new role, which is listed on the company’s website and on Egan’s personal LinkedIn profile.

Thrun told Bloomberg News this week that within the next six months he expects to join fellow technology moguls Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson as an airborne aviation innovator. He plans to become the first passenger to ride Kitty Hawk’s Heaviside, an autonomous, single-seat electric prototype aircraft that will fly him roughly 1,000 feet above the ground for about five minutes.

Thrun’s wife, former Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati associate Doreen Xia, began serving as a consultant to Kitty Hawk this year, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Records on file with the U.S. Senate show that Kitty Hawk has paid $60,000 through the first half of this year to Elevate Government Affairs LLC for the firm to lobby at the federal level on several matters now presumably under Egan’s purview in her position as the company’s administrative and policy chief.

Elevate, formed in 2019, is advising Kitty Hawk on issues related to electric aircraft safety legislation, the Advanced Air Mobility Coordination and Leadership Act, and U.S. Coast Guard oversight relating to “wing in ground vehicles and manufacturer identification codes,” according to public filings.

Wing, which in August reached a key milestone in its development, has posted on its online careers page an opening for a general counsel to lead its legal group. An ideal candidate is expected to have roughly 15 years of legal experience, including five years in-house, according to Wing’s job listing for the general counsel role.