Samantha Weeks
Located In: Colorado
Position: Director
Samantha Weeks is results-driven leader in both the military and commercial sectors. She is a retired Colonel who served in the Air Force for over 23 years as a fighter pilot and senior military leader. She amassed over 2,000 hours in the F-15C and F-16 including more than 100 combat/combat support hours. In 2007, she was selected as the Air Force Thunderbirds' first-ever female solo demonstration pilot. Her military career culminated as a Wing Commander where she was responsible for Air Force's largest and most diverse Pilot Training base, and oversaw $150 million annual budget with $2.3 billion in capital assets.
Upon her retirement, Samantha transitioned to the civilian sector and quickly elevated her prior military experience to help transform and cultivate Shift4 Payments, a $7B public company in the Financial Technology industry. As the company's first-ever Chief Transformation Officer, Samantha envisioned, designed, implemented, and matured the day-to-day operations and strategic development of Human Resources, Learning & Development, Program Management, Quality, and Internal Communications of this growing International company. During her tenure, Shift4 saw revenue growth almost double from $1.37B to $2.57B -- a 99.2% in three years, and almost doubled employee headcount with over 3,000 employees operating on a global stage in eight countries.
Samantha excels at understanding, leading, and cultivating diverse and complex organizations to achieve the individual's and the institution's fullest potential in culture, community, and success. Samantha's passion centers around leader and leadership development to create the strongest teams by connecting individual strengths to the organization's mission and purpose.
Samantha earned her Doctorate of Philosophy from Air University in Military Strategy where she researched and focused on leader and leadership development to best organizational futures and outcomes. She also earned her Master of Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the United States Air Force Academy. Her professional accolades include selection as a committee member for the Department of Defense's Defense Advisory Council on Women In The Services (DACOWITS) 2022-present, an International Women's Forum (IWF) Fellow, 2019-2020, and a recipient of the National Aeronautic Association's Robert J. Collier Trophy, 2018.
Samantha also supports the Polaris Program, a first-of-its-kind commercial space program, designed to embark on three human spaceflight missions to demonstrate new technologies, conduct extensive research to evolve knowledge of deep space exploration, and better life here on Earth. She serves as Polaris Dawn's Director for Science and Research and is a deputy mission director for the program. Samantha resides in Colorado with her two young sons.