DroneShield Accelerates Growth with New COO and Bold Capacity Expansion

Powell’s appointment marks a clear shift in strategic posture. He brings more than 25 years of experience, including senior roles at Thales Australia and Knorr-Bremse, with a focus on scaling global operations and strengthening supplier networks. His mandate is to drive the company’s global operations and ensure the supply chain can keep pace with the expansion.

Ambitious capacity expansion underway

Powell’s onboarding aligns with a substantial upgrade of DroneShield’s manufacturing footprint. The company aims to lift the annual production capacity at its New South Wales facility from $500 million to $2.4 billion by the end of 2026. The upgrade is designed to shorten delivery times and bolster supply-chain resilience.

Beyond Australia, DroneShield plans a European production start in early 2026 and assembly activity in the United States by mid-2026. Powell’s objective is to execute this aggressive plan without compromising efficiency.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying DroneShield?

Growth momentum supported by order flow

Recent performance highlights illustrate why structural discipline is essential. In fiscal year 2025, revenue surged by 277% to $216.5 million. By the beginning of 2026, booked revenue stood at $95.6 million, while the sales pipeline in January reached $2.09 billion.

New contracts are propelling this growth, including projects for the Australian Department of Defence (Project LAND 156) and multiple orders from Western militaries and customers across the Asia-Pacific region.

CEO Oleg Vornik stressed that Powell’s experience with complex, large-scale programs will be crucial to scaling with discipline and resilience. For investors, the emphasis is shifting in the coming quarters from raw order intake to actual execution: the mid-year commissioning of the new European and U.S. production lines will serve as a concrete indicator of the company’s operational maturity.