Helio Taps Wall Street Veteran for CEO in Major Strategic Pivot

BERKELEY, CA – January 05, 2026 – In a decisive move signaling a fundamental strategic shift, aerospace firm Helio Corporation (OTCID:HLEO) today announced the appointment of Wall Street veteran Edward Cabrera as its new Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. The change, effective immediately, sees founder and former CEO Gregory T. Delory transition to the role of Chief Technology Officer, a move the company says is part of a new trajectory aimed squarely at enhancing shareholder value.

The leadership shuffle also includes Stuart Bale becoming Chief Science Officer and Paul Turin taking the position of Chief Engineer. All three technical leaders—Delory, Bale, and Turin—will retain their seats on the company’s Board of Directors, ensuring their deep engineering and scientific expertise remains within Helio’s core leadership. However, the elevation of a seasoned financier to the top spot underscores a pivot from a technology-led strategy to one heavily focused on financial restructuring and market performance.

“This change in strategy and new management additions reflects the Board’s strong commitment to enhancing shareholder value and its confidence in the Company’s long-term growth potential,” said Cabrera in the official announcement. The company has promised to unveil the specifics of its new strategic direction in the coming weeks.

A New Captain with a Financial Compass

Edward Cabrera is not a typical aerospace executive. His 35-year career was forged in the high-stakes world of investment banking and corporate finance, with senior roles at powerhouse firms like Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, PaineWebber/UBS, and Raymond James & Associates. His resume is replete with experience as an investment banker, equity analyst, and portfolio manager, with a notable focus since 2003 on advising small-capitalization and middle-market companies on M&A, corporate restructuring, and capital raises.

Most recently, Cabrera served as Managing Director of Investment Banking for Network 1 Financial Securities Inc., where he supervised complex financial transactions. His past CEO roles at Nuevo Financial Center Inc. and CDI Telecom Corporation, along with a board position at Neah Power Systems—a provider of battlefield technology for the Department of Defense—demonstrate a history of steering companies through critical financial and strategic junctures. An MBA from Harvard Business School and an engineering degree from the University of Florida provide him with a blend of financial acumen and technical understanding.

This background is precisely what a company signaling a financial overhaul looks for. Cabrera’s expertise is not in designing interplanetary hardware but in strengthening capital structures, reducing liabilities, and positioning companies for future financing—the exact priorities Helio outlined in its announcement.

Navigating Financial Headwinds

Helio’s strategic pivot does not come in a vacuum. While its subsidiary, Heliospace Corporation, boasts an impressive technical resume with products operating from the Sun to Jupiter, the parent company has faced significant financial turbulence. As a company trading on the OTC markets, Helio has contended with the liquidity and visibility challenges common to smaller public entities. Its stock (HLEO) has underperformed both the broader U.S. market and the aerospace and defense sector over the past year.

Recent financial disclosures paint a picture of a company under pressure. As of mid-2025, Helio's parent company reported a concerning negative shareholder equity of -89.1% and a meager cash balance of just over $43,000. In December 2025, the company received a notice of default from a holder of a $250,000 secured note after missing a maturity payment, a matter the company is currently evaluating.

In an effort to shore up its balance sheet, founders Gregory Delory and Paul Turin converted over $1 million in outstanding loans and interest into company stock just last month. While this move eliminated significant debt, it also resulted in the issuance of nearly 7.4 million new shares, a substantial dilution for existing shareholders. The company has also recently secured a small amount of funding via an unsecured convertible promissory note and is reportedly preparing for an uplisting to the NYSE American exchange, a move that could significantly improve its access to capital if successful. Cabrera’s appointment appears to be the central pillar of this broader effort to stabilize the company’s financial foundation.

Balancing Innovation and the Bottom Line

While Cabrera is tasked with navigating the financial complexities, the decision to retain the core technical team in senior leadership roles is critical. Under Delory's leadership since its 2018 founding, Heliospace has become a trusted partner for NASA, the European Space Agency, and numerous private aerospace firms. The company’s hardware has been integral to high-profile missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the recently deployed radar antennas on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission.

Just in the last year, Heliospace won NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards for advanced CubeSat antenna systems, saw its hardware successfully deployed on the lunar surface, and launched components on a Firefly Aerospace lunar mission. This continuous stream of technical achievement is the company’s crown jewel and its primary value proposition in the competitive space industry.

The new leadership structure creates a classic dynamic: a finance-driven CEO focused on market perception and profitability, and a technology-focused leadership team dedicated to pushing the boundaries of innovation. The challenge for Helio will be to strike a balance. Cabrera's strategy will need to secure the necessary funding and financial discipline to keep the company viable, without stifling the long-term, capital-intensive research and development that is the lifeblood of its success. Retaining Delory as CTO ensures that the engineering vision that built the company remains at the forefront of product development, even as financial metrics become a more dominant driver of corporate strategy.

A Bellwether for the Space Economy?

Helio's leadership change may also be indicative of a broader maturation in the commercial space sector. The global space economy is booming, projected to surpass $700 billion within the next decade, and venture capital continues to flow into the sector. However, the industry is not immune to economic realities. Rising interest rates, supply chain issues, and the immense capital required for space ventures have created a more discerning investment climate.

Investors are increasingly looking beyond ambitious technological roadmaps to see clear paths to profitability and sustainable financial models. The trend favors companies with dual-use technologies serving both government and commercial clients—a category Helio fits into perfectly with its NASA contracts and private-sector partnerships. Helio's explicit pivot toward enhancing shareholder value could be a sign that the era of growth-at-all-costs is evolving. For companies in the capital-intensive space industry, demonstrating financial discipline is becoming as important as demonstrating technical prowess.

As Helio prepares to unveil its new strategic plan, the aerospace and investment communities will be watching closely. The company's journey under Edward Cabrera will serve as a compelling case study on whether a Wall Street veteran can successfully chart a new financial course for a space innovator without losing the technical edge that got it off the ground.