Margaret Hamilton and the code that flew to the Moon

The photo shows Margaret Hamilton in 1969 next to the printed program listings of the Apollo on-board software that she developed with her team at MIT.

Hamilton led the development of the software for the navigation and guidance computers of the Apollo missions. Shortly before the first Moon landing, the on-board computer raised overload alarms. Because her software was built to set aside the unimportant and keep the important running under pressure, the landing could go ahead. Hamilton later coined the term software engineering and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

What does Apollo have to do with strategy execution?

The strategy could hardly have been clearer: land people on the Moon. But success was decided on the last mile, in countless details that a team carefully executed day after day. That is exactly where we work.

There is one story we particularly like to tell. During a visit to the lab, Hamilton's young daughter crashed the simulator by launching the wrong program in the middle of a simulated flight. Hamilton wanted to build in a safeguard and was told that astronauts would never do such a thing. On the Apollo 8 mission, exactly that happened. People who are close to the work often see risks first. What matters is whether anyone listens.

For us, this is the core of strategy activation: a clear direction, focus on what matters when things get tight, and an organisation that listens to the people who do the work.

The software pioneer Margaret Hamilton passed away on 30 September 2026.