DroneShield Taps Afterpay Veteran for CFO Role as RfRecon Notches First Sale

DroneShield appoints Rebecca Lowde as CFO from 2 November and confirms a first RfRecon order, with AUD 251 million committed for FY2026.

DroneShield has moved to shore up its leadership bench while pushing a new product line toward the battlefield, naming Rebecca Lowde as its next finance chief and confirming the debut order for its AI-driven radio-frequency reconnaissance device.

Lowde steps into the CFO seat on 2 November, succeeding Carla Balanco, who exits after more than eight years with the Australian counter-drone specialist. Her résumé carries three decades of senior financial and executive posts, most recently as CFO of MYOB, the KKR-owned accounting software group, where she steered a debt refinancing and sharpened EBITDA growth through product monetisation. Before that she held the dual CFO and chief people officer roles at Afterpay, overseeing a USD 1.5 billion capital raise and the company's USD 39 billion takeover by Block.

That dealmaking and capital-markets pedigree lands at a company that has said it will keep tapping external funding to bankroll its expansion — a signal likely to resonate with investors watching the balance sheet.

RfRecon Order Validates Next-Gen Line

Alongside the appointment, DroneShield disclosed its first order for RfRecon, a machine-learning-powered signals-intelligence unit. The buyer is an existing military end-user in Western Europe, with delivery slated before the end of 2026. Management was quick to flag that the contract value is immaterial; the real weight of the win lies in having an established customer sign off on the new hardware generation. RfRecon was unveiled in July together with the RfAI-3 software engine, with series production due to kick off in the second half of the year and initial shipments targeted by year-end.

Backlog Anchors 2026 Guidance

The company also used the trading update to peg committed revenue for the 2026 financial year at AUD 251 million, comfortably inside its earlier guidance band of AUD 250 million to AUD 270 million. Beyond that horizon, AUD 46 million of secured revenue is already booked for periods from 2027 onward.

Those figures extend the picture painted in late August, when DroneShield reported first-half revenue of AUD 125.8 million — a 74% jump from AUD 72.3 million a year earlier. Recurring revenue climbed 229% to AUD 11.5 million, now accounting for 9.2% of the top line and underpinned by 4,100 software-enabled devices deployed worldwide. The bottom line, however, swung hard into the red: a statutory loss after tax of AUD 32.2 million, reversing a AUD 2.1 million profit in the prior-year period, while adjusted EBITDA fell to minus AUD 12.4 million from plus AUD 8.0 million. The balance sheet offers some cushion, with AUD 180 million in cash and term deposits as of 30 June and no debt.

Share Price Still Searching for a Floor

Investors have yet to reward the operational momentum. The stock closed Thursday at EUR 1.05, down 1.6% on the day, leaving it roughly 72% below its 52-week high of EUR 3.79 set in early October. Over the past month the shares have shed 18%, and since the start of the year the price has nearly halved. The muted reaction to the interim results has seen the stock give back 4.3% since that report.

Adding to the overhang is an ongoing probe by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission into ASX disclosures made between 1 and 20 November 2025, alongside share sales executed from 6 to 12 November 2025. During that window, former chief executive Oleg Vornik, then-chairman Peter James and director Jethro Marks collectively offloaded stock worth AUD 66.8 million. DroneShield has said it remains open as to whether any consequences will follow.

On the growth front, the company is part of a European consortium alongside Anduril, COBS and Nokia under the RE-ARM-2030 initiative, with an award decision anticipated in the second half of the year. Operationally, the first half also brought partnerships with Terma, Parsons and Origin Robotics, the opening of a new 3,000-square-metre production facility, and the milestone of manufacturing hardware in Europe for the first time in June. Whether the fresh faces at the top table and the RfRecon breakthrough can turn sentiment around is a question the coming months will have to answer.