Spire Global

Peter Platzer brings a combined science and business background that includes work at CERN, a Harvard Business School MBA, and time at Boston Consulting Group before entering the space industry. He met co-founders Jeroen Cappaert and Joel Spark at the International Space University in Strasbourg in 2011, and his thesis — recognizing that the exponentially improving capabilities of nanosatellites would disrupt the incumbent space industry — became the seed for the company. The trio founded Spire (originally NanoSatisfi) in 2012 in San Francisco, and Platzer served as CEO, building the company into an operator of one of the largest commercial CubeSat constellations.

Jeroen Cappaert, originally from Belgium, met his Spire co-founders at the International Space University in Strasbourg in 2011. He co-founded Spire (originally NanoSatisfi) in 2012 as part of the ArduSat effort to democratize access to space, and serves as the company's chief technology officer, leading the engineering of its Lemur CubeSat constellation that collects weather, aviation, and radio-frequency data from orbit.

Joel Spark, originally from Canada, met his Spire co-founders while studying at the International Space University in Strasbourg in 2011. He co-founded Spire (originally NanoSatisfi) in 2012, part of the early ArduSat project aimed at democratizing access to space, and helped build the company's nanosatellite constellation and space-systems capabilities.