Pekka Laurila

Pekka Laurila is the Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of ICEYE. ICEYE owns and operates the world’s largest constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. The company provides timely and reliable Earth observation data as well as natural catastrophe solutions for companies and governments. ICEYE is the first company that has successfully miniaturized a SAR satellite, making it possible to launch more units to reliably image any location on Earth, every few hours, every day. With its growing SAR satellite constellation, ICEYE offers its partners a set of unprecedented satellite imaging capabilities, accessing any area of interest faster, more frequently, and at a lower cost.

As CSO, Laurila has been instrumental in establishing and directing the company’s strategy, and previously as CFO, raising the initial $20M funds for ICEYE. Laurila joined forces with ICEYE Co-founder Rafal Modrzewski to create synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) microsatellites to solve various large scale issues the world faces, including those related to the ice monitoring for maritime safety, agricultural financing with objective data, and a wide range of further Earth observation analytics. Laurila brings with him deep domain expertise in Geographic information systems, and he has received the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 Technology award based on the world-first achievements of ICEYE.

Prior to co-founding ICEYE, Laurila played an instrumental role in Finland’s Aalto University nanosatellite Program Aalto-1, where he studied as a student of the Engineering and Geoinformation Systems program.