Pekka Laurila

Pekka Laurila is the Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of ICEYE. ICEYE aims to launch and operate a constellation of micro-SAR satellites providing access to timely and reliable Earth observation data. ICEYE is the first company that has successfully miniaturized a SAR satellite, creating a unit that is 100x more cost-effective than traditional counterparts. With its 18 satellite constellation, ICEYE offers its partners a set of unprecedented surveillance capabilities, accessing any area of interest faster, more frequently and at 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 melting ice caps, ice monitoring, agricultural issues, and analytics focused on Earth observation. 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.