Chairperson
Geoff Sawyer
Secretary General
EARSC
Belgium

Biography
Currently an independent consultant in Brussels and Secretary General of EARSC, Geoff has followed a long and varied career holding senior management positions in the space industry as well as numerous representative positions in the UK and Europe. These include 3 years as the chairman of EARSC (from 1992 to 1996) and as a member of several EU consultative bodies such as Spassec (for space and security) and the SecAG (Security Advisory Group). Geoff began his career as a radar systems engineer responsible for the ERS-1 synthetic aperture radar and continued until recently as EADS Vice President Corporate Strategist for Space. In addition to his extensive industrial experience, Geoff spent 3 years working for the European Commission where he was responsible for supporting space policy development and in particular the creation of the GMES initiative. Geoff is very well known to many in the space and earth observation sectors and brings this deep wealth of experience and knowledge to support the ambitions of the geo-information industry that EARSC represents. As secretary general of EARSC since 2011, Geoff has successfully developed the Association into a much more active and visible community. He has been responsible for several studies carried out by EARSC including a full survey of the EO services industry and of a study into the impact of a free and open data policy for the Copernicus Sentinel data (often referred to as the “Geese and Golden Eggs“ study).

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