Gavin Tweedie, CEO of Global Surface Intelligence -GSI- has lots of reasons to celebrate.
He joined the Glasgow based Geospatial Analytics company in summer 2017 and today was reflecting on how much has changed during his first year on the job.
“Probably the most important change we have implemented during the first year here is to pivot our business towards making satellite analytics accessible to the corporate world. Geospatial analytics have for too long been the realm of the Military, Academia, Scientists, Government and space companies."
"But here at GSI, we have been working to repurpose our analytical technologies towards commercial corporate enterprises. ”
Gavin Tweedie is a serial start-up executive with 6 previous start-ups under his belt over the last 20 years, achieving exits and mergers with companies such as IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems and Virtual Instruments. This milestone is not lost on him as he looks forward to the next part of his journey. Gavin is proud of leading a team that has developed leading edge technologies with global relevance, alongside other well established Scottish based space companies like Spire, Ecometrica, Astrosat and Clyde Space.
Gavin is very appreciative of the support and assistance from several different sources, including Scottish Enterprise, SOXSA, UK Space Agency, Satellite Catapult, Innovate UK, Seraphim Capital, CENSIS and Glasgow City Council's flagship business incubator space- Tontine.
“We have developed strong commercial traction, globally, in a wide range of business sectors from Oil and Gas, Energy, Insurance, TIC, Drone Operators, Retail and of course Forestry where we have traditionally been strong. The team that we have reflects the strength in depth I need to achieve the aggressive objectives I have set and that the board has encouraged me to pursue.
"The support of our investors, in particular Par Equity and the Scottish Investment Bank, has been a key success factor in our development to date.”
Tweedie's had a busy year. Visiting and meeting with a wide variety of corporate customers to better understand how their businesses can benefit from the application of satellite analytics. He has also been actively developing partnerships with service providers that he feels are the key to successful adoption of GSI products.
“A good example of our business expansion is working with drone operators and surveyors where we are beginning to develop strong global partnerships. These companies want to avoid being viewed as a commodity. They need to offer more value add services and maximise airtime for their UAV fleet."
"We help them do that. Since we continuously measure land use change across large geographic areas, they can now offer land monitoring services to their clients."
The growth in business has resulted in the need to bring additional expertise on board and Gavin is actively looking to recruit specialists in remote sensing, software engineering, systems architecture, technical pre-sales and subject matter expertise."
“I am looking for people who have the desire to create new ways of thinking, who can take an idea from concept to execution and can articulate our values. I’ll be happy to talk to anyone who feels they want to join us on our journey on offering answers- in some occasions – to questions that have yet to be formulated.”
Gavin is relishing year two at the helm. Taking data to places it's never been before.