Take Off With Iris

Explore our team and what a career at Iris looks like

Team Values

Our culture revolves around the core values that drive work at Iris every day. A focus on collaboration, growth, hard work, and keeping active and healthy drives everyone to better themselves in and out of the office.

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Accountability

We prioritize safety and trust each other to take on responsibilities, follow through, and ask for support when we need it.

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Continuous Learning

We are curious people with broad interests who cultivate a learning environment.

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Recognition

We celebrate and create space for each other’s work, differences, and humaness.

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Pragmatism

We work hard, work smart, and stay calm and positive under pressure.

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Collaboration

We build connections not only with each other, but with regulators, customers, and the aviation industry.

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Open Communication

We are approachable and give and accept feedback, input, and help from all teammates.

Leadership

Jon Damush

Chief Executive Officer

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James Howard

Co-founder & VP of Technology + Innovation

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Gabrielle Wain

VP of Global Policy and Government Affairs

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Jason Hardy-Smith

VP of Product

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Mark Genung

VP of Flight Operations

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Board of Directors

Alexander Harmsen

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Celeste
Ford

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David
Cowan

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James Howard

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Jon
Damush

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Tess
Hatch

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Jon Damush

Jon brings over 30 years of extensive aviation technology experience and executive leadership, building upon his technical background in engineering, software development and systems integration. Most recently he led new business ventures at Boeing NeXT. Before that he was Chief Growth Officer at Insitu, Inc., a Boeing subsidiary, developing novel aircraft and UAS innovation including detect-and-avoid. He was also a Boeing executive liaison and board observer to SkyGrid, LLC, a joint venture between Boeing and SparkCognition.

Philip Walker

Philip is a proven, strategic finance and operations leader. He has held CFO and executive level finance roles at innovative companies in the United States and United Kingdom, in addition to non-profit advisory. He is a Fellow Chartered Accountant and holds a Masters in Business Administration and Operations from Kingston University.

Alexander Harmsen

Alexander’s background provides a diverse set of experiences working with NASA JPL, MDA, Airbus, and smaller drone tech startups. He earned his private pilot license at 17 and was elected to the board of Unmanned Systems Canada in 2015. He has published papers in computer vision, given multiple technical presentations internationally and worked on computer vision 3D reconstruction and navigation algorithms for NASA’s Mars Helicopter project at the Jet Propulsion Lab. Recently, he’s been selected for both Forbes’ and Inc’s 30 Under 30 lists, and has been invited to speak at dozens of conferences and events internationally.

James Howard

James is a mechatronics engineer, roboticist and entrepreneur. He is recognised by Forbes 30 Under 30, and draws on a diverse background across the unmanned systems industry, and previous ventures. James worked at Boeing and Insitu Pacific on computer vision research for drones such as the Scaneagle. At Spire Global, he helped build and launch their first four commercial satellites, seeing first hand the insides of a successful, highly technical aerospace startup. Additionally, in his first year of university he co-founded AniRevo Events as Director of Sales and has helped it grow successfully to a 14,000+ attendee annual event that is expanding globally.

Dr. Alejandro Galindo

Alejandro gained expertise at France’s INRIA institute, known world-wide for its expertise in computer vision. After years of cutting edge research and after finishing his PhD he joined the initial team of a French startup where he successfully led the development of its core product and built his R&D team of scientists and engineers from fields like computer vision, physical simulation, rendering and computer aided design. At Iris, he built the core of our technology and he is now leading the R&D team on taking that solution to the next level, making it more robust and expanding its capabilities. For his work on autonomous drones at Iris Automation he received the MIT Innovators Under 35 Award at the end of 2017.

Gabrielle Wain

Gabrielle is a specialist in public policy development and international government relations. After supporting Ministers in the UK Government, Gabrielle moved to advise multinational companies on global policy issues affecting their businesses. She has led the political strategy for a large trade association, cutting through red tape and securing $10bn investment for the 1,000 businesses she represented. At Iris, Gabrielle is leading the company’s work to make BVLOS flights a reality for our customers. Her team engages with governments around the world, and is shaping policy and standards at both the national and multi-national level. She is also building out Iris’ offer to customers around BVLOS waiver writing.

Mark Genung

Mark has a Masters degree in Systems Engineering and a BSME. He served in the US Navy for 30 years as a Surface Warfare Officer where he commanded two warships, and employed and coordinated crewed and unmanned aircraft for a variety of missions including maritime security. Mark is a FAA qualified private pilot and remote pilot. An enthusiastic recreational radio control pilot since 2002, he started his post-naval career in the commercial sUAS industry in 2012. He was a founding member of HAZON Solutions where he served as Chief Pilot and Chief Engineer responsible for developing procedures, integrating aircraft, training and leading sUAS flight crews that conducted precision infrastructure inspections of high voltage power transmission lines, railroad bridges and telecommunication towers. In 2016, Mark joined Flirtey, one of the world’s first drone delivery companies as the Field Operations Manager. While at Flirtey, Mark executed the first FAA approved shore-ship-shore drone deliveries, the first FAA approved business to home deliveries in the US, and the first CAA approved Dominos Pizza drone deliveries to homes in New Zealand. Mark is responsible for the safe and efficient testing of Iris Automation’s Casia DAA technology on our fleet of drones.

Jason Hardy-Smith

Jason leads product strategy, definition and requirements for Iris Automation’s Casia detect and avoid portfolio of products. He has over 20 years of product management experience defining and driving product strategies and roadmaps in technology industries, owning the end-to-end product lifecycle of successful first-to-market products for companies including Oracle, Blueroads, Brightidea, Isomorphic Software and now Iris Automation. Jason began his career as a software developer and has a Bachelor of Electronic & Electrical Engineering from the University of Glasgow.

David Cowan

Board Member David Cowan is a partner in Bessemer Ventures Partners and launched Bessemer’s practices in cloud infrastructure, consumer tech, cyber-security and space tech. During David’s time with Bessemer his portfolio has included companies such as LinkedIn, Twitch and Skybox Imaging. David has also co-founded three cyber security companies and overseen over 20 IPOs. David holds an MBA from Harvard University.

Russ Muzzolini

As an experienced startup and engineering team leader, Russ brings his knowledge of software development, agile business scaling, and talent acquisition and retention to Iris Automation where he serves as a technical leadership adviser. Previously he served as CTO at Spire Global, Inc., a satellite-powered data company. Under Russ’ leadership Spire designed, manufactured, and launched 30 nano-satellites operating in low-earth orbit. He also oversaw the development of software for the fleet that performs multi-source data aggregation, storage, analytics, and data services for a range of customer use cases.

John Walker

John has fifty-one years of aviation experience in a career rich in air traffic control, airspace management, flight navigation, and airport development skills. John’s aviation career includes thirty-two years with the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as well as four years served in the United States Air Force. His last Senior Executive Service assignment was served as the FAA’s Program Director of Airspace Management. At Iris Automation, John lends his vast experience and wisdom of the aviation regulatory environment in the United States and around the globe to our efforts in enabling drones to fly safely within the national airspace.

Geoff Ralston

As an advisor through Y-Combinator, Geoff brings his expertise in the technological and business development of enterprise software products to Iris and provides valuable support for our team. Geoff was a founder of Four11, where he built RocketMail, one of the first web mail services, which in 1997 became Yahoo Mail. At Yahoo Geoff worked in engineering, then ran a business unit, then became Chief Product Officer. After Yahoo he was CEO of Lala, which was acquired in 2009 by Apple. He has an AB in Computer Science from Dartmouth, an MS in Computer Science from Stanford, and an MBA from INSEAD.

Tess Hatch

Tess is a vice president based in the Silicon Valley office fostering entrepreneurship of frontier technology, specifically the commercialization of space, drones, autonomous vehicles, and the future of agriculture and food technology. She wants to invest in technology and people who believe as strongly as she does that frontier technology will develop solutions for societal problems.

Tess earned a Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan and a Master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from Stanford. She went on to work for Boeing and then SpaceX where she worked with the government on integrating its payloads with the Falcon9 rocket. She remains close to her alma mater by co-teaching a class at Stanford for professors interested in commercializing their research, serving on the board of advisors for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and founding the Stanford Aero/Astro Alumni Association. Tess was recently named Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Venture Capital.

Tess is passionate about space exploration and imagines a future where we all travel to space. She hopes to one day take a trip herself.

Lori DeMatteis

Lori has over 20 years of experience as a top-performing, global executive leader. She has built an extensive portfolio of achievements and key contributions across multiple functional areas and industries. In companies ranging from start-ups to Global 50 corporations, she has fused innovative, strategic planning with product, sales, and operational solutions that have led to breakthrough results. Her global experience and successes spans over 110 countries.

Lori’s product background and expertise: IIoT/AI /Industrial/Analytics, Big Data, Security and Cloud solutions. Throughout her career, she has been recruited and called upon to tackle extremely challenging obstacles, including 180-degree turnarounds and demanding go-to-market transformation initiatives in multiple startups across large as well as early-stage companies. Repeatedly, she has delivered above expectations and positioned companies for both immediate and long-term success, earning recognition from C-level and boards.

Celeste Ford

Celeste Ford is Board Chair and founder of Stellar Solutions, Inc., a global provider of systems engineering expertise and a Fortune Magazine “Great Place to Work”. She founded the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award-winning aerospace company to deliver high-impact performance for projects on earth and in space. Celeste’s CEO experience has guided the Stellar Solutions “constellation” to cross industry and geographical boundaries, and to improve lives through its corporate foundation and its QuakeFinder humanitarian R&D effort.

Ford was recognized as Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and inducted to the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. She is a board member for multiple private and public organizations, a community advocate, and contributes regularly to leadership initiatives focusing on entrepreneurship and women in business. Celeste received her BS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and MS in Aerospace Engineering from Stanford University.