Unifly announces new CEO to accelerate UTM technology

Unifly today announced that Leon van de Pas (above left) will become CEO at the company to prepare for accelerated company growth in the unmanned traffic management (UTM) world over the next few years.

Unifly is focused on UTM with its own platform that allows authorities with pilots to safely integrate drones into the airspace. The platform allows them to visualize and approve drone flight along with managing no-fly zones in real time.

The platform also allows drone pilots to manage their fleets and give the go-ahead to drone operations with the added support for drone detection systems to ensure drones fly where they are allowed to.

The new CEO

Leon van de Pas has vast experience in sales and business with Philips, Gemalto, Tele Atlas, and HERE Technologies, to name a few. Van de Pas is known to create winning teams, manage growth, and introduce innovative technologies to market.

Van de Pas, when working at HERE, set up the regional office in Singapore and was able to bring it to double-digit growth within the first year. He also holds an electrical engineering and economics degree from the Hague University in the Netherlands.

Van de Pas said:

When I first came across Unifly three years ago, for me that was the first time I truly realized the vast potential of unmanned vehicles moving along all three dimensions. I was struck by the opportunity of ‘mapping’ the low-altitude airspace. It is even more thrilling to imagine that all solutions currently built on a two-dimensional map for traditional manned vehicles will have to be brought to the third dimension for autonomous vehicles and ultimately in real-time. I want to thank Marc Kegelaers for bringing Unifly where it is today and I am honored to lead the Unifly team through its next growth phase.

The now former CEO, Marc Kegelaers (above right), said:

After five exciting and intense years, I will be stepping down as CEO of Unifly. I am very proud of what we achieved in such a short time span. Unifly has become an industry leader in the new world of Unmanned Traffic Management. The company raised over €23 million in capital with major VCs and strategic investors. We opened subsidiaries in the US and Denmark, signed long-term strategic contracts with major organizations such as DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung, NAV CANADA, and skeyes (formerly Belgocontrol).

Photo: Unifly