Altitude Angel expands international sales team with new senior hires

London, UK:  Altitude Angel, the world’s leading UTM (Unified Traffic Management) technology provider, has today announced Karim Cosslett and Olivier Quero will take up the new positions of Regional Sales & Partner Manager – EMEA North, and EMEA South, respectively – with immediate effect.

An expert in the unmanned air systems industry, Karim joins Altitude Angel from SOARIZON where he held the role of Head of Growth. His work there saw him delivering innovative, commercial solutions and forming strong strategic partnerships which added real value to the wider drone services ecosystem. 

Based in Madrid and fluent in Spanish, French and English, Olivier joins from AirMap where he was Regional Sales Manager EMEA.  He is a recognised senior international business developer and consultant with a passion for innovation.  Olivier has experience across several industries and has helped companies in the telecommunication, media and mobility sectors transform technologies into new services.

On joining Altitude Angel, Karim said: “I have been a keen advocate of drone capability and the UAS industry for nearly a decade. Altitude Angel has moved rapidly to develop and deliver market-leading capabilities which are critical for the long-term evolution of the sector and to offer future scaled access to the range of societal benefits drone technology can, and will, bring. The opportunity to work at Altitude Angel, and to contribute to their ambitious expansion, is extremely exciting and I welcome joining the team.”

Olivier added: “The new European Regulation and the U-Space agenda are just a few of the key milestones the industry will need to navigate in 2021. We are at a cornerstone of the drone industry’s development and Altitude Angel’s expertise will undoubtedly help the entire ecosystem to embrace UTM technology.  I am thrilled to join a customer-centric and innovative team with a true ambition to shape the future of unmanned aviation.”

On Karim and Olivier joining, Richard Ellis, Altitude Angel, Chief Business Officer, said: “2021 promises to be an exciting year for Altitude Angel as we expand and deliver our existing and upcoming products and services to ANSPs, enterprise businesses, drone operators & manufacturers, and third-party developers around the globe. Karim and Olivier are both experts in their field, so we are thrilled to welcome both to the business. The skills and expertise they bring will allow us to accelerate our activities to shape, serve and grow the global UTM market and further develop our global partner programme.

“The creation of two new sales positions follows the recent conclusion of our Series A funding round, having secured an investment of £4m from Octopus Ventures. With this additional capital we fully expect to further expand our international sales and partnership team in the coming months.”

Prior to SORIZON Karim held a senior leadership position in one of the UK’s largest commercial drone operations and training business after serving as an officer in the Royal Air Force where he focused on the strategic defence of aircraft, airfields and counter-intelligence in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Karim regularly speaks at industry events globally and has contributed to both regulatory and government papers on the future of unmanned flight.

His work within the UTM industry has seen Olivier build strong relationships with ANSPs, Civil Aviation Authorities and operators, evangelising the safe integration of unmanned aviation through collaborative UTM systems.  Committed to the development of a ‘safety mindset’ in the drone industry, Olivier recently co-founded an online training platform to increase knowledge and skills about the Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) methodology.

About Altitude Angel:

Altitude Angel is the world’s leading provider of UTM (Unified Traffic Management) software, enabling those planning to operate, or develop UTM/U-Space solutions, to quickly integrate robust data and services with minimum effort.

From a consistent, well-documented and standards-based platform, drone manufacturers such as DJI and cutting-edge software developers around the world use our Developer Platform to obtain rich, relevant and local geofencing data, exchange and share flight plans, de-conflict their own flights in real-time and interface with national flight authorisation systems. A growing portfolio of enhanced capabilities help our customers to comply with current and future regulations and interface with changing national systems with only minimal effort.

Altitude Angel’s first party solutions also power some of the world’s leading ANSPs, aviation authorities and Enterprises, including LVNL (Netherlands) and Avinor (Norway), empowering them with new capabilities to safely manage and integrate drone traffic into national operations.

Today, Altitude Angel’s market-defining technology is providing a critical, enabling service on which the future of UTM, especially in controlled airspace, will be built across the globe.

By unlocking the potential of drones and helping national aviation authorities, ANSPs, developers and enterprise organisations, Altitude Angel is establishing new services to support the growth in the drone industry.

Altitude Angel was founded by Richard Parker in 2014 and is headquartered in Reading, UK. 

Altitude Angel’s developer platform is open and available to all at https://developers.altitudeangel.com

About GuardianUTM: 

GuardianUTM enables drone manufacturers and software developers to connect into a rich, dynamic source of accurate, authoritative and relevant information to support geofencing, while offering enhanced UTM capabilities such as a single interface to multi-country flight authorisation. 

The system is being deployed by NATS, the UK’s main air navigation service provider, and was demonstrated as part of ‘Operation Zenith’ in 2018, offering enhanced airport safeguarding and automated approvals to fly in controlled airspace. Altitude Angel is now bringing online functionality to enable drone pilots anywhere in the world to get 1-click access to controlled airspace. 

Its companion product, GuardianUTM O/S, supports all the functionality required to deliver national-grade drone traffic management capabilities to any country that wishes to safely unlock the potential of drones.