Paul Whitaker is a director of business development at Global Fishing Watch with expertise in maritime remote sensing. Paul has worked in earth observation for over a decade, using satellites to detect oil spills, monitor ice movements, and identify dark vessels at sea. He has developed and sold a wide variety of satellite services around the world, always focusing on marine applications with a positive environmental impact. Paul’s work in addressing illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has included projects with governments, NGOs, and the private sector on all seven continents. His expertise is in applications of synthetic aperture radar and optical satellite imagery, but he has also joined active IUU patrols in places like The Gambia and Gabon.

Paul has been leading GFW’s data acquisition and technology partnership efforts as well as the commercialization of select data streams in aligned channels. He spent ten years at Kongsberg Satellite Services as a Director of Sales and then Director of Strategy for their earth observation services business prior to joining GFW two years ago. Paul holds an M.S. in hydrology from the University of Arizona, an M.B.A. from Babson College, and a B.S. in environmental geology from The Colorado College.