Robbie Schingler

Robbie Schingler is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Planet Labs, the Earth-observation company he helped build around a simple but ambitious idea: using satellites to image the entire planet frequently and make that information accessible and actionable. Today, Planet operates a large constellation of imaging satellites and provides data and analytics used by businesses, governments and researchers around the world.

At Planet, Schingler oversees the company’s long-term strategic direction, including product, corporate development, impact and financing activities. He has also played a central role in expanding Planet’s capabilities through acquisitions, including BlackBridge in 2015 and Boundless in 2019, and previously served as Managing Director of Planet Europe.

Before co-founding Planet, Schingler spent nine years at NASA, where he helped establish the Small Spacecraft Office at NASA Ames Research Center and later served as Chief of Staff in the Office of the Chief Technologist at NASA Headquarters. Planet was founded in 2010 by Schingler, Will Marshall and Chris Boshuizen, all of whom came out of the NASA ecosystem.

Schingler has been a prominent advocate for using commercial satellite imagery to address challenges ranging from climate change and deforestation to agriculture, disaster response and national security. More recently, he has focused on the intersection of Earth-observation data and artificial intelligence, including the emerging concept of “planetary intelligence”—using satellites and AI to understand changes on Earth in increasingly close to real time.

He holds an MBA from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in Space Studies. His career reflects a combination of aerospace engineering, entrepreneurship and strategy, with a particular emphasis on applying space technology to problems on Earth.