Who we are

GE-Data staff members have been involved in geospatial projects in more than 33 different countries

Laurent Layrol

Business development

Olivier Francois

Operations and production

Olivier P. Francois

Innovation and Data Science

Laurent is in charge of commercial activities and worldwide business development. He has more than 20 years of experience in the geospatial industry, working in more than 20 different developing countries as an expert in applied Remote Sensing, GIS and Statistics applied to Natural Resources Management and Agriculture. Based in the U.S. since 1997, he has managed research programs with USDA and NASA and many projects with the United Nations, the World Bank, IFC and large privately owned agri-businesses.
Laurent graduated from ENGREF with a Master’s degree in Natural Resources Management and Geo-spatial technologies and from INA-PG with a Master’s degree in Agri-Business management.

Olivier is in charge of production activities and data management. Prior to GE-Data, Olivier worked for a private company active in GIS and Remote Sensing for the agricultural sector. He served as a project leader for numerous high-visibility remote sensing projects. He consulted with various institutes and private companies, assessing needs and leading the development of GIS-based management tools. He has been in charge of setting up remote sensing data supply chains, application development and research activities.
Olivier holds a Master of Science degree in Agronomy from one of the leading postgraduate schools (ENSA Rennes) in France with a specialization in geomatics applied to land management.

Olivier is in charge of Innovation and Data Science. He started his career as an analyst at the World Bank Group on several development projects. He then directed the market analysis and price forecasting on biofuels worldwide for PIRA in New York for several years before working as a consultant for various institutes and private companies, assessing needs and leading the statistical analysis on various complex development, environmental and agricultural issues. He graduated an MSc in Engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique in France and holds a MSc in Applied Economics from the University of Maryland.