Management Team
Simon Drake
CEO and President
As CEO and President of the SCX, Mr. Drake is focused on project planning, developing business models (including the potential of space commodities in the near and long-term based on extracting space resources), and focussing on capital-raising and management.
Mr. Drake is also:
- Co-Founder and Managing Director of Space Ventures Investors, Ltd (founded in 2014 in the United Kingdom). Space Ventures Investors is a shareholder driven company that invests in joint ventures and innovative space companies.
- Co-Founder and CEO of the Lunar Resources Registry UG (founded in 2020 in Germany). The Lunar Resources Registry offers a service to selected clients (e.g. space agencies and space resources companies) to register at specific locations on the Lunar surface the right to explore and extract resources. Registrations are straightforward, transparent, tradeable, and are compliant with Space Laws, e.g. UNOOSA. Commercial activity is planned for Q2 2021. A Beta Portfolio of Resources is under development.
- A member of an expert panel that selects European Earth Observation start-ups for the European Commission’s Copernicus Incubation Program.
- A regular participant in various ESA workshops, including Space Resources.
His experience includes working in investment banking, for boutique investment firms, management consultancies, public relations, start-ups, and in marketing companies.
Visit Simon Drake on LinkedIn.
Brian Peterson
Treasurer
Brian Peterson served as lead executive for quantitative trading in multiple Chicago proprietary trading firms, including DV Trading and Hehmeyer Trading, and has also traded in Foreign Exchange, Agriculture, and other commodities. Not only has Mr. Peterson been a top-25 market maker in oil and gas markets, he has also participated as a designated market maker in new product launches on several global commodities exchanges.
Mr. Peterson teaches quantitative trading systems development in the graduate programs at the University of Washington Department of Computational Finance and Risk Management and in the Financial Engineering department at the University of Illinois. He is a sought-after speaker on quantitative finance with several publications on portfolio risk and portfolio construction. He has authored or co-authored more than ten open source packages for using R in Finance. He co-founded the annual R/Finance quantitative finance conference in Chicago and leads R’s participation in Google Summer of Code.
Mr. Peterson was previously an executive at global management consulting firms, including a Fortune 1000 firm during the 90’s Internet boom. As a management consultant, he advised 8 of the top 10 global banks, global brokerages, nearly half of the top 25 asset managers, and clients in other industries such as health care, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, services, and technology.
At SCX, Mr. Peterson is focused on partnering with international commodities exchanges, designing space commodity futures contracts, regulatory oversight, and identifying market-makers.
David Hurst
Secretary
David Hurst is a technology entrepreneur, having founded multiple successful technology companies. He also has over 30 years of experience in software engineering, developing complex systems, managing software development teams, and delivering products. He has performed technical due diligence and business strategy assessments for venture capital firms and advanced technology start-ups. In 2013, he left the IT industry to follow his passion for space exploration. Mr. Hurst founded Orbital Transports to develop the space logistics and orbital infrastructure technologies needed for the emerging economy of space resources—and ultimately support human settlement of the Solar System. Mr. Hurst performs systems engineering and project management for small satellite space missions. He is a contributor to the INCOSE Space Systems Working Group CubeSat System Reference Model and develops MBSE practices for small satellite missions. As an advocate of space-related and space-scalable business, he founded the NewSpace Chicago community of space entrepreneurs and others engaged in building commercial space ventures in Chicago. Mr. Hurst graduated from Northwestern University with a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and has received four patents.
At SCX, Mr. Hurst is focused on engineering for launch, docking and transfer systems, technical project planning, and identifying and coordinating industry partners