Disaster Technology Startup Cornea Names Margot Preuss as New CEO
Disaster Technology Startup Cornea Names Margot Preuss as New CEO
Preuss will lead company to scale wildfire and natural disaster management data platform
NEW YORK, NY, October 22, 2021 -- Hangar, the investment fund that builds and launches technology companies in and for regulated industries, announced today that it has appointed Margot Preuss to lead its disaster management startup, Cornea, as Chief Executive Officer. Focused on modernizing planning, mitigation, response and recovery processes around climate change-related disasters, Cornea will continue to create cutting-edge data products under Preuss’s leadership.
“Margot is a dynamic, innovative leader and it’s fantastic to have her at the helm of Cornea,” said Josh Mendelsohn, Managing Partner at Hangar. “As climate change continues to spur increasingly frequent and severe disasters that stretch our resources and capabilities, Margot and the Cornea team are committed to revolutionizing the tools that response teams rely on so that we can tackle these incidents more efficiently and effectively.”
Cornea is leveraging its automated, cloud-based data technology to first tackle disaster management around the ongoing wildfire crisis. By applying proven fire science and machine learning, Cornea can help predict in near-real-time the scope, scale and behavior of wildland fires. Working with the United States Forest Service, Cornea synthesizes large volumes of complex data to enhance wildland firefighting teams’ situational awareness to equip teams with smarter tools to tackle live fires and also more accurately plan for resource allocation and budgeting in the pre- and post-fire season. Particularly as wildfires become larger and more expensive to battle and pose greater threats to communities, Cornea’s technology can fundamentally improve how fires are fought.
“The urgency of the climate crisis cannot be understated. I’m eager to join Cornea in developing data-driven technology solutions that can supercharge our ability to manage disasters,” said Margot Preuss, CEO of Cornea. “It’s an honor to be part of Cornea’s pioneering team and the broader Hangar ecosystem of incredible technology, policy and regulatory experts.”
Preuss joins Cornea after serving as Head of Enterprise at Pangea Money Transfer, a payments platform offering international money transfer services. With her deep technology and financial expertise, Preuss is tasked with leading Cornea’s continued growth and development.