The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has appointed industry veteran Peter Rabley as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Rabley comes to the role following a long career in the private, governmental and not-for-profit sectors.

“I am excited and honoured to be appointed as OGC’s CEO,” said Peter Rabley. “OGC is well positioned to build on the incredible 30-year legacy by responding to the ever-increasing rate of change seen in technology and society alike.”

“Opportunities and challenges have never been more apparent, and I see tremendous potential for growth in new markets around the globe. This is the time of geospatial.”

Prashant Shukle, Chair of the OGC Board of Directors, said he is “particularly excited to have Peter leading OGC”.

“Peter has a proven track record in the public, private, and not-for-profit areas of the geospatial industry, and closely aligns with what our key stakeholders and partners were telling us they wanted in a CEO,” Shukle said.

“The OGC Board took the time to get this selection right, and we are very excited about how Peter fits with our plans for a reinvigorated and repositioned OGC.”

Rabley has built various businesses including ILS, an enterprise software firm that provided property taxation, registration and mapping solutions to governments globally. After its acquisition by Thomson Reuters, he became Vice President for Global Business Development and Strategy at Thomson Reuters.

Peter remains on the board of PLACE and also serves on the board of the Radiant Earth Foundation, Meridia and Microbuild. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Arts.

This year marks the OGC’s 30th anniversary. The organisation says it is “modernising to respond to a global economy that increasingly uses geospatial technologies across so many domains and applications”.