Clearing the skies from drones

Major General (ret) Claude MEIER

Major General (ret) Claude Meier is a former Swiss Air Force fighter pilot and flight instructor with over 4,000 hours of flight experience on several aircraft, including the Pilatus PC-7 and PC-9, the Northrop F-5E/F Tiger II, the BAE Hawk Mk 66, and the Boeing F/A-18C/D Hornet on which he qualified in 1996 with the US Navy Strike Fighter Squadron 106 (VFA-106) in Jacksonville, Florida. Alongside his regular flying duties, he was a founding member of the PC-7 Team and led it for two years, in 1998 and 1999.

​

In 2003, while attending the Joint Defense College (École de Guerre) in Paris, he concurrently earned a Diplôme d'Études Approfondies (DEA) in historical methodology from the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He subsequently held various positions within the Air Force and at the military-strategic level. In 2013, he earned a Master of Advanced Studies in Security Policy and Crisis Management from ETH Zurich.

​

From 2016 to 2020, he served as Chief of the Armed Forces Staff and from 2021 to 2024, he was seconded to the Geneva-based centers dedicated to peace and security policy where he played a pivotal role in initiating a diplomatic dialogue on the Arctic.

​

Meier is currently the president of the Centre d'Histoire et de Prospective Militaires (CHPM) in Pully, Switzerland.

Max Moldenhauer

Max Moldenhauer is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Sunfish Partners, an pre-seed focused venture capital fund that backs space and defense tech startups from across Central and Eastern Europe. An entrepreneur-turned-investor, Max has co-founded several companies and has spent more than 15 years as an active business angel. Prior to launching Sunfish, he headed mobile investments at Project A Ventures. Max holds a diploma in Business & Management from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. 

Thomas McCarthy

Served in US Armour and Cavalry units in Germany, US, Korea, and Southwest Asia in both peace and war. Commanded from platoon through battalion level. Served as an operations, plans and training officer at battalion and brigade. Ran an armoured division tactical command post (DTAC) in combat. Composed and coordinated a new 180,000-soldier, multinational corps war plan including the validation exercise. Retired to join the business world as the business development vice president for a worldwide manufacturing company and helped restructure a subsidiary as board member. Concluded full-time business career as an area manager for a large, international defence corporation.