TracPlus, the operational data layer for aerial firefighting, has appointed Audrey Cheng as Chief Technology Officer.
Cheng will lead the engineering team behind the platform used by agencies and operators to run and account for their aerial firefighting operations.
The appointment comes as TracPlus continues to undertake increasingly advanced technical work, bringing together operational data from a wide range of sources alongside environmental and geospatial data.
The platform is designed to turn this information into actionable insights for aerial firefighting agencies and operators.
Platform development continues
TracPlus develops its technology by working alongside agencies and operators, observing how they operate and listening to their requirements.
The company plans to continue developing its offering on this basis, adding further processing and context to the TracPlus Mission Platform through its own algorithms.
Delivering this next stage of platform development will form a significant part of Cheng’s remit as Chief Technology Officer.
Technology leadership experience
Cheng is an executive technology leader with experience managing product, design and engineering teams from startup stage through to global scale.
She previously served as Vice President of Product at payments unicorn Pushpay during its period of hypergrowth.
Cheng was also Chief Product Officer at SnapComms, which was acquired by critical events company Everbridge, and Chief Technology Officer at Imagr.
In 2019, she was recognised by Leading Women in Product, ANZ, for excellence in product leadership.
She said: “Right now, so much of the best decision-making in agencies and operators sits in the experience of the people who’ve been doing this for decades, judgment built up season after season.
“What we are building is transparency into what factors into those decisions, so that experience isn’t the only thing carrying the weight. I’ve spent my career scaling technology teams that turn complexity into something usable.
“Here, that means building the layer that takes a million position reports a day and turns them into planning and operational decision support and reporting that agencies can trust, in the moment and season over season.
“I’ve already spent time with the teams on the ground, seeing firsthand the pressure they operate under, and can see that TracPlus is in the best position to help.
“I’m excited to join the team at TracPlus to support agencies and operators in the critical missions they run every season. We are building the technology that gives them confidence in the decisions they’re making.
“TracPlus has already earned the trust of agencies doing the hardest work in fire, and I’m looking forward to working with a team who are passionate about the mission and helping the people that rely on it.”
Todd O’Hara, CEO of TracPlus, said: “Aerial operations have grown more complex, and our technology has grown with them. We take in more than a million position reports a day, from real-time feeds and historical datasets that rarely talk to one another. That is today.
“We are adding more sources, more context, and more ways of putting it in front of the people who need it.
“Agencies don’t want more data. They want it fused together with enough context to be useful in the moment and to shape how they prepare for next season. Audrey stepping into the CTO role means we keep building on what we have and extend it into the work we have planned.
“She has scaled technology teams in businesses where the platform carries real operational weight, including critical communications, and she has already made a real difference here in a short time. We are very happy to have her aboard.”
