Chris Larmour
Who is Chris Larmour?
Chris Larmour is one of the founders and CEO of Orbital Express Launch Ltd. (aka Orbex Space).
He founded the company in 2015, along with Danish architect Kristian Von Bengtson, initially calling it Moonspike Ltd. Originally they tried to crowdfund to send a rocket to the Moon, but failed to achieve their target.
Eventually, Chris Larmour and Kristian Von Bengtson changed the company name and they were successful in raising UK Government funding to build their Prime rocket and launch it from a launchpad in Sutherland, Scotland.
Mr Larmour’s background and education
Chris Larmour isn’t from an aerospace or engineering background. He did not even attend university after leaving school in 1986, but in 2003 at the age of 36, he completed a 1-year online course at INSEAD – a French business school and research institute to acquire an MBA in Business Management. Then from 2004 to 2014, he has been a chief marketing officer across senior communications businesses in Europe – Radioplan GmbH, SwissQual AG, Actix, Celcite.
It’s not clear what Chris Larmour did between leaving education in 1986 and 2003, but given the direction he followed, it is likely he was in a military role, most probably in a Signals Regiment. This would explain the expensive online course in 2003 as it is quite standard practice in certain aspects of the military to put time-served personnel through further education upon leaving. This sort of military service would also give a good understanding of satellite communications.
Management and Consulting
In March 2012 Chris Larmour became a managing partner of Larmour Consulting GMBH, which specialises in management consulting, software development and export sales.
A year before founding Orbex Space, Larmour took a Strategic Marketing Management course at Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
His LinkedIn profile says he speaks 3 languages: English, German and Italian. He has several patents in the field of mobile radio communications.
Chris Larmour lives permanently in Munich, Germany.