John Hanke is the founder and CEO of Niantic, Inc., which builds real world experiences that foster fun, exploration, discovery and social interaction. Niantic is the developer of Ingress, the augmented reality mobile game which utilizes GPS technology to fuel a sci-fi story encompassing the entire world that has seen more than 13 million downloads worldwide. Niantic has recently partnered with Nintendo and The Pokemon Company on a new-ground breaking project for mobile devices called Pokémon GO.

Originally incubated as a start-up within Google, Niantic was founded by John as an independent group dedicated to exploring new kinds of mobile applications at the intersection of entertainment, location and social.

Prior to Niantic, John founded and served as CEO of Keyhole, Inc. which was acquired by Google in 2004 where it relaunched as Google Earth. At Google, John led the ‘Geo' group and was responsible for innovative projects, including Google Maps, Google Earth, and more.