James Spokes

James Spokes is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Monarcha, a Y Combinator-backed AI-native GIS platform based in San Francisco, USA. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Cornell University, where he led Cornell Digital Tech & Innovation, the institution's largest undergraduate engineering project team. Prior to founding Monarcha, Spokes built complex multi-agency alert systems at Mark43, gaining significant exposure to geographic information systems, and worked as a product designer for the Station-F backed startup Loop. Outside of software development, he is an accomplished photographer who has published books and won prizes at the International Photography Awards, while also authoring technical industry articles on georeferencing and securing critical minerals. His current professional focus centers on leveraging large language models and geospatial artificial intelligence to simplify complex mapping workflows for modern enterprise applications.