The Air Force scientist who co-founded Hedera Mance Harmon (@ManceHarmon) started as a US Air Force research scientist in machine intelligence and later taught computer science at the Air Force Academy. He then managed the development of a missile defense simulator used to study protection against nuclear ballistic missiles. He co-founded @hedera with Leemon Baird (@leemonbaird), who invented the hashgraph algorithm. Harmon shaped the council model, where a set group of large organizations governs the network behind hedera-hashgraph:native instead of open voting. He has chaired the Hedera Council since July 2025. Last week, he also took over @hashgraph, the software company building for Hedera, as executive director and interim CEO, with Eric Piscini (@episcini) stepping back to a senior advisor role.