Each year,
Via Satellite honors the top executive performances of the past 12 months. The 2007 nominees include three CEOs who guided their respective companies to successful financial years as well as laid the groundwork for continued long-term success and the three leaders of a team that waged a successful campaign to preserve the use of C-band spectrum for the satellite industry.
Matthew Desch, CEO, Iridium Satellite
Matt Desch joined Iridium in September 2006 and under his leadership, Iridium has posted steady growth in customers and markets served. Iridium’s 2007 third quarter was the company’s best ever in terms of subscriber additions and revenues, as the satellite operator benefited from a combination of new initiatives and the struggles of one of its main competitors.
Iridium posted gains around the world. Traffic in North America surged as Iridium unveiled an aggressive new pricing plan designed to take advantage of churn from other satellite communications service providers. Usage in the United States jumped 71 percent during the summer, and Canadian traffic nearly doubled in the same period. In the Asia-Pacific region, traffic improved nearly 50 percent throughout 2007, and in Australia Iridium added thousands of customers who switched from other mobile satellite service providers.
Iridium also has seen success across its major vertical markets. Short-burst data service revenue jumped 214 percent due to growth in the machine-to-machine market, with subscriber activations increasing 317 percent over 2006. Customer additions in the aeronautical and maritime sector also showed strong gains.
Among the key contracts signed by Iridium in 2007 are deals with the U.K. Ministry of Defense, Continental Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airlines, the New Zealand Ministry of Health and the Australian Rail Track Corp. Iridium recently established relationships with Tesacom and Stratos Global Corp. in order to expand its business in South America, and in Europe, EADS subsidiary Astrium Services signed an agreement to become a value-added reseller of Iridium communication equipment and services.
Desch also is overseeing the development of Iridium’s next-generation satellite constellation, dubbed Next. The new satellites will feature an IP-based architecture to leverage broad-based technology enhancements from the industry and offer customers an enhanced array of services. Iridium has signed contracts with six partners for the design and development phase of the new network.
Amiram Levinberg, Chairman & CEO, Gilat Satellite Networks
Amiram Levinberg was one of the founders of Gilat Satellite Networks in 1987 and served in various senior management roles for 16 years before leaving the company. But he returned as chairman and CEO in 2005 and led Gilat to one of its most successful years in 2007.
Prior to Levinberg’s return, Gilat had suffered through financial and market-performance challenges, but in the 2007 second quarter, the company recorded revenues of $70.3 million, its highest in five years. Under his leadership, Gilat has enjoyed eight consecutive quarters of revenue and income growth through September 2007 and also consolidated its U.S. operations, expanded its global presence and market share, opened a new complimentary wireless business unit and launched its latest generation VSAT platform.
During 2007, major VSAT networks deployed by Gilat included a 6,500-site network for Russia’s Ministry of Education to bring Internet connectivity to Russian schools, networks for Sibirtelecom and North-West Telecom to bring telephony and broadband Internet services to remote regions in Siberia and Russia’s northwestern region, and a network for Russia’s largest electric utility, FSK, to power data acquisition and telephony applications at 650 sites.
Gilat also supplied a turnkey solution to support Nigeria’s elections, which included the deployment of a broadband satellite network comprising more than 1,000 solar-paneled VSATs as well as managed hub services. Australia’s Optus continued its deployment of a SkyEdge VSAT network to serve thousands more sites under the Australian government’s broadband programs, and Gilat’s Spacenet subsidiary teamed with Verizon Business to deliver a broadband satellite network to 5,000 U.S. Postal Service locations to support on-demand, back-up communications as well as portable communications for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service fleet.
Levinberg also oversaw the accelerated development of the SkyEdge 2 VSAT platform, which is based on DVB-S2 and DVB-RCS to provide higher efficiencies and full adaptivity for both the inbound and outbound channels.
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