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Following the TrendThe shift toward non-engineer CEOs is a natural evolution that follows other technical industries from railroads and airlines to telephony and software, analysts say.
The first 20 years of the satellite industry — well into the 1980s — were focused on ensuring that the technology would work, Slye says. As the technology became better established, the focus began to change to allow for market and customer considerations. “They are now focused in a much more balanced way on the financial requirements and also on market and customer requirements,” she says. “Those three elements tend to coalesce.”
The clearest example of this new paradigm in leadership came in April 2005 when Intelsat, the world’s largest provider of Fixed Satellite Services and which had just been acquired by private equity firms, hired David McGlade as CEO. At 44, McGlade became the youngest person ever to run Intelsat and the first non-engineer. He also was new to satellites, having spent his 24-year career in cable and wireless telephony in a series of entrepreneurial and leadership roles. His specialty was bringing new technologies to market and overseeing converged services to customers. McGlade’s leadership was formed early. At 27, he was promoted to president of Cable Ad Net, which was acquired by Liberty Media. He is a former regional president of Sprint PCS and was CEO of O2 UK (previously BT Cellnet) before joining Intelsat.
McGlade’s main charge at Intelsat is to strengthen the company’s financial performance and customer service. “We’re doing more aggressive product development and getting the most out of our satellites,” McGlade says. “I’ve been on the cutting edge of technology. I want to see us continue to be creative and innovative and not take unnecessary risks to customers and shareholders. I want a lot of rigor in deciding what’s proven.”
With former PanAmSat President and COO James Frownfelter, an aeronautical engineer, hired as Intelsat’s COO, McGlade said the pair’s leadership creates “a balanced team here now.” As for pleasing both customers and shareholders, “It doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive goals,” McGlade says. “We can run a much more efficient company, bringing down costs in some areas by as much as 90 percent, and if we do it well, we can get better customer satisfaction.”
Like other business executives, McGlade is quick to acknowledge engineers as the backbone of the industry.
“Even though I am not an engineer, I do celebrate the wonderful legacy we have at Intelsat,” McGlade says. “It all began with technology, and I do not in any way want to diminish the accomplishments our engineers have had. That’s something that is in the life blood of Intelsat and in the very technical world we live in, we have to have that technical acumen.”
McGlade sees much of his role as the importance of leading Intelsat employees. More specifically, he wants them to become customer-centric. “Once you get all employees on that path, they become evangelists to leveraging technology to the benefit of customers,” he says. “That’s a very powerful thing a company can do. I want them focused on customer concerns — how to help them grow in product development, quality of service and setting the right expectations. It’s about bringing everybody into a more sophisticated view of the world.”
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