Outgoing SES CEO Steve Collar Shares the Reasons Behind His Surprise Departure

Steve Collar stepped down from his role as SES CEO at the end of June 2023. Photo via Steve Collar

Steve Collar has been the face of SES and O3b for just over a decade. However, in mid-June, Collar announced he was stepping down from the role as SES’s CEO after just over five years in the role. He had previously been the CEO of O3b for just over six years. Soon after, SES announced that talks to merge with Intelsat had been unsuccessful. Add to that, the company is also in the middle of an aggressive rollout of its O3b mPOWER satellites. Collar definitely could have picked a quieter time to leave SES.

In a wide ranging interview with Via Satellite, Collar reflects on his career, his time at SES, why it is now the right time to leave SES, whether his departure is connected to the Intelsat talks, and what might come next for him, as SES is set to embark on a new era, and search for a new CEO to lead the company into the rest of the decade.

VIA SATELLITE: Looking at your history you have spent 20+ years at New Skies Satellites, SES, and O3b. It is a long history that stretches back all the way to 1999. Why is this the time is right to move on? What are your thoughts on a personal level?

Collar: Scarily, it’s almost 30 years for me. I joined the satellite industry by accident in 1992, have never left and its been a love affair for that whole time. It’s an amazing industry full of brilliant people with incredible opportunities and great challenges. As a young engineer joining Matra Marconi Space and working as my first job on Eutelsat’s first HOTBIRD satellite, I would have said you were smoking something if you told me I would be the CEO of SES. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to lead this incredible company. But there is also a time for everything and I have always felt there would be a moment to pass the baton on to the next leader to take us forward. That moment is now.

VIA SATELLITE: You have been the CEO of SES for over five years. What are you most proud of? 

Collar: The last five years have been among the most dynamic in the commercial space industry with three massively disruptive events. As I leave SES, we are in a far stronger position than we were back in 2018. I am proud of that and it is an achievement of the entire company.

The first disruption, and this is something probably not recognized enough in the industry, was the end of 25 years of continuous growth in DTH and broadcast video. SES, Eutelsat, Intelsat, Telesat, Measat, Echostar and pretty much everyone in the industry in the 25 years leading up to 2018, were driven by significant growth in broadcast TV delivered by satellite. Substantially all of the revenue growth, cashflow and the resulting ability to invest was driven by the growth of TV subscribers and audiences which by the second half of the last decade had changed, with consumer behavior shifting and streaming platforms viable. SES needed a different path, to diversify, to reinvent growth. Now we sit with a balanced portfolio of 50/50 Networks and Video business, and a demonstrated ability to grow in data.

The second big disruption was COVID. It had a huge impact on our customers business, on supply chain within the industry explaining much of the delay that have seen with major projects in our industry – O3b mPOWER included. But there is also a huge challenge around company culture and mental health and wellbeing. Where do people work from and what does it mean to be part of a company and community? We are much more appreciative of and closer to our employees, our ‘SESers’, and I am incredibly proud of that. It is something really good that has come out of a very difficult period and it is still feels surreal to me that we all went through that.

The last big disruption is the rise of the Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), and the fact we have the two richest people on the planet investing in our industry. We can’t compete with the money that they will spend and don’t intend too. We have to be smart about how we prosper in the industry and win. I believe with SES’s O3b mPOWER operating in Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) and delivering multi-orbit services, we have a strategy and a plan that will enable us to compete and win in the segments that matter most to us.

So three massively disruptive events, but we sit here with a brand new constellation — O3b mPOWER — coming, the best video neighborhoods in the industry, a balance sheet that is the strongest in the industry having all but delivered C-band, a great acquisition with DRS GES and a really strong position in sovereign space and a bright future for SES.

VIA SATELLITE: It seems when looking at your career there is a symmetry going from New Skies through to O3B through to SES. There is a sense it kind of went full circle. Is that how you view it?

Collar: I can’t remember even making a conscious career choice. Opportunities have sometimes seemed right and they have come along at the right time. I always trusted my gut that things would work out. It doesn’t really feel any different now. I have loved my path so far and wouldn’t change it for the world. I am a big believer that good things happen and I have always been optimistic about what the future holds, maybe more now than at any other time.

VIA SATELLITE: SES has an interesting combination of GEO and MEO assets. Do you think it is well-positioned for the future to be one of the main global players in our industry?

Collar: One of the things I love and continue to love about SES is that we talk about purpose. Our purpose is to do the extraordinary in space to deliver amazing experiences everywhere on Earth. That is what we are doing, and our investments in MEO and GEO together put us in prime position to compete and win in the most valuable markets in our industry. Over the next few years I think we will see convergence in space. We have set out our stall to do the extraordinary in space, to master the space domain as a place to deploy life changing services from, and that puts SES in a strong position.

The dividing lines between satellite communications, Earth sensing, space sensing, data relay, positioning, and other services are going to blur and there will be opportunities for convergence. Given how well positioned we are in GEO and our privileged position in MEO with O3b mPOWER coming and over a decade experience in delivering multi-orbit services, SES is ready to embrace those opportunities. I am looking forward to the next chapter.

 VIA SATELLITE: How difficult will it be for the likes of an SES competing against the likes of SpaceX, Amazon going forward? Do you think there are prosperous futures for the likes of SES, Intelsat, Eutelsat and Telesat, or is there not enough room for them all?

Collar: The satellite world has changed fundamentally. With Starlink, and potentially Kuiper, we have what Simon Sinek calls ‘Worthy Rivals,’ companies that do some things better than us and show us where we can improve and grow. It is incredibly hard to compete against those businesses but to quote Tom Hanks in “A League of their Own,” “It is supposed to be hard. It is the hard that makes it great.” It should be challenging and inspiring and should drive us to be better for our customers.

You and I are both Liverpool football fans. If it was just a case of giving up because Manchester City spend more than everyone else, we would never have won the League or the Champions League. Jurgen Klopp talks about the need to do things differently and that is how I think about SES and the others that you refer to will need to find their paths. Inevitably, I think there will be consolidation and that is a good thing. The industry needs it. I don’t think all of those businesses are sustainable standalone. I was part of a business, New Skies, that was acquired by SES and I would argue that New Skies’ future as part of SES was much better than New Skies’ future as a standalone business. The same was true for O3b Networks. Consolidation is demonstrably a very good thing, when done well, and is something that is important for the industry.

VIA SATELLITE: Are we going to see Steve Collar back in the satellite industry, like Greg Wyler launching E-Space not long after OneWeb? 

Collar: The first thing I would say is I am not really leaving. It is the right time to be stepping down as CEO of SES. As should be obvious by now, I am a huge fan of everything that we are doing at SES so I am going to be supporting Ruy and the team and, even when that is done, I am going to transition into a role of number one fan and occasional tweeter on all things good in the industry.

Short term, my main focus is time with my wife and 17-year old daughter. I have been a CEO since 2011. People talk about being the CEO as a lonely job and I have never found it to be that, but it is all-consuming. You have this real sense of responsibility to drive the business forward and to give your best every day for the people working in the company. It is the best job in the world and I wouldn’t change it for a second. But my family have certainly not had my full attention, so now I am looking forward to getting schooled by my daughter in CrossFit and we have a summer of music festivals planned. After that, let’s see!

VIA SATELLITE: You talked about it being all consuming. Was there a sense of burnout?

Collar: No, not at all, just that all good things have a natural end and that this was just the right time. There is a really good book called “Legacy” which is a book about the All Blacks [New Zealand Rugby team] and that the role of an All Black is to leave the jersey in a better place than you found it. The All Blacks are the constant, much like SES, and we are incumbents of the jersey for a period of time. I’m a big fan of living with purpose and one of the things I have always found inspiring at O3b Networks and SES is being part of a company and an industry where you can genuinely impact people’s lives for the better. Whatever I do in the future, I want that, whether at a grand scale or in a very personal way. I get a lot of personal fulfillment through working with fantastic people and feeling like I can impact the world positively. There is a quote from Woodrow Wilson that was given to me once. “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision and a finer spirit of hope and achievement.” That massively resonates with me.

VIA SATELLITE: When did you start to thinking about leaving? 

Collar: I have never planned anything. This was the right time for me and for SES. It isn’t something that had been coming for awhile. It just feels like the right moment. It isn’t about me. It is about the company and making sure that the business is in a good place. I really feel that way. We are just about to get O3b mPOWER up and operational. I could not be more excited about that. At the end of this year, we are going to collect $3 billion from the almost 5-year project to repurpose C-band spectrum in the U.S. It recapitalizes SES and puts us in an enviable position compared with the rest of the industry. We have got the best team in the industry as well and I really believe that. I hear that from industry friends and colleagues. So, I am going to be cheering SES from the sidelines, supporting the team, and I am going to be really excited to see what happened next.  

VIA SATELLITE: Were you yourself very keen on a combination of Intelsat and SES? 

Collar: What happened with SES and Intelsat has nothing to do with the fact that I am stepping down as the CEO. I understand that people like to connect these things but they are not connected. I am on record as saying that it is a good thing for the industry to consolidate. Having been part of three acquisitions (New Skies, O3b Networks and DRS GES), done well consolidation is an important part of a business strategy, but it is not the strategy. It is something that can make the business better and SES is a great example of a business that has been improved by being a consolidator. SES is one of the largest satellite operators and it needs to drive that consolidation, but it should only do so if it makes sense for stakeholders and shareholders and that has to be the lens. Consolidation can be an important part of building the business and that had been demonstrably shown with SES.

VIA SATELLITE: Was there any disappointment that couldn’t do the deal with Intelsat?

Collar: [Laughs]. I see you are trying to draw me on this topic but I am not going to get into it!

VIA SATELLITE: As someone that has been in the industry for three decades, what are your takes on where we are as an industry and the changes you have seen in our industry?

Collar: It has been a love affair for me personally. There are a lot of good people in the satellite industry. It can sometimes feel a little insular, and sometimes that is too comfortable, but it is a fabulous industry. We are launching satellites into an incredibly harsh environment. The technological challenges are extreme and it means so much to people. I saw that during my time at Matra Marconi Space. I was in a conference room watching the first launch of Ariane 5 and there were a bunch of people that worked on Cluster, a mission that had been worked on for seven years, and it was lost on launch. The room was like a funeral. There were grown men crying and it just bought home to me very early on in my career the importance of what we were doing. Space is hard, and the hard that makes it great. We should never take it for granted. I never get more excited than at a launch because I have seen what happens when it doesn’t go well! I have this combination of enormous energy and excitement mixed with this slight feeling of dread that it could all go horribly wrong. It’s enormously inspiring.

The industry has changed over the last 30 years but the thing that continues to inspire is the ability for us to touch billions of people. I find it amazing that a billion people rely on SES for their video content every single day. And I am one of them. If SES didn’t exist, I and 1 billion other people around the world wouldn’t get television. That is enormous impactful, as was the first day we turned on carrier-grade services in the Cook Islands, making the islands more viable and giving young Cook Islanders the choice to stay on the islands for their further education. It is the stories that sustain this industry. Every time, we have a positive impact on people’s lives, it makes me feel better about the industry I work in. We have an incredible ability to touch lives for the better because of the reach we have from space. Space is a fantastically important domain that we have to preserve for future generations, to make space sustainable and keep doing this amazing work we do.

VIA SATELLITE: And finally the most important question. You mentioned summer music festivals. Who are you going to see? Who are you most excited about seeing?

Collar: I have a long list. We have Rock Werchter which is the Belgian rock festival — four days in a muddy field. I am looking forward to Stormzy. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are playing. Lil Nas X. My daughter is massively into Ashnikko. The Arctic Monkeys are playing. Queens of the Stone Age. But the tickets I am most proud of scoring are for Lana Del Rey in Hyde Park. My daughter is a huge fan!

VIA SATELLITE: We have tickets too so we might see you there …