Michel de Rosen in his short time in the satellite industry has been a breath of fresh air. Over the course of his six years at Eutelsat, de Rosen has built an impressive legacy for someone who was new to the satellite industry back in 2009. He accepts the award on behalf of his colleagues: “Most of them are not known by the outside world, especially the members of the technical teams. So, I consider this a recognition of the work done over the years by all my Eutelsat colleagues.”
“When I Wake Up”
“When I wake up in the morning, I think about Eutelsat. When I go to sleep, I think of Eutelsat. In my dreams, I think of Eutelsat. I have become Eutelsat.” De Rosen says he no longer has the energy the role deserves: “This company deserves not just 100 percent of my energy, but 200 percent. We must not be behind the curve, we must be ahead of it.”
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The Major Moves
Eutelsat had “two large holes” when de Rosen joined — Latin America and Asia. The company filled both with Satmex and Eutelsat 65 West A in Latin America, and GE-23 (now Eutelsat 172A) plus Eutelsat 70B in Asia. He also led the industry through WRC-2015 as ESOA chairman. “Many observers thought our chance of prevailing was low because of the appetite, power and wealth of the GSMA companies. The final result is very close to what we recommended.”
Facebook and Broadband in Africa
In 2015 Eutelsat signed with Facebook to connect the ‘un-connected’ in Africa. “We worked day and night to present to them a proposal that would be really convincing.” De Rosen expects 600 million Africans to be connected by 2020, up from 160 million today.
On LEO constellations: “We were approached to become a shareholder of OneWeb and declined. We considered the level of risk was too high. I think it would be a huge mistake to define ‘new space’ as MEO and LEO, and paint GEO with an ‘old space’ brush. New space IS GEO and LEO and MEO.”
Disappointments
De Rosen identifies 2011 as a low point: “I did not anticipate the industry slowdown well enough. That is a miss, my miss.” His worst memory was the loss of the Eutelsat W3B satellite in 2010.
“The major challenge for industry is to find a new relevance for satellite and explain how satellites remain invaluable in 2016, 2020, 2025 — in broadcast, in broadband, for government services, for new applications like IoT or airline connectivity.” VS
Mark Holmes is the editorial director of Via Satellite and Avionics magazines.
