Jat Brainch, Inmarsat’s new chief commercial and product officer (CCPO), is confident she can blaze a trail for Inmarsat over the next few years. The operator is in the midst of a reinvention under new CEO Rajeev Suri with recently announced plans for a small LEO constellation alongside its ORCHESTRA and ELERA announcements.
On strategy: “Our approach is the opposite of finding customers for a technology. We start from our understanding of the customer and design everything we do from that perspective. My mantra is simple: who are our customers and what do they need?”
Explore the Show Daily 2021 Day 1 Issue
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
On competition: “In one word: focus. We design, build, and operate our networks with a very clear focus on what we need to do to best serve commercial mobility and government customers. I don’t believe that any company is entitled to a ‘fair share.’ We have to prove ourselves every day.”
On LEO and ORCHESTRA: “GEO networks are and will remain optimal for globally available IFC services. That’s why we are building ORCHESTRA to overlay additional LEO and terrestrial capabilities on top of our GEO satellites. GEO gives our customers the assurance of coverage wherever they fly, while the terrestrial and LEO components will add capacity into hot spots.”
On COVID’s impact on aviation: “We don’t believe it impacts the long-term trajectory. It has and will continue to impact the timing of this growth. Current forecasts suggest aviation could return to 2019 levels in 2023, so this effectively shifts growth plans for all operators to the right.”
On the satellite industry’s inflection point: “Customer needs are evolving rapidly, especially post pandemic. The technology and its capabilities tend to take strides forward, materially changing the art of the possible in ever faster cycles.” VS
