Sponsored Session – Turning Constellations Into Networks

• Tim Farrar has over 25 years consulting experience across the telecom and satellite industries, having worked for leading technical and strategy consultancies in both the UK and US. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge, and since 2002 has run his own consulting company, Telecom, Media and Finance Associates, Inc., based in Menlo Park, CA, which specializes in the technical and financial analysis of wireless and satellite ventures. He was also President of the Mobile Satellite Users Association (MSUA) from 2006 to 2015 and from 2010 until 2014 served as an independent board member for NTS, Inc., a publicly traded CLEC, based in Lubbock, TX. Since September 2016 he has been an independent director of Marlink, the largest independent distributor of satellite services to the maritime industry.
• Over the last 20+ years, Tim has worked for numerous operators, suppliers and investors, including several prominent Silicon Valley companies, on market analysis, business planning, product requirements specification and due diligence assignments across the satellite and telecom sectors.

Michael Abad-Santos is chief executive officer at BridgeComm, Inc. He brings more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications and satellite industries with a focus on the government market sectors, both domestic and international. Michael previously held the role of senior vice president of strategy and business development at BridgeComm. Prior to BridgeComm, he served as chief commercial officer at satellite communications solutions provider Trustcomm, Inc. before joining LeoSat Enterprises as senior vice president, Americas, overseeing commercial activities, strategy development and execution in the Americas region as well as government activities worldwide. In addition to helping secure pre-series A investments of $20 million, he helped secure two strategic investment partners and more than $2B million in pre-launch memorandums of understanding (MOUs) for commercial services.

Michael also held various leadership roles at Inmarsat over a 10-year period, including serving as senior vice president of its global government division. A sought-after subject matter expert and speaker, he has presented at industry-leading events including SpaceCom, ITEXPO and MILCOM among others and is a consultant working with Department of Defense leadership on the intersection of software engineering and space and weapons systems development.

Randall Barney is the Director of the Certification and Membership programs for the World Teleport Association. Responsible for membership management and services, he is the project manager for WTA’s continuing program of research as well as the Teleport Certification program.  He is host and producer of WTA’s Executive Dialogue video interview series conducted at major industry events around the world, moderator of the Satellite Workshop at the annual PTC conference in Hawaii, frequent moderator at Space Tech Expo European and producer of the annual Ground Segment Forum and Teleport Awards for Excellence at Satellite.

Dr. Clemens Kaiser brings along more than 20 years of experience in the space business. Between 1999 and 2013 he served as a Managing Director / COO at Kayser-Threde GmbH, a systems house specialized in high-technology solutions for aerospace and science, where he was responsible for the development of  KAP (Kayser-Threde Arianespace Platform). From 2014 – 2018, Kaiser was Director Programme Development at EUMETSAT, an intergovernmental organization founded supplying weather and climate-related satellite data, where he was involved into the sentinel 3 program.

Clemens has an in-depth knowledge of system engineering and program management for the development of complex operational space-based infrastructures.

Lawrence (Larry) Paul is the VP of Corporate Business Development at Inmarsat based in Washington, DC. Larry has worked in the satellite industry for 20+ years in senior roles at Airbus, Vizada, Telenor Satellite Services, Lockheed Martin, and Comsat. He started his career in the satellite hardware team at Mitsubishi International. Larry’s responsibilities have ranged from business development to product management to capture and proposals in both the commercial and government satellite service markets. Larry has worked with most of the world’s major satellite operators.

Ronald van der Breggen, Chief Commercial Officer of Rivada Space Networks, has more than 30 years’ experience in the terrestrial data-networking and satellite industry where he worked in leading management positions.  A native of the Netherlands, van der Breggen began his telecom career at Dutch Telecom incumbent KPN.  From 2003 to 2013, he served as Vice President Customer Account Management at SES, one of the world’s leading satellite operators.  Having worked in both the fiber and satellite industries, Ronald knows first-hand the traditional limitation for data on satellites as compared to fiber.  With Rivada’s unique constellation network this will now change as it brings opportunities for customers they never had before.  Ronald holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Nijenrode University as well as a Master’s in Business Telecommunications from the Technical University of Delft, both in the Netherlands.