Intelsat CEO Steve Spengler. Photo: Intelsat

Last week, Intelsat made the surprise announcement that CEO Steve Spengler plans to retire. Spengler has been Intelsat CEO for almost seven years, and he plans to step down once the company completes Chapter 11 financial restructuring and selects the next CEO. 

Via Satellite contacted Spengler via email and asked him questions about his decision to leave Intelsat after 18 years with the company. The following contains both our questions and his responses.

VIA SATELLITE: Given that Intelsat is emerging from a difficult and challenging period, when and how did you make the decision to leave at this particular time?

Spengler: This decision has been on my mind for some time and it certainly wasn’t an easy one to make. There is never a perfect time for this kind of transition. I felt it was important to stay for as long as I could to see Intelsat through its financial restructuring and the development of our next-gen software-defined 5G network strategy.

As we are nearing our emergence from financial restructuring, it seems like the right moment to move on so that work can begin on identifying my successor.

VIA SATELLITE: What are you most proud of during your time as CEO of Intelsat? How do you reflect on your time with the company? 

Spengler: What has always excited me about the satellite communications sector is that we provide critical services to places in the world and people on the move, where other telecommunications technologies cannot reach, or cannot do so economically. Connecting and enabling people, businesses and communities has always been part of Intelsat’s mission and we have a dedicated team of people in the company committed to achieving this.

While we have advanced our services consistently over the years, there is so much more to do. In many parts of the world there is a lack of communications infrastructure to connect remote areas and to enable the potential of people who live there. This is why I am so excited about the unified 5G network that we are building. This network will enable the right services and economics to help our mobile network operator partners close business cases and expand the reach of their networks and help us to advance towards the goal of universal broadband connectivity.  

VIA SATELLITE: Do you believe you have left the company in good shape for your successor as Intelsat heads into a pivotal decade?

Spengler: We have accomplished many things over the past few years. With our acquisition of Gogo’s Commercial Aviation division, Intelsat became the world’s leading in-flight internet provider for the commercial aviation industry. We have a robust strategy in place for our future.

We’re investing more than $2 billion initially to build the world’s first, truly global and unified 5G software-defined network. It offers the necessary scale through a unified network and ecosystem. Intelsat’s Unified Network is designed to be a seamless extension of global telecom that enables easy-to-deploy services across technologies, bringing scale and superior economics. We are also investing in our C-band capabilities and next-gen software-defined satellites.

And of course, our financial restructuring will give us the financial strength to continue to deliver high quality services for our customers and to invest and grow the business. Intelsat is well positioned for another CEO to step in and move us forward.

VIA SATELLITE: It was big news in the satellite industry that your retirement news came within a day of Eutelsat’s announcement that CEO Rodolphe Belmer is leaving for Atos. What are your thoughts on this?

Spengler: I know Rodolphe well. I wish him the very best in his next endeavors.

For more insight into the future of Inteslat, read Via Satellite’s cover story interview with Spengler, given just weeks before his retirement announcement.