New Telesat CTO, Michel Forest Photo: Michel Forest

Telesat has appointed Michel Forest as its new chief technology officer following the retirement of longtime CTO David Wendling. Telesat announced the change on Jan 13, along with other executive changes. 

Forest, previously vice president of LEO System Engineering, will oversee satellite operations, engineering, and program management for Telesat. He is credited with leading the end-to-end architecture and system performance of Telesat Lightspeed. Prior to his career at Telesat, he held leadership positions in satellite systems and antenna engineering at MDA Space.

Wendling retires after nearly 40 years with Telesat. CEO Dan Goldberg commented: “Dave has been the driving force of technical innovation at the company, resulting in several satellite industry firsts and the state-of-the-art design of Telesat Lightspeed.”

In addition, Asit Tandon joins Telesat as chief network and information officer. Tandon will manage the terrestrial elements of the Telesat Lightspeed network, including network operations and IT systems. Tandon was most recently the vice president of Network Technology at Canadian telco Rogers Communications. 

These executive leadership changes follow the previous appointment of Charles Cynamon as Telesat’s new president of government subsidiary Telesat Government Solutions on Jan. 6. Cynamon served over 24 years in the U.S. Air Force and was the senior vice president at LinQuest Corporation, serving the national security space community and other government agencies.