Eutelsat has appointed a telecommunications veteran as its new CEO, as the French- UK satellite communication provider seek to take advantage of notable geopolitical changes.
Eutelsat announced that as it moves into the next phase after the integration with OneWeb, the board of directors has appointed Jean-François Fallacher as its new CEO, who will assume his duties on 1 June.
Paris-based Eutelsat is the world’s third-biggest satellite operator by revenue, after it merged with British satellite internet firm OneWeb in 2022.
OneWeb has for years has been launching satellites to deliver satellite connectivity to the northern hemisphere.
New CEO
OneWeb intends to have a 648 LEO (low Earth orbit) satellite fleet that will deliver high-speed, low-latency broadband connectivity, covering the UK, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Seas and Canada.
“This appointment comes as a natural change that fully aligns Eutelsat to the telecom ecosystem,” said the firm.
Jean-François Fallacher is described as a “seasoned telecoms professional, following a lengthy career at Orange where he was latterly executive VP and CEO of Orange France.”
Prior to that, Fallacher led Orange’s operations in various countries including Spain, Romania and Poland.
Jean-François Fallacher takes over from Eva Berneke, who has steered the company since January 2022 and oversaw the OneWeb merger.
“On behalf of myself, Vice-Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, and the other members of the Board, I warmly thank Eva Berneke for her dynamic and committed leadership through these significant milestones in Eutelsat’s development and for delivering on our telecoms pivot strategy, in a period that has seen significantly increased competitive and geopolitical pressure,” said Dominique D’Hinnin, chairman of the board of directors of Eutelsat.
“I am delighted to welcome Jean-François Fallacher as he picks up the baton from Eva,” said D’Hinnin. “With his proven track record of success and wealth of experience and expertise, I am convinced he is the right leader to take Eutelsat forward and successfully steward the company through the opportunities and challenges which will undoubtedly present themselves in the coming years.”
“I am excited to be joining Eutelsat at such a pivotal moment in its history. Technology is evolving faster than ever, and in today’s increasingly complex geopolitical context, satellite networks have become a key element in the Connectivity landscape,” added Jean-François Fallacher. “I am convinced Eutelsat has the fundamentals to be a winner in this environment, and I look forward to building on Eva’s foundations, and working with its talented teams to ensure we achieve our goals.”
Geopolitical changes
The appointment of the new CEO comes amid notable geopolitical changes in Europe.
In March Eutelsat shares had risen nearly 70 percent, in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s meltdown and shouting match against Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House, which reinforced European concerns that the United States could no longer be relied on.
The stock surge was part of a broader rise in European defence shares, as investors predicted growing demand for OneWeb’s satellite services from European customers, coupled with growing demand for defensive systems from European suppliers, instead of those from America.
One area of concern for Europe is Ukraine’s reliance on US technology, most notably Elon Musk’s Starlink, which is Ukraine’s primary satellite-based internet provider with about 50,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine.
The number of Eutelsat/OneWeb terminals in the country is much smaller, at fewer than a thousand, but the firm previously said it is expecting to deploy some 5,000 to 10,000 terminals to Ukraine “relatively fast”.
Last month it was revealed that German government has been paying for Ukraine’s access to Eutelsat satellite-based internet services for about a year.
In 2024 Ukraine’s largest mobile operator Kyivstar said it had begun testing OneWeb technologies with the Ukrainian military.
And in February OneWeb said it successfully used a LEO satellite to connect a broadband terminal with a core 5G network using a next-generation 5G protocol, called Release 17.
