BeetleSat, formerly NSLComm, a satellite technology company building the first global LEO constellation optimized for premium point-to-point communications, announced that Executive President Patricio Northland has been named Chief Executive Officer. Northland is an industry veteran with a 20+ year track record of scaling space technology and communications companies. His previous executive leadership roles include serving as CEO of Eutelsat Americas, CEO of Satelites Mexicanos S.A. de C.V. (SATMEX) and Chairman, President and CEO of AT&T Latin America.
As CEO of Eutelsat Americas, Northland led the company’s market entry and business in the region after architecting a successful merger with his prior company SATMEX in a deal valued at over $1.7B. At SATMEX, Northland was responsible for transforming the business into one of the most profitable satellite operators in the world.
Before his work with Eutelsat and SATMEX, Northland founded telecommunications corporation FirstCom. He orchestrated the company’s $1.25B merger with Netstream Brazil and Keytech Argentina to create AT&T Latin America (AT&T LA), which he then led as President, Chairman and CEO. Under his leadership, AT&T LA was the first provider to offer seamless broadband to a global Fortune 1000 client base across the Americas region.
Leveraging his 20+ years of corporate leadership experience in the satellite technology and communications industries, Northland will lead BeetleSat through the next phases of its growth.
“I am honored to take on the role of CEO and to advance our mission to become the world’s first LEO constellation operator focused on delivering premium global satellite communications to broadband carriers and service providers,” said Northland. “With our proprietary technology – an expandable antenna that significantly reduces the overall cost of the satellite constellation– and open network architecture, BeetleSat is leading a paradigm shift in satellite communications that not only allows us to deliver premium service at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems, but also to create new service categories and applications. As CEO, working alongside a world-class management team, I’m excited to scale BeetleSat to serve the growing needs of our customers and to lead a company that is blazing a trail toward a more flexible, open and cost-effective model for the satellite communications industry.”
On February 24, BeetleSat announced the successful deployment of its lightweight, very high data rate, expandable antenna in space. The in-orbit deployment of the Company’s 60 cm expandable antenna from a 6U CubeSat — an industry first — marked a significant milestone in the development of the BeetleSat constellation and proved the viability of its proprietary technology.
The BeetleSat Nano-Satellite carrying the expandable antenna launched via SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 3. Now in Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) at 550Km altitude, the Nano-Satellite will provide BeetleSat’s public sector customer with store and forward, very high throughput satellite communication services.
“Serving as BeetleSat’s Executive President for the last year, we have already seen Patricio drive growth and help achieve significant technical milestones for the business,” said Yoav Tzruya, a BeetleSat director and a managing partner at Jerusalem Venture Partners, BeetleSat’s first investor. “We are looking forward to celebrating even greater success for the company under his leadership.”
