There will be a new CEO at ND SatCom — Norbert Hölzle has been appointed new CEO as of March 1, 2009. The new chief executive takes over the responsibility from Padraig McCarthy who served as an interim CEO since September 2008 and will continue in his role as SES ASTRA Chief Financial Officer and member of the ND SatCom shareholder committee. ND SatCom’s Board of Managing Directors now consists of Norbert Hölzle (CEO), Heiner Luntz (Chief Financial Officer) and Johann Pohany (Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operating Officer).

“With Norbert Hölzle, we succeeded to gain a highly experienced telecommunications and system integration professional with excellent international knowledge in the commercial, government and defence sectors”, said Ferdinand Kayser, President and CEO of SES ASTRA. “We are convinced that Norbert will strongly support us in our strategic objective to serve government and institutional customers internationally and strengthen the SES portfolio in that segment worldwide. We thank Padraig for his successful work as interim CEO.”

Norbert Hölzle has worked several years as Managing Director, Head of Sales and executive board member at T-Systems International. Before, he served as Head of Business Customer and member of the management board at O2, Germany. Between 1988 and 1994, he was NATO Officer with the German Air Force and holds a telecommunication engineering degree of the University of the German Armed Forces.

  ND SatCom will focus on its strong system integration capabilities based on its leading core technologies, solutions and selected partner offerings. The company has therefore been re-organized into three geographic business units: Europe & Africa, Middle East & Asia-Pacific and Americas with corporate headquarters remaining in Friedrichshafen, Germany.