LE BOURGET, France — Satellite fleet operator SES of Luxembourg on June 17 said its chief executive, Romain Bausch, will be retiring in April 2014 and will be replaced by an SES board member and 15-year executive in the Dubai, United Arab Emirates, office of global consulting firm Booz & Co.
SES said Karim Michel Sabbagh, a Canadian and Lebanese national who has been on the SES board since April, “is widely recognized for his vast experience in the industry and for his focus on the emerging markets.”
Sabbagh will join SES, the world’s second-largest commercial satellite fleet operator, in September as chief executive-designate, and will become chief executive on April 3. Sabbagh joined Booz & Co. in 1998 and has been based in Dubai for 15 years.
Bausch, who turns 60 in July, has been chief executive of SES since 1995, when the company was a regional direct-broadcast television provider with four spacecraft. Through organic and external growth — notably the purchase of the satellite assets of General Electric — Bausch has guided SES to its current 50-satellite fleet and its interests in most of the world’s telecommunications markets.
SES’s current focus is on the emerging markets in Asia, Africa and South America, and it is apparently here that Sabbagh’s expertise is most wanted.
“Karim’s vast knowledge of our industry, his experience in the emerging markets as well as his management skills will further enable the company’s growth potential,” SES said in a statement.
