THE MOST POWERFUL WOMAN IN ORBIT
The French company Eutelsat is one of the largest satellite companies in the world.
Under the Danish Eva Berneke, the company is now entering the race for the space technologies of the future — and is competing with billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
There have been turbulent months behind Eva Berneke. In her first year as CEO of Eutelsat, a Paris-based satellite company, she has had to fend off Russian hacking attacks, moderate Brexit arguments and navigate a contentious merger that may not pay off for five to eight years. The top manager and engineer from Denmark still calm and optimistic.“It is very important that Europe has its own strong satellite operator,” says Berneke, 54; After all, the space industry is a driver for the technologies and topics of the future, from AI to high-speed networking to data protection. And politically, effective network coverage is more relevant than ever before in the information age.
Eutelsat Communications was founded around 40 years ago by 26 European countries. The main owner of the group is the French state, China is the fourth largest shareholder.
Today the company is one of the leading satellite operators in the world, and its system provides television and radio signals to approximately 274 million households. For a long time the company was considered a dinosaur of the TV age, but with a spectacular and risky takeover the group now wants to make itself fit for the future — and also reinvent itself.
Eutelsat is currently taking over the British company One Web, which was recently valued at US$3.4 billion. The UK government holds 11% of the shares and has special say as the technologies affect national security. The Indian entrepreneur Sunil Bharti Mittal is one of the investors in One Web — his financial injection and money from the British government saved the company from bankruptcy in 2022.
Economically, the merger is rather risky, but technologically the merger offers a huge advantage — because the 36 geostationary satellites from Eutelsat are now joined by 428 near-Earth satellites from One Web. Geostationary satellites (“Geo”) orbit higher and slower, but cover a larger area. Near-Earth “Leo satellites” (Low Earth Orbit, “Leo” for short), on the other hand, orbit closer to the earth’s surface and at higher speeds. They serve a smaller area and also need to be interconnected with other satellites to communicate data effectively.
he new European mega fleet now offers both systems and is therefore considered the “optimal solution” to serve customers’ needs even better and increase market share. This is not only economically relevant – but also politically explosive.
Fast Internet is an instrument of power, perhaps the most powerful one known to humanity in the communications age, because it can change history significantly. Last October, the regime in Iran wanted to suppress reports about the protests in the country by jamming the signals from two Eutelsat satellites. The target of the attacks were radio programs in Persian that were broadcast from abroad.
Tesla visionary Musk is currently the most powerful player in orbit — and, as a disruptor, is shaking up not only the automotive industry but also the Leo satellite technology industry. However, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will soon be competing with him: Next year, his Kuiper internet satellites are scheduled to enter low-Earth orbit. But Berneke believes that it will be years before Bezos can develop market power similar to that of Starlink or Eutelsat. So is Berneke Europe’s answer to Musk and Bezos? “We didn’t merge to compete with anyone, but because it’s a great way to enter the market,” says the Dane. It will be years before Bezos can use his constellation to compete with Starlink or Eutelsat. However, she admits that Musk recognized the potential in this growth market earlier and faster than others.
Eutelsat now also wants to apply for a listing on the London Stock Exchange. European and British joint projects have become rare and even more complicated since Brexit. But Berneke believes: “Governments see that cooperation in space is easier because here you can’t really insist on national borders.”
There are plans to invest heavily in the coming years, but some shareholders are skeptical. Eutelsat Communications achieved revenue of €1.482 billion in the 2022/23 financial year, a decrease of 3%. Berneke says there will still be a lot of money to be made from video and TV connectivity, but global trends point to different needs: rural areas, ships, airlines, militaries or autonomous vehicles need or want constant internet access and broad and reliable network coverage.
To do this, One Web’s satellites need to be upgraded. The upgrade to the advanced Gen 2 satellites is expected to cost around €4 billion. Analysts at JP Morgan call the merger and related investments “high risk,” but Berneke appears to see the biggest risk as a lack of change.
Berneke studied engineering in Denmark and began her career at McKinsey in France. She then pursued a career in the IT and telecommunications industry; she also sits on the Lego board of directors. Your salary at Eutelsat including allowances is estimated at around €1.7 million per year. In addition to a new economic course, Berneke will also have to overcome political challenges for the first time in her new post
Eutelsat’s strategy is not to evaluate the content of the programs broadcast. This principle also applies in regions where regimes would like to do without Western news channels. This is precisely where everything is being done technically to ward off disruptive attacks — such as in Iran. Berneke says it is not her job to take over the work of the regulators and organize broadcasts depending on political views. “Some people say you should have more of a political and personal point of view, but that becomes very, very difficult when you run a global company and are present in so many different regions,” Berneke said. In the coming years, thousands more satellites will be in low Earth orbit. Some researchers fear Kessler syndrome, named after NASA scientist Donald Kessler — as early as 1978 he predicted a blockage in the orbit that could lead to a kind of pile-up, a chain reaction caused by the crash of objects and their debris. The result would be a cloud of scrap floating in near-Earth space and massively endangering space flights or the operation of satellites.
There is still a mixture of Wild West mentality and gold fever in orbit. Berneke therefore believes that there is a need for robust regulation for the handling and disposal of space debris: Without a strong player in this industry, it would be much more difficult for Europe to regulate this booming industry, says the former McKinsey consultant. The field should not be left to the USA and China. Berneke: “Europe needs its own strong engine in the space industry.”
