Technology >> CEO Interviews >> June 7, 2004

COS MODAFFERI – POLARSAT INC

COS MODAFFERI was appointed President and CEO of PolarSat Inc. on February 12, 2003. He leads a management team of partners who are committed to securing PolarSat's success in the eyes of shareholders and employees. Prior to PolarSat, Mr. Modafferi was Corporate Vice President and General Manager of NSI Communication Systems (NSI Global's broadband business unit) for the two year period ending December 20, 2002. Prior to NSI, Mr. Modafferi developed formidable leadership and management skills during a nine-year career with Ericsson Communications Inc. The last six months, in a lateral move from the R&D world, he led a sales team, based in Montreal, and established sales tactics that enabled record achievements in surpassing revenue and profit targets. Mr. Modafferi began his career in Montreal in August 1991. He orchestrated strategic and improvement planning that guided the development of R&D centers in Montreal, Dallas, Dublin, Sweden and Mexico. During this time, the research center in Montreal grew from 180 to more than 1,000 people, and is today the largest R&D center outside of Sweden. His management efforts helped to create a work environment that attracted highly talented engineers, who were soon after recognized for having developed superior technical skills in the emerging field of mobile telephony. In his last two years in R&D, he led the local software development team of up to 200 engineers and supported their rise to world-class recognition as a competent software development organization. Prior to Ericsson and after graduating in December 1984, Mr. Modafferi spent his first professional years as a software engineer with CAE Electronics Ltd., a world leader in flight simulators. Soon after being hired in May 1985, he was given the mandate to lead software quality engineering efforts to support strategic military and space contracts for the development of state of the art military flight and fighter training systems. Mr. Modafferi holds a BSc degree in Computer Science, specializing in Digital Systems, from Concordia University of Montreal. Profile
TWST: Please give us a brief history and an overview of PolarSat.

Mr. Modafferi: PolarSat is basically what you would call an

international equipment and total solution provider for VSAT