Matt Desch, who has led Iridium Communications as its CEO since 2006, received a recent visit from Executive Mosaic CEO Jim Garrettson to the company’s office in McLean, VA. Garrettson officially presented Matt Desch with his 2022 Wash100 Award, the most prestigious and coveted award in all of government contracting (GovCon).
“Matt’s business discipline and attention to management detail exhibit the characteristics of the perfect golf swing; Matt makes it look easy for the spectators, but they do not see the many years of sacrifice and careful planning in crafting a strategy that sets Iridium apart from other overhead architecture providers and satellite firms,” said Garrettson, founder of the Wash100 Award.
Executive Mosaic is honored to recognize Iridium CEO Matt Desch as an eight-time winner of the Wash100 Award. For his most recent Wash100 win, Desch was recognized for outstanding leadership and his ability to drive company growth in the mobile satellite service market in the face of considerable supply chain challenges and other pandemic-related hurdles.
Most notably, Iridium reported upwards of $614.5 million in total revenue for 2021 back in February, which demonstrates a five percent increase from the previous year. Desch has led Iridium’s billable subscribers to 1.72 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, which also reflects a 17 percent year-over-year increase under Desch’s leadership.
“In spite of the pandemic and parabolic growth of international satellite expansion, Matt managed to deliver increasingly sophisticated services, subscriber and top line growth, and Iridium sits in the top tier of the mobile satellite market, which is expected to boom,” Garrettson emphasized.
Most recently, Iridium is looking to send five backup satellites to space by availing cost-effective, rideshare opportunities. Desch commented that the company is planning to deploy the majority of its six ground spares meant to put the satellites to utility instead of remaining in storage in its Arizona facility.
In addition, a team of General Dynamics’ Mission Systems business and Iridium has received a potential $324.5 million contract from the Space Development Agency to build, operate and maintain ground entry points and operations centers for the first tranche of the National Defense Space Architecture.
Desch commented on the opportunity to build the next-generation network by bringing to the team its 25 years of experience operating in low-Earth orbit, which will also include payload data management, enterprise, mission and network management and constellation monitoring spanning the ground, space, link and user segments of the NDSA.
Executive Mosaic is proud to recognize Iridium and Matt Desch for receiving his 2022 Wash100 Award recipient. As an eight-time recipient of the highest honor in the GovCon industry, Matt Desch demonstrates the standard of success and innovation in our business that can only be recognized by the Wash100 Award and the GovCon community.
