Satellite broadband company OneWeb appointed former Ericsson executive Per Borgklint its new chief commercial officer, tapping the telecom industry veteran to provide a strategic boost as it works to move past a recent bankruptcy proceeding.
Borgklint will oversee the company’s go-to-market strategies across its enterprise, government, aviation and maritime segments, and was also charged with helping OneWeb’s commercial team bolster distribution partnerships.
In a statement, OneWeb CEO Neil Masterson called Borgklint’s appointment a “significant milestone” for the company, adding he “brings more than 20 years of transformative leadership to this role.”
Information listed on LinkedIn showed Borgklint most recently held a range of consulting roles, serving as a non-executive director at SD-WAN and cloud service provider Expereo; advisor to Swedish operator Telness; and non-executive board member for software vendor Openet.
Prior to that, he notably spent six years as SVP, chief innovation officer and head of the Media business unit at Ericsson from 2011 to 2017. Earlier experience included CEO roles at operators ice Norway, Tele2 Netherlands and Optimal Telecom, and TV channel distributor CANAL+.
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OneWeb is working to launch a constellation of 648 low-Earth orbit satellites, with the goal of delivering commercial broadband service to the U.K., Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, Canada and the U.S. state of Alaska by end-2021, and global coverage in 2022.
The company filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. in March 2020, replacing its CEO and emerging from protected status in November of the same year.
It resumed satellite launches in December 2020 and in January raised $400 million in funding from SoftBank and Hughes Network Systems to help fuel its recovery plan.
As of the end of March 2021, it had 146 satellites in service, with three additional launches already planned for this year.