Sovintel

The international consortium has been replenished with Russian managers
All of them are well known to the domestic telecommunications community
International satellite telephony consortium GlobalStar has announced a series of personnel appointments in Russia associated with a major expansion of its business and the creation of a joint venture with the Russian long-distance operator Rostelecom JSC.

The GlobalStar project was initiated by the American group Loral and is estimated at $2.2-2.5 billion. The space segment of the network is based on 48 low-flying satellites. Operation since 1998. In Russia by 2002, 150 thousand subscribers are expected. The cost of a minute of conversation within Russia will be $1.5-2.

The people who came to the Russian branch of GlobalStar and the GlobalTel company, established by a consortium on shares with Rostelecom (the Russian side has a controlling stake), are well known to the Russian telecommunications community.
Nikolay Yamburenko, who replaced his position at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, became the regional director of GlobalStar for the CIS and Eastern Europe countries from April 1. However, of particular interest are personnel appointments in the GlobalTel company itself, as in the structure that will directly engage in business in Russia.
So, at the March meeting of the company’s board of directors, Viktor Goryachkin was appointed CEO of GlobalTel, who came here from another Rostelecom joint venture, Sovintel JSC. Previously, former Deputy Minister of Communications Alexander Aleshin was nominated for this post. However, the appointment was prevented by his unexpected death.
They say that Rostelecom had to spend a lot of time to find Aleshin a worthy replacement. The choice was made in favor of Viktor Goryachkin, who has extensive experience in managing the Sovintel operator company. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of GlobalTel became another well-known figure among telecom operators - the first deputy director of Rostelecom JSC Nikolai Korolev.
But perhaps the most unexpected thing was the appointment of Leonora Avdeeva as executive director of the company, who had previously headed the department of mobile and wireless communications of the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation (Kommersant-Daily talked about this).
In addition to purely personnel orders, the board of directors signed an agreement on the service provider - a document regulating its financial relations with GlobalStar itself, and also determined the number of Russian interface stations (there will be three) that will connect the space segment of the satellite network with the ground-based telecommunications infrastructure.
What is the reason for such an influx of valuable personnel into a company that has not even started making money? After all, commercial operation of the network will begin no earlier than next year. Satellite telephone networks, which are currently being created by several international consortiums (Iridium, GlobalStar, ICO Global), are a new and, in the future, very profitable type of telecommunications business not only for Russia, but also for the world market. Therefore, it is now like a magnet attracting minds and significant financial resources. In addition, apparently, satellite telephony (like cellular communications at one time) is simply becoming fashionable.
MIKHAIL UMAROV

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 44 dated 04/03/1997, p. 10

Sovintel – Kommersant Newspaper No. 44 (1226) dated 04/03/1997