Connectivity Beyond Borders – The Next Generation Mobile Systems – D2D

Lisa Dreher is Managing Director of GuideForce (guideforce.com), a marketing and media relations consulting firm founded in 2018. She brings over 25 years business development, product management, public relations, and marketing leadership experience to the tech, space, deep sea, and sustainability organizations GuideForce works with. As host of The Startup Leaders Show, she leads quick-hit 20-minute live interviews that give us the opportunity to learn lessons from leading startup founders and executives. Lisa also served as President and a board member of the Mobile Satellite Users Association (msua.org) for many years.

GuideForce has helped startups and established enterprises grow faster and define clear paths to profitable revenue. The company partners with CEOs and executives to navigate the startup through enterprise evolution and the development of partner ecosystems to scale their businesses faster.

Kevin Cohen serves as Commercial Director of the direct-to-device business at Viasat, Inc. He is responsible for the Company’s direct-to-device initiative, which will utilize Viasat’s L-band capabilities as well as partner satellite operator networks. This initiative is designed to provide consumers, enterprises and the automotive industry with connectivity options in cellular dead zones, utilizing standards based cellular solutions over satellite.

During his 16-year tenure, he has held multiple positions from engineering to project and product management, business development and general manager for Viasat’s government systems and consumer services. In 2016, Kevin successfully launched Viasat’s Community Internet service across unserved and underserved communities across Nigeria, Mexico, Guatemala, and Brazil. Today, Viasat’s residential, business internet and Prepaid Internet offerings connect thousands of Latin American consumers and help close the region’s digital gap.

Kevin studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan and earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from San Diego State University. He is fluent in Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese and speaks Turkish, Russian and French.

Vijay Krishnan is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Skylo Technologies, where he leads initiatives to integrate the company’s technology with a wide range of chipsets, components, and devices. He brings extensive experience from his distinguished career at Intel Corporation, where he held multiple leadership roles as General Manager and P/L owner across various business lines. His expertise in driving growth and innovation in technology positions him as a key player in Skylo’s mission to enhance global connectivity solutions.

Mr. Rich Pang is the Head of Business Development for Kuiper Government Solutions and an industry expert in the development and delivery of government strategy, products and services. He is a retired military officer with 21 years of experience in space operations dealing with missile warning and defense, space control, satellite command and control, launch and early orbit testing, and collision avoidance and electromagnetic interference analyses. He also has a strong background in personnel training and evaluation, personnel and resource management, operational testing and evaluation, and space systems’ acquisition.

Mr. Pang’s prior experience includes serving as the Vice President of Corporate Development at Telesat Government Solutions and the Vice President of Government Segment Market Management at SES Networks. In both roles, he was responsible for assessing global government and institutional markets, identifying customers’ requirements, and leading the identification and development of products and solutions to meet customers’ needs.

Prior to joining SES Networks, Mr. Pang was and the Senior Director for Hosted Payloads at SES Government Solutions (SES GS). He was responsible for seeking, pursuing, and securing opportunities to support U.S. Government missions around the world through the use of hosted payloads. While there, he managed the Commercially Hosted InfraRed Payload (CHIRP) program for the United States Air Force and captured two other hosted payload contracts: (1) the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) funded by the Federal Aviation Administration; and (2) the Global Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

In May 2010, Mr. Pang retired from the United States Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel after twenty-one years of service. In his last assignment, he served as the Director of Operations at the Program Executive Office for Environmental Satellites in Silver Spring, Maryland, where his duties encompassed leading a diverse team of over a hundred personnel from the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, and government contractors responsible for the operations and maintenance of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program and the WindSat/Coriolis mission. In addition, his division was responsible for establishing operational policy and procedures for the development, transition, and subsequent operations and maintenance of follow-on meteorological satellite programs.

Mr. Pang was born in Portland, Oregon, and earned his commission as a Distinguished Graduate through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program in June 1989. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and a Master of Business Administration Degree from San Jose State University in San Jose, California.

Greg Pelton is the Chief Technology Officer at Iridium Communications Inc., the only satellite communications company that offers truly global voice and data coverage. In this role, he drives innovation and oversees the technical aspects of Iridium’s products and services, while managing the day-to-day activities of the company’s systems teams. This includes technical roadmaps and strategy, system architecture and design, engineering design and process, performance and analysis, new service development programs and system integration, verification, and validation.

Pelton joined Iridium from a venture-backed AI company develop Large Language Models for enterprise applications, where he served as Chief Development Officer. Roles prior to that include Avaya, where he managed a $400M portfolio of voice and video collaboration products, CTO of Polycom, and he led Cisco’s corporate Technology Center incubating new technology growth areas including satellite networking.