[updated January 18, 2011] Carlo des Dorides has been named as the new executive director of the European GNSS Agency (formerly the Galileo Supervisory Authority or GSA).
He will succeed Heike Wieland, who leaves at the end of January to become principal legal council at the European Patent Office. Wieland served as GSA acting director following the departure of Pedro Pedreira last June.
[updated January 18, 2011] Carlo des Dorides has been named as the new executive director of the European GNSS Agency (formerly the Galileo Supervisory Authority or GSA).
He will succeed Heike Wieland, who leaves at the end of January to become principal legal council at the European Patent Office. Wieland served as GSA acting director following the departure of Pedro Pedreira last June.
No formal announcement has been made yet by the GSA or the European Commission (EC) Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, which is responsible for the EU’s satellite navigation programs, pending consultations with the European Parliament. On its agenda for a January 27 meeting in Brussels, the parliamentary Committee on Industry, Research, and Energy has scheduled a "Visit of Carlo des Dorides, Executive Director of the European GNSS Agency." A formal announcement is expected following that meeting.
Formerly the head of the GSA concessions department and later the programs department, des Dorides went on to work in the Galileo Unit of the European Commission. While at the GSA, he also had lead responsibility for the most recent revised draft of the Galileo Open Service Signal-in-Space Interface Control Document (OS-SIS-ICD).
From 2004 to 2006, des Dorides was head of the concession division at the GSA’s predecessor, the Galileo Joint Undertaking, during efforts to form a public-private partnership to implement Galileo.
From 2001 to 2004 he was director of engineering programs at ENAV, a company providing Italy’s air navigation services. Previously, he spent more than 10 years as a program manager and system engineer in the advanced telecommunications division of Alenia Aerospace in Rome.
An engineering graduate from the Sapienza University of Rome and an MBA Fondazione CUOA of Vicenza, Italy, and a second degree from the International Space University, Toulouse, France.
