Experienced leader returns to Galileo helm, now within ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) has unexpectedly announced a new leadership team. The naming of eight senior leaders to the heads of various departments brings back one figure very well-versed in Galileo matters to head the Galileo program and navigation-related activities: Paul Verhoef. Verhoef was the European Commission coordinator for Galileo activities from 2005 to 2011.

In a rare weekend session of the ESA Council, termed “an extraordinary meeting” held “in restricted session” in the agency’s own official release, the agency announced new managers for several key agency positions, two each in the areas of space applications, science exploration, space and technology operations and administration. The reorganization apparently comes at the behest of ESA’s new director-general, Johann-Dietrich Woerner, who assumed his post in July 2015.

The new leadership team is expected to start work in early 2016.

The structure groups together separate directorates into themes, while not reducing the overall number of directors at the 22-nation agency. In ESA’s area of Space Applications, Paul Verhoef is named as Director of Galileo Programme and Navigation-Related Activities (D/NAV). It is not known currently where Didier Faivre, heretofore ESA’s Director of Galileo and navigation-related activities (since 2011), is headed.

Verhoef has a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Eindhoven, the Netherlands. After working in the commercial sector as an engineer, lastly at Eutelsat in the ground segment procurement section for EUTELSAT-II satellites, he has held various posts at the European Commission, with a 1.5-year interlude as a vice president at ICANN, a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable.

From 2005 to 2011 he was the EC’s Programme Manager for EU satellite navigation programmes. During the very turbulent and ultimately abortive public-private partnership (PPP) negotiation period for Galileo, he kept a level head and all communication avenues open between industry and government.

Since that time he has served as the EC’s Head of Unit – Research and Innovative Transport Systems, DG MOVE, where he set up a new research and innovation unit in the transport field, and as Head of Unit – Renewable Energy Sources, DG RTD, in charge of research and innovation programming and policy development in the renewable energy technology and market take-up area.

Verhoef will be working or at least corresponding to some extent with Jeremie Godet, the EC’s head of sector, Galileo Implementation. Godet is also new in his position, since August 2015. Previously, he held various Galileo-related posts in the EC, and had a two-year stint with the European GNSS Agency (GSA) as head of the Security Department. The December issue of GPS World will carry an article on Galileo’s future co-authored by Godet.

Verhoef last appeared in the pages of the magazine in November 2010, giving a lengthy interview addressing aspects of interoperability with GPS and prospects for further development in that area, the need for an ongoing political commitment by the EU to Galileo, the challenges of financing, the prospects for an 18-satellite constellation (which he dismissed at the time as unrealistic), military considerations for both Galileo and GPS, and uncertainty around Galileo’s Public Regulated Service. See Galileo, View from the Top.

The changes at ESA constitute the latest episode of an ongoing, and perhaps as-yet unresolved discussion (which can be a polite term for “power struggle”) regarding what role ESA, the EC and the European GNSS Agency (GSA) each have in the direction of the space-navigation program. The current shuffler, Johann-Dietrich Wörner, was previously chairman of the Executive Board of Germany’s space agency (DLR), and at least once when in that position publicly expressed his impatience with such long-running deliberations.