Interview with Stefan Gardefjord, CEO with the Swedish Space Corporation and Richard Kusiolek, Managing Editor of GMCStream, Mountain View, CA. Since 2012, Stefan Gardefjord has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of SSC – Swedish Space Corporation – a leading global provider of advanced space services, fully owned by the state of Sweden and all shares controlled by the Ministry of Enterprise.

Gardefjord studied economics and data processing; trained as an analyst programmer Gardefjord began his career at the Dow Chemical Company, where he became IT manager for the Nordic countries. With an IT career spanning more than 25 years, he has held numerous senior management and executive positions. He spent nearly two decades with the Nordic based WM-data Group (Nasdaq OMX Nordic), 2003 assuming the role of CEO WM-data Sweden.

In 2006 the WM-data Group was acquired by Logica Plc (London FTSE 100), with some 40 000 employees in more than 40 countries, and he was appointed CEO Logica Sweden – Sweden’s largest IT services and IT outsourcing company. In 2010 Gardefjord was appointed member of Logica Plc’s Group Executive Committee. Stefan Gardefjord is a non-executive director of BTS Plc (Nasdaq OMX Nordic) – a world leading provider of business acumen and leadership development training. Gardefjord is also a past chairman of the Swedish IT & Telecom Association and board member of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise.

Swedish Space Corporation is a comprehensive space company that has 40 years of experience in helping space organizations, companies and research organizations with access to space. SSC owns and operates the world’s largest multi-mission ground station network supporting satellites from launch to orbits in LEO, MEO, GEO and beyond. As a full-service provider for satellite ground station services, SSC provides critical ground communications to customers at every stage of the satellite’s lifecycle. With over 40 years of experience providing ground segment services to commercial and government customers around the world, SSC enables satellite owners and operators to fulfil their mission objectives.

Company Profile: Designs, launches and operates space systems, including satellites, sounding rockets, and airborne systems for maritime surveillance. Operates the Stockholm Teleport , operator of Astra satellites.

END