Iridium announced that Greg Pelton will join the company as Chief Technical Officer (CTO), effective June 17, 2021.  Reporting to Iridium Chief Operations Officer Suzi McBride, Pelton is taking over for retiring CTO Hermon Pon and will lead Iridium’s world-class technology and system engineering teams both internally and with Iridium’s vast partner ecosystem.

Pelton joins Iridium from Pryon, an AI company focused on augmented intelligence for the enterprise, where he served as Chief Product Officer.  In this role he was responsible for all aspects of the company’s augmented intelligence product portfolio, leading the engineering team and product development efforts.  Prior to this, Pelton was Vice President of Collaboration and Devices at Avaya, where he managed a portfolio of voice and video endpoints, soft clients and collaboration services.  Before Avaya, he served as CTO and Vice President for Infrastructure Engineering at Polycom and led Cisco’s corporate Technology Center where he worked on the Internet Routing in Space (IRIS) program consisting of developing a router for use in satellites and transitioning of satellite ground networks to multiservice IP networks.

“It’s an exciting time for Iridium, and Greg is a great fit to lead our experienced teams as we continue to maximize the potential of our upgraded constellation, but more importantly to set the technology solutions and strategies for our long-term future,” said Suzi McBride, chief operations officer, Iridium. “Greg is bringing a wealth of knowledge and innovative thinking to the team. We couldn’t be happier to have him onboard as we continue to disrupt the status quo of satellite connectivity and bring never-before-possible technologies to the world.”

As Chief Technical Officer of Iridium, Pelton will drive innovation and oversee the technical aspects of Iridium’s products and services, while managing the day-to-day activities of the company’s award-winning technology development and engineering team.  This includes technical roadmaps and strategy, system architecture and design, engineering design and process, performance and analysis, and system integration, verification and validation.

“I’m beyond excited to be joining a company and a team with such a storied history of innovation,” said Pelton.  “Iridium built and operates the first truly global communications network and that feat has yet to be matched by anyone. Our industry is at an inflection point where dramatic changes in workforce distribution and widespread adoption of IoT technology will drive demand for the kinds of services that only Iridium can offer. It’s an opportunity you don’t want to miss.”

A holder of 39 patents, Pelton has a history of innovation and has worked extensively in the telecommunications and networking industries, as well as serving on management and advisory boards across a range of innovative technology startups.