Matthew J. Desch, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Iridium Communications, Inc., has more than 30 years of experience in telecommunications management and over 19 years in the global wireless industry. Mr. Desch joined Iridium in 2006, and guided the company through a financial transaction resulting in the company going public in 2009. Before joining Iridium, Mr. Desch served as the CEO of New Jersey-based Telcordia Technologies, Inc., a supplier of software and services to the telecommunications industry. Mr. Desch was instrumental in moving Telcordia into new wireless and international markets, and later in spinning off the company to private equity from SAIC, Inc. Prior to Telcordia, Mr. Desch was president of Nortel's fast-growing Wireless Networks division. Mr. Desch held senior management roles at Nortel from 1995 to 2000 and drove its growth from $2 billion to more than $4.5 billion in annual revenue. Mr. Desch has served on the board of directors of a number of high tech telecom companies, including Starnet Networks (now part of Cisco), Flarion Technologies (now part of Qualcomm) and Airspan Networks. He also has sat on the boards of industry association such as the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), the Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA) and The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS). He has served as chairman of The Wireless Foundation. Mr. Desch began his career in software development with Bell Laboratories, which became Lucent Technologies. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from The Ohio State University and an MBA from The University of Chicago.