Senior Director, Canada Defence — Client

Telesat (Nasdaq and TSX: TSAT) is a leading global satellite operator, providing reliable and secure satellite-delivered communications solutions worldwide to broadcast, telecommunications, corporate and government customers for over 55 years. Backed by a legacy of engineering excellence, reliability and industry-leading customer service, Telesat has grown to be one of the largest and most successful global satellite operators.

Telesat Lightspeed, our revolutionary Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network, scheduled to begin service in 2027, will revolutionize global broadband connectivity for enterprise and Government users by delivering a combination of high capacity, security, resiliency and affordability with ultra-low latency and fiber-like speeds. Telesat is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, and has offices and facilities around the world.

The company’s state-of-the-art Satellite fleet consists of 12 GEO satellites, the Canadian payload on ViaSat-1 and one LEO 3 demonstration satellite. For more information, follow Telesat on X and LinkedIn or visit www.telesat.com

We are looking for an exceptional Senior Director to be the single face of this program from Telesat to DND – owning the customer relationship and orchestrating delivery from build through to operational service. If you are energized by high-stakes defence programs, thrive at the intersection of customer, commercial and engineering, and want to help shape a nation’s strategic communications capability, this is a rare and career-defining role. This is as much a technical and program-delivery leadership role as it is a customer role: you will bring genuine engineering fluency and deep program management discipline to steer a complex, multi-segment space and ground system from build through to in-service operation.

Role Summary

The Senior Director oversees the development, initial deployment, and ongoing engagement over the entire life of the ESCP-P program (LEO Mil-Ka and MEO UHF/X-band). You will be the primary relationship owner and “one face” of the program to DND – accountable for customer trust, implementation progress, program health, and the seamless coordination of every Telesat function that touches the mission. In the initial program phase, to succeed, you must pair strong technical background with deep, hands-on program management

experience:
you will engage credibly with engineering and systems teams on architecture, conops, design, integration, test and acceptance, while engaging with the Program Delivery team to hold the program to rigorous schedule, cost, risk and quality discipline.

This is a matrixed leadership role: while you own the customer-facing program, you will work laterally across sales, engineering, product, network operations, security, supply chain, legal, finance and program management teams and Telesat’s strategic partner MDA Space to keep commitments on track. Success depends on influence, orchestration and executive presence as much as direct authority. It also demands real technical depth and program management rigor: you will be trusted to translate between the customer’s mission needs and Telesat’s engineering and delivery teams, interrogate technical trade-offs, and keep a large, multi-year build predictable and auditable.

Key Responsibilities

Own the customer relationship – serve as the single, trusted point of contact and “one face” of Telesat to DND, building durable, credible relationships across the customer’s program, technical and executive stakeholders. Lead end-to-end program engagement – oversee the development, initial deployment, and ongoing service engagement across the full ESCP-P lifecycle from initial service access to full operational capability, spanning LEO Mil-Ka and MEO UHF/X-band capabilities. Orchestrate across a matrixed organization – coordinating with Program Delivery, align and drive contributions from engineering, network operations, product, security, supply chain, legal, finance and Go To Market. Govern program health – in conjunction with Program Delivery, manage scope, schedule, cost, risk and quality against contractual commitments; establish the cadence, governance and reporting that keep the program predictable and on track. Co-ordinate technical program leadership – bring an engineering-literate perspective to engage the technical teams with customer expectations regarding system design, integration, verification and acceptance across the LEO Mil-Ka and MEO UHF/X-band portions of the program, working with Program Delivery to ensure technical trade-offs, dependencies an