Biography
Jean Grenier, President AEPOC

Jean Grenier was born in 1935 and is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, both in Paris, France. During his early professional development he was an engineer with the Centre National d'Etudes des Télécommunications and the Direction des Services Radioélectriques.

Stages in his nearly 30 years with Direction Générale des Télécommunications and FRANCE TELECOM included: Sous-Directeur des Télécommunications Spatiales et Sous-Marines, Chef du Service des Affaires Internationales and Executive Vice-President in charge of Affaires Industrielles et Internationales, where he headed one of FRANCE TELECOM's four divisions. It is here that he became one of the driving forces in the implementation of GSM, the European mobile telephone system.

Jean Grenier was also responsible for the development of the French national satellite system, TELECOM 1, as well as of a subsequent system called TELECOM 2. As part of his international involvement he was also Chairman of the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 1989 in Nice, France.

In 1990 Jean Grenier was elected Director General of EUTELSAT, then an inter-governmental organisation. His six-year mandate was extended to the end of 1998. Under his management 21 new members from Central and Eastern Europe joined the organisation, 10 satellites were launched, existing services developed and new services added. These included audiovisual services, Internet via satellite, multimedia and mobile services as well as satellite communication services with demand-assigned bandwidth.

Jean Grenier is Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite, Officier de l'Ordre du Cèdre (Liban) and Officier de l'Ordre de Saint-Charles (Principality of Monaco).

Press Contacts