Europe.Hughes.com
Meet the European Team

Meet the European Team

Christopher Britton

Managing Director


Christopher David Britton is the Managing Director of Hughes Network Systems Europe, the sales and operating organisation for the European market of Hughes Network Systems, LLC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Ltd. Chris has full Profit and Loss responsibilities, including day-to-day management of the company, sales, operations, finance, legal and HR functions.  He spearheads the company’s drive to maximise its strengths in market-leading technologies and quality of service support within existing and emerging European markets with key accounts such as the UK National Lottery, BP and Avanti. Alongside these responsibilities, Chris is heading up the deployment of EchoStar Mobile, formerly known as Solaris, who are launching EchoStar 21 which will provide S Band coverage across Europe.

Prior to joining Hughes Chris founded the specialist network integration provider, ETT in 1998. ETT was focused on building value-added WANs for large multinational companies. The company functioned from offices in London, Düsseldorf, Paris, New York and New Delhi with operations in over 50 countries. Previously Chris was Sales and Marketing Director for TMI, the international arm of Telecom Italia.

Chris has a strong long-term track record in telecommunications having also worked at AT&T and having started his career at BT.
 

Chris O’Dell

Vice President Sales and Marketing


Chris O’Dell is Vice President of Sales & Marketing of Hughes Network Systems Europe, the sales and operating organisation for the European market of Hughes Network Systems, LLC., a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. He has particular responsibility for driving growth within existing and emerging European markets.

Chris joined Hughes Europe in July 2011.  Previously he spent six years at global telecoms provider, Huawei Technologies, latterly as UK Sales Director, Fixed Line Service Providers. His early career included three years in Nortel Research & Development, before moving on to the parent, Nortel Networks where he held a number of positions in both the carrier and enterprise divisions, including Pre-Sales Engineering Manager, Northern Europe Technical Sales Manager and, finally, EMEA Business Development Manager. Chris holds a degree, BEng Hons in Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management from Bradford University.
 

Richard Acton

Vice President of Service Delivery


Richard Acton is currently the Vice President of Service Delivery at Hughes Network Systems Limited where he is responsible for Project Management, the Service Desk and Field Service functions.

Richard previously worked at NTL: Business as a Senior Programme Manager delivering high value wide area network and voice services in numerous sectors, notably, a £35M project for Cambridgeshire County Council WAN connecting all Schools and Community Centres across Cambridgeshire. He is a Member of the Association of Project Management and is certified in ITIL Foundation and ITIL Offerings and Agreements.

Richard holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering Quality Improvement from Bradford University.
 

Michael Dromnitzki

Vice President of Network Operations


Michael Dromnitzki is Vice President Network Operations of Hughes Network Systems Europe, the sales and operating organisation for the European market of Hughes Network Systems, LLC.  He has overall responsibility for the European Network Operations Centre, Hub and Network Engineering and the internal IT.

Michael joined Hughes Europe in 1997, initially as Network Management Centre Operator.  Previously, he worked for the Federal Defence Force in Germany, bringing with him 12 years’ specialist telecommunications experience.
 

Richard French

Senior Legal Counsel, Europe for Hughes Network Systems and EchoStar


Richard joins us after more than four years as the Director of Legal at Digital Catapult where he also served as company secretary to the main board of directors.  Richard joined Cisco Systems in 2007 as Senior Corporate Counsel, UK and Ireland, becoming Director of Legal for Central Europe and Emerging Markets in 2011.  Previous to this, Richard held key in-house legal roles at PA Consulting Global Technology Group,  Streamserve Inc. where he was general counsel, Netigy Inc., and Xerox Corporation.

Richard received a BEng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering and is a practising barrister.
 

Deborah Biggs

Head of Human Resources


Deborah Biggs is Head of Human Resources for Hughes Europe. Within this role, Deborah focuses on supporting the operations in the UK, Germany and Italy, and oversees HR-related aspects for the other European Echostar entities. Whilst working as a member of the Senior Management team she defines HR strategy and policy to meet the objectives of the business.

Having been a member of the Hughes family for more than twenty years, she has overseen many wide-ranging and varied activities, including supporting merger and acquisition activity within Europe, and outside region where required, including TUPE, harmonising terms, and establishing new entities, planning and executing company restructuring and resourcing plans, including manpower-planning, employee resourcing and recruitment, career and succession-planning, 'right-skilling' and retention.

As a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), she is a generalist with more than twenty years experience in Human Resources in the telecommunications, hi-tech and IT sectors within the UK and Europe.

Deborah holds a degree in English from University College London and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) with a specialism in International Business.