Penelope Longbottom
Founder and President, Longbottom Communications

Founder and President Penelope Longbottom is a seasoned PR and marketing communications professional with over 20 years executive office experience with Fortune 100 multinational corporations and domestic and international start-ups, primarily in satellite communications and defense. She formed Longbottom Communications in 2000.

Prior to forming Longbottom Communications, Longbottom was Vice President, Corporate Communications for Washington, D.C.-based XM Satellite Radio, Inc., the first of two U.S. licensed digital satellite radio providers to launch service in the U.S. At XM, her responsibilities encompassed media, public and investor relations and marketing communications. In addition to shaping and implementing communications strategies and tactics to position XM nationally as the next generation of radio, Longbottom was responsible for employee communications for the innovative national radio service.

Previously, Longbottom served as Vice President, Communications and Branding for Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications (LMGT), a unit of Lockheed Martin Corp. Assigned to LMGT's London office in 1998, she was a key player in establishing a global presence for LMGT's Russian satellite partnership, Lockheed Martin Intersputnik (LMI).

Longbottom cut her satellite "teeth" in the mid-80s with satellite pioneering firm Hughes Communications, Inc. (HCI). During her 12-year tenure at HCI, Longbottom was on the leading edge of new technologies and entertainment services with the Hughes Electronics, Inc. subsidiary in Los Angeles. As Vice President, Corporate Affairs, she was the principal architect in shaping the identity and directing external and internal communications for HCI, then the world's leading private satellite operator (subsequently merged with PanAmSat in 1996 which in turn was purchased by Intelsat in 2006).

At HCI Longbottom headed a multi-disciplinary team comprised of PR, Advertising, Marketing Communications, Exhibits and Graphic Services. Among its many milestone credits, this team was responsible for creating the DIRECTV brand, and supporting the early brand and marketing strategies of HCI partnerships JCSAT (Japan's first commercial satellite communications firm), and the American Mobile Satellite Corporation (AMSC), the first U.S. mobile satellite system. Following the PanAmSat merger Longbottom served as Vice President, Communications and Brand Management for DIRECTV International, which subsequently merged with the company's flagship U.S. DIRECTV, Inc., unit.

During her Hughes tenure, Longbottom was instrumental in forming the Satellite Industry Association (SIA), now a respected trade organization representing U.S. satellite manufacturers, operators and major suppliers. She was elected and served as SIA founding chairman from April '95 to Dec. '96. She is a member of the board and former chairman of the Program Committee of the Washington Space Business Roundtable (WSBR), a board member ex-officio of the Society of Satellite Professionals International (SSPI), and a member of the National Press Club and the Public Relations Society of America.

Starting in the early '70s through 1985, Longbottom held progressively senior communications and/or program management positions with the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) in McLean, VA, and Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Torrance, California. Born and educated in the United Kingdom, Longbottom has made America her permanent home since the 1960's. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1977. In additional to her UK undergraduate studies, she received certificates of advanced business and international marketing management from UCLA's John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management.

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Life Changes and Trajectories:
One Woman's Professional Journey

The morning of June 8, 1998, was chilly and damp in London. I had departed Washington, D.C., the night before on what would prove to be one of the more memorable changes in a professional career spanning the banking, automotive and satellite industries. Now I was in London to assume a new job, vice president of branding and communications, with a new company, Lockheed Martin Intersputnik.

The decision to leave my adopted country of America for my native England and turn my life upside down for this transatlantic relocation had not been an easy one. Quite apart from the natural questions related to signing up with a new business venture and leaving behind the familiar surroundings and friends who are the foundation of one's daily life, my decision had been all the more wrenching because it involved subjecting my beloved pets to the U.K.'s antiquated quarantine system (since abolished). Knowing my dog and cat would have to spend six months in "jail" very nearly deterred me from taking the job. But the lure of an international assignment, especially one in London, was too compelling.

I boarded the plane at Dulles airport with a heavy heart at what I was leaving behind. But my mood rose with the morning sun as my flight descended above the clouds over the coast of England. I disembarked at Heathrow that June morning full of excitement, hope and optimism for what appeared to be an assignment that would be a career pinnacle, one that would last several years by all estimates.

Unpacking my bags before heading to my new office that gloomy June morning, I pondered the ever-changing fortunes that had deposited me in the country of my birth. The girl who left for America at age 17 was returning 30 years later as a communications executive retained to help create a brand identity and build the corporate reputation of a new satellite joint venture between Lockheed Martin Corp. and Intersputnik, the Moscow-based consortium of formerly socialist countries.

It had been an interesting, circuitous and never boring journey.

Read more... (DOC, 68 KB)

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