A couple of years ago the UK Ministry of Defence announced it had selected L3Harris Technologies to fulfill its Multi-Mode Radio (MMR) requirement. (L3Harris Technologies)
EUROSATORY — As US-based L3Harris seeks to expand its global footprint, the company is opening a new office in Rome designed to focus on European and NATO relationships, according to Dave Johnson, vice president of L3Harris international.
“We expect international to grow faster than domestic just because of the demand signal we see out there for the international partners as they try to build up capability,” Johnson told Breaking Defense Wednesday on the sidelines of the Eurosatory defense conference outside Paris. “They see a war in Ukraine. They see what’s going on in the Mideast, in the Red Sea. They see what’s potentially going to happen in the South China Sea or Taiwan.”
Johnson estimates that approximately 20 percent of the company’s annual $20 billion revenue comes from international sales, or about $4 billion, and he is expecting that international market to grow between 5 and 7 percent year-over-year.
L3Harris already has a presence in Europe, including offices in the United Kingdom, Poland and another in Italy — in Milan in the north. The company also opened a production facility in Bologna, Italy, last year.
But the new Rome office — to be the star of a ribbon-cutting next week — is expected to facilitate further business on the continent. To get there, Tiziana Cotugno, a Naples native, has been tapped to be the company’s vice president for Europe and NATO and manage the small team of 20 people from the new central Italy office. Cotugno and the company are planning to focus on two main areas at first — tactical communications and missionized business jets – as the firm also grows its space and airborne systems portfolio.
“[She] can help interface with embassies, the organizations that run acquisition — think armaments agencies, and the customers,” Johnson said.
“Then you can bring in the businesses, say our maritime business, or our missionized business jet and … help them understand the capabilities [L3Harris is offering],” he later added.
