CC-MVNO Summit - London 13^th & 14^th February

Based at Lago di Como in Italy, VSC provides strategic advisory services in M&A, Business Development & Media for the telecommunication industry. Over the last 25 years, Erik developed extensive expertise and deep domain knowledge working at major telecom companies. His international career includes senior & executive level positions. Over the years, Erik has been a regular speaker & moderator at major international telecom conferences.

An expert in wholesale voice and SMS messaging with over 20 years’ experience in the telecom industry as former VP of Sales & Carrier Relations at tyntec, one of the largest A2P SMS service providers globally and as Regional Manager at Verizon where he headed up a team responsible for international voice services in Europe. José also previously managed operator relations in Central and Southern Europe for Netsize, a Gemalto company. José holds a degree in business administration from the Wolfgang-Goethe University in Frankfurt a. M.

Specialties:
Launch SMS services / Shift from Voice to Messaging / A2P SMS Monetization / MNO revenue assurance / SMS platforms / P2P SMS Cost optimization / Training Sales and Carrier Relations / Wholesale Voice / VoIP / Integration of Operators, Carriers, Aggregators into value chain of OTT services / Off-net connectivity for OTT services.

Abdullah Alsamhan was appointed in 2013 as General Manager for International Cable Systems Management in STC’s Wholesale Business Unit.
Under his leadership, STC continues to be play a major role in the region & all consortium and other international cable systems; with him leading the evolution and development of STC's robust global network including STC's International Submarine Cable Networks.
STC’s International Cable Systems is enabling STC to maintain its position as one of the main supplier of bandwidth in the region and as a provider of innovative, reliable and high-quality telecommunications services.
Prior to his current position, Alsamhan was General Manager, International Network & Service Management Operations where he successfully steered STC international network, contributing and collaborating with key stakeholders in STC to promote the adoption of the latest technology and services within KSA.
Abdullah Alsamhan has more than 30 years of leadership and management telecom experience in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia region driving regional and global business development and strategic growth, strategic partnership, joint ventures and alliances, products’ and services’ visibility and managing telecom salesforces across multiple geographies, including Strategy & Business Development, Technology Development and Operation, Financial Planning, in addition to his active participation & leading many international cable organizations.
• Chairman of the Management Committee for SMW4 (South East Asia Middle East Western Europe-4) from January 2010 to February 2018, and leading the biggest upgrade undertaken for this system.
• Chairman of the Management Committee for SMW5 (South East Asia Middle East Western Europe-5) since November 2017; the last and most advance and famous series of submarine cables in the industry.
• Currently, Chairman of Management Committee for Africa-1 cable system.
• Chairman of the Technical Committee of JADI (Jeddah Amman Damascus Instable) Cable System, which is the first cable connecting Middle East & Europe through terrestrial link and as an alternative route.
• Chairman of the Technical Committee of SAS1 & SAS2 (Saudi Arabia Sudan) cables.
• Representing Saudi Telecom Company (STC) in all major subsea international events and conferences. He is also managing STC investment in all international cable systems STC is investing in (SMW3, SMW4, SMW5, IMEWE, EIG, SAS1, SAS2, EASSy).
Alsamhan possesses vision for long term strategic planning and developing new markets, and vast international work experience. He is an expert in building internal and external collaborative relationships, developing creative and innovative initiatives, exploiting new business opportunities and driving strategic programs through complex negotiations.
Alsamhan obtained his BSc in Electrical Engineering from King Saud University – Riyadh KSA in 1988.

With over 30 years’ experience in the telecoms industry, Conrad brings a wealth of knowledge to his role as Chief Network Architect at SSE Enterprise Telecoms having previously held several senior roles at Level 3, which included overseeing many large-scale network enhancements and significantly expanding their European network reach. Within SSE Enterprise Telecoms, Conrad is responsible for defining, delivering and maintaining the technical architectures that support our existing portfolio, as well as any new ground-breaking technologies.

Christopher (Chris) Street is Group Chief Marketing Officer of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC). He oversees the company’s global marketing initiatives and strategic account management across the company’s portfolio. He was previously Group General Manager of STT GDC, overseeing the company’s data centre portfolio in Singapore, and was responsible for building services and programmes to support customers’ needs across the STT GDC group.

Chris has been in the internet infrastructure industry for over 20 years, and has built and scale businesses in service provider and end-user environments. Prior to STT GDC, he was at Amazon where he was responsible for the acquisition of strategic technical infrastructure such as network and data centre services across the company’s global footprint. Prior to Amazon, Chris held various positions in the Sales, Marketing and Technical Operations functions at companies such as Switch & Data, AT&T, Equinix and CERFnet.

Chris graduated from Baruch College, NYC, with a Master’s in Business Administration and a Bachelor’s Degree from Indiana University Bloomington, USA.

Alexey Yanson graduated from St. Petersburg State University with the degree in Economy and Business Administration. Alexey has been with LANCK Telecom since the company foundation. Started as a Business Development Manager 17 years ago, Alexey became CEO of LANCK Telecom in 2008. Under auspices of Alexey LANCK has become one of the relevant telecom market players involved in GSMA association, PTC, CC and other telecom carrier communities.

Gary has been leading software companies focussed on the telecoms market for 20 years. Early in his career he established a new telecoms software division within ICL/Fujitsu before going on to be COO of Intec Telecoms. Here he played a pivotal role in growing the business to over £100m turnover in an eight-year period. He subsequently became COO of the messaging company Myriad AG before joining MDS Global as CEO in 2015. MDS Global are the European experts in convergent real-time charging, billing and analytics. Their customers include market leading MVNOs like TalkTalk Business and Carphone Warehouse’s iD Mobile.

Daniel is a co-founder of Preiskel & Co and has over 20 years’ experience working in the telecoms, media and technology sectors, advising across the globe.  He has been ranked for over 15 years in major independent research guides as one of the world’s leading communications lawyers.

He is particularly recognised for commercial and regulatory work in the UK and overseas. He also advises various clients (including a major Korean handset manufacturer) on international investments and acquisitions as well as on major privatisations.  Recent work includes advising a group of mobile operators and content providers in reversing a decision of a European telecoms regulator.  He has recently been advising Japanese and Middle Eastern mobile network operators on MVNOs as well as advising a range of MVNOs & MVNAs in various continents.  Daniel, together with his international team, typically advises companies on the legal aspects of their multi-national services, with an increasing amount of advice on cloud issues, software as a service, privacy and data retention issues.

Ian is a telecommunication professional and has been working in the industry for 30 years.  Ian’s passion is working with those who seek to develop cross technology end to end solutions based upon sound business drivers, as well as evangelising new technologies and solutions that have the potential to add value to an operator’s business. As Head of Solutions for Nokia in the UK&I our aim is to build a clear technical vision linked to Nokia’s customer’s business strategy, build senior technical relationships and aim to maximise cross sell and multi-technology opportunities for our customers and Nokia. In addition, based upon market, regulatory and technology trends we look to identify key areas of focus for new Nokia opportunities within the UK&I. Previous roles during Ian’s career have included heading technical and commercial pre-sales teams and providing senior engineering ICT consultancy services and technical project management services to a global client base. Ian is a Chartered Engineer and holds a BSc. (Hons) in Electronic Engineering from Bangor University (UCNW), a MSc in Telecommunications & Information Systems from the University of Essex and is a Member of the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET).

Adam is Head of Wholesale EMEA for Telstra, a leading telecommunications and technology company. Based in London, he oversees Telstra’s wholesale business in EMEA, with responsibility for developing and driving the business strategy, as well as wholesale and OTT customer relationships.

With a strong focus on the customer experience and building value for wholesale partners, Adam has led the EMEA wholesale business to record large referenced deals with customers such as BT, Telia, BICS, Colt, KPN and GTT.

Adam has over 20 years’ experience in the telecoms industry, having held a number of roles at Verizon, AAPT and Pacnet prior to joining Telstra. He is a dual national of the United Kingdom and Australia, a country where he spent a decade building his career.

Outside of work, Adam is a father of four as well as a keen footballer and coach.

Neil Kitcher is an innovative sales director with a consistent record of delivering direct and indirect channel partner revenue through consultative selling in the competitive world of technology and telecoms.

In his current role at Epsilon, Neil is responsible for building, leading and developing a high performing global strategic business unit. He leads a team of 12 across sales, sales support, tech sales, procurement, product, engineering and operations.

A hands-on team player with a firm grasp of industry technologies and extensive experience of building loyal customer relationships across enterprises and global service providers,Neil’s key expertise includes complex contract negotiation, business development, large scale projects and new concept strategies. His previous experience includes some of the world’s most recognised brands: Verizon, Vodafone and Level 3.

COO & CFO at Global Telco Consult, mobile messaging evangelist Giovanni brings 25+ years of telecom experience and RCS expertise. Previously as Senior Director of Product Management for OpenMarket’s Global SMS services, he grew the OpenMarket SMS business significantly over his 4 year tenure. Prior to GTC and OpenMarket, Giovanni held a variety of Product Management and Business Development positions in the space of SMS, Voice and Unified Communication at different companies in Europe and USA like Siemens and tyntec. Giovanni graduated from Bayreuth and Manchester University with a Masters in Physics.

Katia Gonzalez Gutierrez has more than 10 years of experience in the mobile and wholesale telecoms industry, and she has held different positions in the wholesale carrier business – including trading manager, pricing manager and now fraud operations manager.

She chairs the i3Forum’s fraud work stream, which brings together the communications expertise of more than 49 telecommunication providers, representing a combined retail base of over 1.5 billion customers across more than 100 countries. González Gutierrez holds a computer science engineer degree from Deusto University in Spain and started her career as consultant in the supply chain industry. 

Maggie Parry is Vice President of Sales, Carrier and Wholesale, responsible for driving revenue growth through this vertical. Maggie joined Aqua Coms in 2015 and has more than three decades of telecommunications experience, including fifteen years in the submarine cable arena. She has worked for companies including ITT Worldcom, Telstra UK, MFS, Level 3 Communications and Apollo Submarine Cable System LTD. Prior to her role at Aqua Comms, Maggie spent eight years as a Sales Director at Hibernia Atlantic. She has a B.A in International Relations and Affairs from the University of Colerado at Boulder, and is based in Bromley, UK.

Eddie is the founder and Managing Director of Universal Call Limited.

Eddie has over 25 years of experience in the Telecoms industry. He has held several senior positions during his career with British Telecom.

Eddie has lived and worked in Spain, US and Asia Pac, he is fluent in 6 languages. Specialising in outsourcing he held the positions from Directorship to CEO, conducting positive business at board levels around the world. Eddie has won several awards on his outstanding performances.

Ian is responsible for acquiring new business partnerships by leveraging Three's mobile network and wholesale platform capability across multiple mobile segments. Helping businesses such as White Label Partnerships, MVNOs, and IoT Service Providers to provide connectivity services to their own customers on the network built for data.

Excellent contractual negotiation skills, an example of which, led to the successful negotiation of an IoT partnership with AT&T. A wide breadth of experience of MVNO, OTT and IoT deals, having successfully negotiated ten partnerships in six years. 

From an engineering background to a telecoms expert, previous experience includes product development, sales and marketing roles which provide a unique mix of excellent technical knowledge, commercial awareness and a willingness to challenge and break barriers.

As EVP Mobile Cloud, Paul leads Digitalk’s cloud-based ‘MVNE as a Service’ business unit, supporting MNOs, MVNAs and MVNOs. Paul has an extensive background in the telecoms industry, working with both operators and vendors in a range of executive roles to deliver innovative and successful communications products and services.

Chris van Zinnicq Bergmann has over twenty years of experience in the global telecommunications sector. He started his telecommunications career in Amsterdam where he held corporate as well as sales related positions at BT, Unisource (a joint venture between KPN, Telia and Swisscom) and AT&T-Unisource.

In 1999, Chris left Europe to move to Los Angeles, where he became a member of the team that started the operations of Asia Global Crossing, which later evolved into Pacnet, a subsea cable operator in the Asia Pacific region which in 2014 has been acquired by Telstra. In 2002, Chris relocated to Singapore from where he headed the company’s market expansion activities in Southeast Asia and India and from 2005 to 2008 was the regional head for Southeast Asia and India, responsible for the company’s wholesale and enterprise business in this region. At the end of 2008, Chris moved back to Amsterdam to take up the role of regional head for Europe and North America (until the end of 2010) and subsequently for Europe, the Middle East and India. In 2014, Chris joined Global Cloud Xchange and is currently based in Amsterdam as SVP Corporate Development.

After joining Expereo 11 years ago and setting up the first international Expereo office in Singapore back in 2008, Sander now works out of the HQ in Amsterdam as the Chief Commercial Officer. His team is spread out globally across 5 offices. Before joining Expereo Sander worked out of Australia for BT Global Services and Infonet Services Corp. His telecom career started in 1997 with Unisource Business Services and AT&T Unisource in Europe. Nice to know fact: before Sander went into telecom he was a helicopter pilot.

As Director, Sales – West Africa, Nikki is focussed on extending WIOCC’s footprint across West Africa. Nikki has been in the telecoms industry for almost 20 years and joined WIOCC in 2016 after eight years with Tata Communications, where she sold a wide range of Data services across numerous countries in Africa. Nikki also held managerial roles at Gateway Communications, where she established multiple interconnects with organisations such as Safaricom and Ethiopia Telecoms; and Cable & Wireless, for whom she sold services in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Nikki is passionate about Africa and feels privileged to have seen and taken part in the technological advances that have occurred over the years. She lives in an Oxfordshire village and loves going on country walks with her daughter and dog.

Kim Bybjerg is Vice President IoT & Mobility at Tata Communications, a leading global provider of A New World of Communications™. With a leadership position in emerging markets, Tata Communications leverages its advanced solutions capabilities and domain expertise across its global network to deliver managed solutions to multi-national enterprises and communications service providers.
With extensive experience in the IoT field, Kim has been involved in countless IoT projects across Europe and outside, being responsible for the go-to-market strategy, the commercial and product strategy, as well as the execution of these strategies.
Prior to Tata Communications, Kim has been CEO of Teleena and Director Business Development in Europe, Middle-East and Africa for Jasper (now Cisco-Jasper), a large provider of IoT SaaS services for Telecom operators. Before that, he has been Managing Director at JHB Group, which envolved out of two technology companies: mobile payment enabler, Liquix, and smart-metering company, Xemex. As Director M2M Northern Europe at Vodafone, Kim has been developing the M2M activities for one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. Before Vodafone, he already setup the M2M business for KPN, where and for which he also established a partnership with Jasper.
Prior to becoming an expert within the IoT space, Kim held various Management positions at Orange, Siemens, IBM and AT&T.

Robert Staniszewski has been active on Poland’s mobile telephony market for 21 years now.

Since 2009 he has been the Director of the Wholesale Department at Polkomtel Sp. z o.o. (the operator of Plus mobile network) and Cyfrowy Polsat S.A. (the biggest pay TV provider in Central and Eastern Europe).

Robert Staniszewski is responsible for wholesale cooperation with Polish and foreign carriers. His responsibilities include:

- acquisition of partners, development of cooperation and maintaining of relations with telecommunication operators,

- sale and purchasing of  wholesale interconnect services, traffic exchange,

- sale and purchasing of international roaming services on wholesale basis,

- sale of national roaming and other services to MVNO’s,

- development of wholesale products to be offered via wholesale channels of Polkomtel/Cyfrowy Polsat,

- support for process of regulation of the wholesale telecommunication market in Poland

- wholesale settlements with partners.

Robert Staniszewski is a graduate of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of Warsaw University where he studied International Economy and completed his studies with a major in economic sciences. Subsequently he completed doctoral studies at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of Warsaw University, obtaining a Ph.D. title in Economic Sciences. Until  2006 he worked as an Assistant Professor and lecturer at the Chair of International Economic Relations of Warsaw University’s Faculty of Economic Sciences.

Theo has broad experience in fixed and mobile communications having worked in technology and commercial roles.

At CKH IOD, a fully owned CK Hutchison Holdings Limited company, Theo leads business development for multi-national MVNO, IoT and OTT Service Providers looking to leverage on the group’s extensive assets.

CKH IOD was launched in December to maximise cross border digital success and data analytics for CK Hutchison, acting as its international development hub across its global business units. CKH IOD customers benefit from CK Hutchison Holdings Limited’s world leading data and network solutions, leveraging the group’s extensive assets.

The new unit champions bold, mould-breaking products and services, rooted in the digital world. It is built on the digital transformation of the group as it moves towards a more streamlined, cost-effective future with potential for new revenue streams in multiple sectors, including online gaming and IoT.

Steffen Oefner is the heading the Mobile Wholesale Business Models team at Deutsche Telekom – Segment Europe. In this role, Steffen is responsible for Deutsche Telekom´s Mobile Wholesale business in the European footprint together with the local teams. This includes developing and implementing growth opportunities with existing and potential partners.

Prior to joining Mobile Wholesale, Steffen worked in multiple international functions at Deutsche Telekom. Before Deutsche Telekom, Steffen worked as a management consultant, specializing in business strategy, product and pricing related projects for numerous mobile and fixed-line operator across Europe. Steffen holds a Master in Economics from Philipps-University of Marburg.

Halil Kama is a peering advisor for the London Internet Exchange (LINX). The largest non-profit purely mutual Internet Exchange operator in the world. He has several years experience of working at the heart of the internet with vast exposure to over 750+ of the top ranking internet & telecoms companies globally, enabling connections to millions of users daily.

Andy is Chief Operating Officer of Seaborn. He is responsible for leading all aspects of Seaborn’s global operations and engineering. Over the past three decades, Andy has developed and brought into operation numerous transoceanic and regional submarine cable systems connecting Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East.

Andy previously served as Head of Regional Submarine Networks at Global Marine Systems, a preeminent subsea cable installation company. Prior to Global Marine, Andy was an early member of Global Crossing’s Network Team, where he brought into service all of Global Crossing’s submarine networks, and he led engineering and implementation of network upgrades and provisioning of customer circuits on the global submarine network. He also led planning, construction, and operation of Global Crossing’s global NOC

Andy began his submarine telecom career with FLAG (FEA Submarine System), where he was responsible for the successful commissioning and bringing into service of all 15 segments of the Europe to Asia submarine system and for the centralized management of the entire system from the FNOC in Fujairah, UAE.

Most recently, Andy led the project management for a new 1,240 km submarine fiber optic cable system linking Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname.

Andy served in the Royal Air Force where he received a degree in Electronic Engineering and Aerospace Studies, and thereafter entered the telecom industry with NYNEX in the UK.

John enjoyed more than 25 years in Tech working for telecom technology and managed transport service providers in International Sales and Business Development generating new revenue streams, usually from scratch. His international experience includes acquiring business in West, Central and Eastern Europe, USA and Middle Eastern markets, also Asia. Large network of contacts in these regions. 

Alistair’s career spans over 20 years in the telecoms sector, during which time he has worked both within major UK telecoms operators including BT and Manx Telecom, as well as being instrumental in establishing and growing managed telecoms solutions providers. His focus on technical innovation combined with his experience in business development have enabled him to create strategic relationships to position these businesses at the forefront of their market and generate new revenue streams. During his time at Pod Group, he has been responsible for specialized projects within the Pod Solutions division, working with key partners and stakeholders to develop new products and services, drive the research and development of new technologies and build strategic partnerships with customers and suppliers.  

Sally has worked for nearly 20 years in the telecoms sector in both fixed line and mobile sectors, and joined Lifecycle Software in 2014. 

At Lifecycle she has played an in instrumental role in managing and delivering phenomenal growth, as the company has transformed to make customer engagement, agility, innovation and creativity key themes that deliver scalable and sustainable partnerships. Managing a wide range of functions Sally is known for getting things done and implementing change.

Lifecycle’s current focus is on ensuring their solutions continue to evolve to support market requirements in response to shifting technological landscapes.

Chris has over 19 years of senior level experience in the prepaid telecom industry. He pioneered many of the technical, commercial and legal industry standards in Europe for prepaid products and has worked extensively with Government Regulators and Tax Authorities. Chris was founder and CEO of Unitel Communications in 1994, co-founder of ECCSA (European Calling Card Services Association) in 1999, Chairman from 2001 to 2005.
Chris is responsible for business compliance and corporate governance for the Lycamobile group.
Chris holds a masters degree in History and Economics from Oxford University.

Angelo Paiva is the Wholesale Director with Telecall. He has 15 years of experience in the International Wholesale market and attended all the major conferences around the World helping Telecall to achieve its World presence and build its Wholesale Team. Telecall launched its MVNO in Brazil, and with a good understanding about Marketing and Sales Angelo is helping Telecall to develop the Marketing strategy and of course looking into the Wholesale perspective. Angelo in under graduated in Publicity and has 2 MBAs, in Marketing and Computer Networks.

Passionate about new technologies and innovation, with over 25 years of international experience and successful track record in different management positions across Europe, within large organizations as Telefonica Group, Colt Telecom, Vodafone Group, EU Commission. Over 25 years telecoms experience, part of the founding team of Unsere Grüne Glasfaser Gmbh, a JV between Telefónica group and Allianz, responsible to accelerate the Digitalization of Germany in Rural and Semi-rural Areas.

Have an Executive MBA in Oxford B. University and a B.A in International Business Administration by Universidad Complutense, Madrid. Also experienced with Startups for the development of technological solutions for Cybersecurity for Children and Young Adults based on AI and ML.

Vlad Ihora joined Colt in December 2016 as Director of Wholesale, part of the Major Deals team.

The Major Deals team seek, design and deliver new, strategic, high-value propositions to the global Wholesale market sector using a consultative, solutions-focused sales approach. His remit covers both standard and new product portfolios.

Prior to joining Colt, Vlad was Sales Director, Professional Services at Level 3 Communications UK. Vlad has extensive experience in the telecommunications industry, having also held roles at Huawei and TeliaSonera.

Vlad has worked in the telecommunications sector for almost two decades, with his career focusing on areas such as product, strategy and  business development.

He holds an Executive MBA from the Imperial College Business School in London. Vlad is based in London.

coming soon

Matthew Whalley co-founded content marketing agency Ilex Content Strategies.

Ilex supports Tech and Telecoms companies with Public Relations, Marketing Content and Sales Enablement. It supports the development of Channel Partner Programmes, Lead Generation campaigns and Offline and Online engagement. Ilex serves start-ups through to billion-dollar businesses in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Matthew was the editor of Capacity magazine and the European Technology Content Director at global PR firm Edelman.

His business development skills and entrepreneurial spirit have allowed him to create a content marketing business from the ground up and see it succeed as a thriving global business.

A self-motivated, driven and successful EMEA sales director with over 23 years’ experience in the enterprise IT, channel, unified communications, security, managed services and fixed/mobile telecommunications markets. Demonstrable, proven sales leadership skills including: leading, managing, developing and motivating sales organisations to over achieve their objectives. First class analytical, strategic and problem solving skills, developed whilst building a track record in growing market share, revenue and profits in fast changing sectors. Capable of building strong market leading propositions in a business to business and business to consumer environment that has driven new business sales that have provided customer value, retention and revenue.

• A sales leader with over 23 years in Senior Sales Manager and Director leadership positions across Europe and the UK
• Consistent overachievement in multiple markets covering telecoms, security, ICT and channel resellers
• Comprehensive UK, EMEA and Global vendor, partner and customer relationships
• A solution selling sales engagement approach
• Strong man management and coaching skills
• Team transformation to deliver successful and loyal sales personnel
• Strong strategy and execution skills that have delivered positive results
• A keen interest in new technology opportunities such as the Internet of Things, Big Data, Virtualisation (SDN & NFV) and distributed intelligence
• A passion for success and proud to be able to demonstrate it

Kim founded Lifecycle in 1995 after 20 years of working in blue chip companies performing various technical, project and business consulting roles. He has built the company into a sustainable force in the telecoms market, continuously driving forward innovation.

Kim is an active director of Lifecycle working in both R&D and Business Development. 

As a sourcing manager, Othman is exploring the world of Telecoms to find new partners for Legos. Graduated from Audencia, his career has led him from Morocco to France and, now, Spain. As a former analyst and consultant, Othman is always curious about new market trends and constantly looking for buying and selling opportunities.