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Einar is CTO and founder of Owera. He has extensive experience in the international electronics and telecommunication industry, with providing VoIP solutions to OEM/ODMs worldwide and automatic provisioning systems to telecommunication operators, ISPs and OEMs. He is a regular speaker at conferences and forums, addressing the opportunities and challenges assoiciated with delivering high quality IP services over low cost best-effort networks.
Herman Abel, Product Manager, Aculab
Herman Abel is a Product Manager at Aculab, responsible for development of media processing and signalling products portfolio, new products initiatives, definition of the next generation product strategy, markets analysis, and support of the global sales force. Herman has extensive multidisciplinary knowledge and experience in broadband telecom, wireless communications, consumer electronics and information technology. Prior to joining Aculab, he studied MBA degree at Grenoble Ecole de Management, France, and before that worked for Atrica, a carrier-class Optical Ethernet equipment company, where he led marketing and realization activities for DWDM optical products and services.
Ray Adensamer, Senior Manager, Product Marketing, RadiSys Corporation
Ray Adensamer is Senior Manager of Product Marketing at RadiSys, a leading provider of advanced solutions for the communications networking and commercial systems markets. Ray has over 20 years of achievements in the data and telecommunications industries in the areas of product marketing and business development with Redback Networks and Nortel, along with OSS consulting experience while working with Deloitte Consulting and Accenture.
Ray has been a past speaker at many leading industry conferences including SuperComm, Western Communications Forum, VON, OSS Comforum, and the Network Operations Management Symposium.
Ray holds a B.A.Sc. from University of Waterloo, and an M.B.A from University of British Columbia.
Paige Albiniak, Contributing Editor, IP Media Monitor
IP Media Monitor contributing editor Paige Albiniak, covers television for such publications and organizations as the New York Post, Broadcasting & Cable, CBS Watch, C21 Media’s NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) Dailies and new online publication TV Newsday as well as IP Media Monitor. Albiniak has been writing about television, technology and the media since 1995. She covered Congress for Broadcasting & Cable from 1997-2002, and was the magazine’s Los Angeles Bureau Chief from 2002-2004. She now keeps tabs on the ever-changing industry from Boulder, CO.
Hanny Alexander, Director Corporate Quality Services, Polycom
Mr. Alexander has been involved in the conferencing industry since 2000. He has held a variety of both pre and post sales technical positions. Currently Mr. Alexander serves as the Director of Corporate Quality Services for Polycom, ensuring that Polycom delivers quality products to our customers.
Mr. Alexander holds a MBA from American Intercontinental University.
Jeremy Allaire, Chairman and CEO, Brightcove Inc.
Jeremy founded Brightcove in early 2004 with a vision for the transformation of television with the Internet. As Chairman and CEO of Brightcove, Jeremy leads the company's technology, marketing and business development strategy. Prior to founding Brightcove, Jeremy worked as a technologist and entrepreneur-in-residence for Cambridge, MA-based venture capital firm General Catalyst, where he worked on companies and investments in broadband media, mobile content, e-commerce software and digital identity. Before General Catalyst, Jeremy was Chief Technology Officer of Macromedia, where he helped define and launch the Macromedia MX platform for Rich Internet Applications, helping to evolve Macromedia Flash into a dominant platform for rich media applications on the Internet. Jeremy joined Macromedia with its merger with Allaire Corporation, where Jeremy was a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. Founded in 1995, Allaire Corporation was a pioneer in using the web as an application platform, and its industry leading and award winning products power millions of websites, online services and business applications on the Internet.
Rory Altman, Director, Co-Founder, Altman Vilandrie & Company
Rory Altman founded Altman Vilandrie & Company with Ed Vilandrie in 2002. Rory is an expert in competitive dynamics, marketing effectiveness, converged communications products, new market entry, channel strategy, and mergers & acquisitions. He works with operators including service providers, content creators and aggregators, and equipment and software developers. His financial clients include many of the largest and most prominent investors in the communications, media and related technology markets.
Rory holds a M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a B. Eng. in Civil Engineering from McGill University. Rory has also served as a Principal and management team member at CSMG, and as a traffic engineer and transportation planner at Barton-Aschman Associates, Inc.
Shirish Andhare, Vice President of Product Marketing, Sylantro Systems
As Vice President of Product Management for Sylantro’s end user applications, APIs, and developer program Shirish brings to bear over 12 years of experience in the area of communication applications to deliver value-added end-user applications leveraging the power of the Web and VoIP. Prior to Sylantro, Shirish was Group Product Manager at Tellme Networks Inc., where he led the creation of advanced speech-enabled services leveraging the Internet, speech-recognition, and the phone. Before Tellme, Shirish contributed to the development of voice mail networking, unified messaging, and directory applications at other pioneers in telecommunications applications including VMX (later Octel, Lucent, and now Avaya) and Vertical Networks.
Shirish received a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Sciences from the Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (India), a Masters in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Texas, and a Masters in Management Sciences with a focus on high-tech strategy and marketing from Stanford University where he is a frequent guest speaker.
Brian Angiolet, Executive Director of Marketing for Verizon FiOS, Verizon
Brian Angiolet is an Executive Director of Marketing for Verizon FiOS. In his current role, he is responsible for marketing strategy and planning, as well as, marketing communications for Verizon’s FiOS Internet and TV services provided over the state-of-the-art fiber to the premises (FTTP) network.
He joined Verizon in 1999 and advanced through numerous leadership positions in Marketing.
He played a key role in the development of the strategy and business case for FiOS initiative and in 2006, he launched a very successful FiOS campaign for which Verizon won “Grand Ex Award” for Best Event Marketing Campaign of the Year in 2006, sponsored by the Event Marketer Magazine. His leadership and vision have been instrumental to the tremendous success of FiOS.
Peter Anzalone, VP Business Development, RipCode
A 25-year veteran of the cable and telecommunications industries, Mr. Anzalone has focused on the growth and marketing of new products. His teams have developed, deployed and effectively marketed telephony, digital cable, high-speed cable modem, next generation Set Top Boxes and Video On Demand services.
Mr. Anzalone held numerous positions within Time Warner in the fields of operations, budgets, programming, franchising, contract negotiations, new property acquisitions and new business development. He last served as Vice President of Sales & Marketing.
Mr. Anzalone holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications and concentrated studies in Computer Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin.
Jon Arnold, Principal, J Arnold & Associates
Jon Arnold is Principal of J Arnold & Associates, an independent telecom analyst and marketing consultancy with a focus on IP communications. Previously, he was the VoIP Program Leader at Frost & Sullivan, where he was responsible for managing their subscription service for Global VoIP Equipment Markets.
He is a regular speaker at VoIP and telecom conferences, and has been a regular at VON since 2001. Jon is frequently quoted in the business and trade press, radio and television, including Business Week, Forbes, WSJ, Boston Globe, Financial Times, CBS Radio and Bloomberg Radio. Jon maintains a widely read IP Communications blog, and produces a weekly podcast covering the IP communications market in Canada for the Pulvermedia Podcasting Network.
Amir Ashkenazi, Founder & CEO, adap.tv
Amir Ashkenazi drives the overall strategy and manages operations for adap.tv. Most recently, Amir was Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Shopping.com (formerly DealTime.com), a leading online shopping service that helps consumers make informed purchasing decisions by comparing products, prices, and stores Web-wide. Mr. Ashkenazi launched and successfully led Shopping.com's technology and research efforts. Shopping.com completed an initial public offering in October 2004; the company was later acquired by eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) in August 2005. Previously, Amir was Director of Research for CommTouch Software. He studied Computer Science and Economics at Tel Aviv University.
Rupert Baines, Vice President of Marketing, picoChip
Rupert has spent twenty years in technology marketing, working on commercializing many leading edge technologies. He spent six years with Analog Devices in Boston, working on semiconductors for wireless before managing their Broadband product line and holding responsibility for the industry-standard ADSL chipset. He has also worked for operators, most recently as Director of Product Development and Strategy for Atlantic Telecom, where he ran a large pan-European DSL rollout and trialed wireless broadband deployments.
At picoChip, he has been responsible for the strategy that led to the femtocell, supplying most of the manufacturers in the market today. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Femto Forum, and is Chairman of the Marketing Working Group.
He has BSEE and MSEE from Hull University, England, and an MBA from IESE in Barcelona, Spain.
Charlie Baker, Director, Product Management, Brix Networks
Charlie Baker is responsible for the positioning, competitive analysis, and market development activities for all of Brix Networks' hardware measurement platforms, correlation and analysis software engine, and third-party data sources, plus he also cultivates and manages relationships with various endpoint vendors as part of the firm’s Brix Assured Program. Prior to joining the Chelmsford, Mass.-based company, Baker worked in product management for Brooktrout Technology (now Cantata Technology) managing network interface, signaling, and media processing technology for SS7 and IMS networks. Earlier in his career, he led product management efforts for various start-up companies and was also a program manager in the United States Air Force. During his Air Force career he managed the design, upgrade, and deployment of Space Defense and Optical Telescope systems. Baker holds a Bachelor's of Science in Management from the United States Air Force Academy, and an MBA from Boston University.
Ari Banerjee, Program Manager - Enabling Technologies , Yankee Group
Ari Banerjee is a Program Manager in Yankee Group’s Enabling Technologies Service Provider group with an expertise in software solutions. Banerjee examines the breadth of software used by communications service providers in customer, business and service and infrastructure management. His area of focus includes order management, provisioning and service activation, inventory management and telecom billing. Banerjee also covers issues related to the areas of network performance monitoring, IMS architecture and communications infrastructure software applications.
Prior to joining Yankee Group, Banerjee worked for the billing and customer care division at Lucent Technologies and subsequently the global software and services group at CSG Systems. As a technical consultant in global software and services, Banerjee worked extensively with both domestic and international carriers on various software deployments, including billing, invoicing, online customer care, order management, provisioning, inventory, billing operations and troubleshooting solutions. He has also worked for utility companies in Asia and Europe in a number of business development and technology functions.
Banerjee speaks regularly at leading communications industry events. He holds a B.E. degree in electronics and communications from Maipal Institute of Technology and a M.S. degree in computer information systems from Bentley College. He also holds an M.B.A. from University of Glasgow Business School.
Paul Baron, Director, Business Development, SPIRIT DSP
Paul Baron is a leading visionary and evangelist of emerging voice, video, telecom, and communications technologies. Since 2003, Paul has served as Director, Business Development for SPIRIT Technologies. SPIRIT delivers embedded voice, audio, video and communication software products and consulting services to the world's leading telecommunication OEMs, service providers, semiconductor suppliers and software vendors.
In 1994, Paul founded Page-Tel, Inc., a CTI software development company, one of the early adopters of TAPI and TSAPI technologies, delivering one of the first applications to integrate telecom and data networks. That company was sold in 1999 and since then, Paul has worked in consulting, strategic alliance, and business development roles for innovative softswitch, telecom, and communications software and equipment developers. Paul has been a regular speaker and expert panelist at industry events and is a published author on a wide range of technology topics for industry publications.
Andrea Basso, Principal Investigator, AT&T Labs
Dr. Andrea Basso serves as Principal Investigator in AT&T Labs - Research, New Jersey USA.. In previous positions he served as Technical Director and Chief Architect in NMS Communications. Dr. Basso has more than fifteen years of expertise of research and development in multimedia communications systems and services, including speech and video coding, media adaptation, multimedia delivery for broadband and wireless networks, caching, scalability and interworking aspects of multimedia. Dr. Basso has significant expertise in communications protocols for media delivery and he is involved in the development of standards in several international bodies including IETF, ISO/MPEG, ITU-T and IMTC. Earlier he held academic senior positions in research and development at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Dr. Basso has been Visiting Scientist at Stanford University, Palo Alto CA (USA), and IRST (Italy). Dr. Basso holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and a Master degree from University of Trieste, Italy. As adjunct associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Victoria, Canada Dr. Basso is author or co-author of more than 60 publications and 3 books in the area of video processing and networked multimedia services and holds 12 patents.
Jerry Berger, Vice President of Media Production Systems, Solid State Logic
Jerry is vice president of sales for SSL. He most recently served as vice president and general manager for MicroFirst Engineering, an international solutions company concentrating on media content management for the broadcast, hospitality and gaming industries. During his tenure with MicroFirst, Jerry was responsible for directing the company’s successful intro into the broadcast television market. Jerry’s also worked for Sony Electronics, Broadcast & Professional Group and the NBC TV Network, where, combined, he has nearly two decades of experience.
Daniel Berninger joined Tier1 Research in August 2004 as Senior Analyst covering telecom. Daniel has over a decade of experience that includes helping to launch three prominent VoIP startups - ITXC, Vonage, and Free World Dialup. His expertise on the intersection of telecom and the Internet has been sought by Congress, FCC, Federal Reserve, and state PSCs. Daniel led early VoIP deployments at Verizon, HP, and NASA for VocalTec Communications. He won the 1999 VON Pioneer Award for co-founding the VON Coalition and worked on the original assessment of VoIP at Bell Laboratories. He completed doctoral studies in preparation for a Ph.D. in System Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.
Stefan Bewley, Principal, Altman Vilandrie & Company
Stefan is a Senior Consultant with Altman Vilandrie & Company (AV&Co.). He advises operator and investor clients including wireless, wireline, cable, satellite, private equity, investment banks, hedge funds and others. Stefan assists clients, from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies, with investment decisions, go-to-market plans, operations optimization, financial planning, and strategy formulation.
His recent engagements include work for next-generation wireless operators and investors regarding the technical capabilities and business implications of WiMAX, as well as the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction. Stefan is active in the telecommunications industry consolidation, conducting due diligence for investors and developing integration plans and financial milestones for operators.
Prior to joining AV&Co. in 2004, Stefan worked with The Brattle Group, an economic consulting firm. Stefan holds a Bachelors of Science and a Masters of Engineering from M.I.T.
John Bishop, Senior Vice President of Business Development & Strategy, Inlet Technologies
John is recognized as a digital video industry expert. He has authored white papers, web content, press releases and industry presentations, affirming industry leadership position in technology, partnerships, overall ecosystem and people. Prior to Osprey, John spent three years at IBM where he served as a product engineer with IBM's Aptiva PC Division. He currently serves on the board of directors at Accordent Technologies, based in Hermosa Beach California, and holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University.
Martin Bitzinger, CTO, Comdasys AG
Martin Bitzinger is CTO and co-founder of Comdasys, a company that specializes in the development of converged VoIP solutions for enterprises and service providers and that has become a leader in Fix-to-Mobile Convergence solutions.
Prior to founding Comdasys, Martin was managing director of Be-Ok, a leading consulting company in the field of voice-data integration and before that CTO of Software for People.
Martin is an industry expert in designing communications software solutions that allow enterprise and service provider customers to leverage on the convergence of networks and applications.
Martin earned his bachelor’s degree in Computer Sciences at the Santa Clara University and his master degree in Informatics at the Technical University in Munich.
Michael Blanchard, Sr Product Manager, Femtocell Products, Airvana, Inc.
Michael Blanchard is Sr. Product Manager at Airvana, responsible for femtocell product solutions. Michael has over 10 years of product management experience in the telecommunications industry managing both products and services. Prior to Airvana, Michael was the Director of Product Management with iBasis. Over a four year period, Michael helped grow the business to a revenue run rate of $200M by delivering a compelling set of wholesale Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) and enhanced-services to wireless and landline operators. Michael started his career with AT&T Network Systems as a Product Engineer, and has also held PLM positions with Glenayre Technologies. He has an MBA from Babson College and Masters in Electrical Engineering from Clemson University.
James Body, Director - Networks, Truphone
James Body is responsible for the Truphone network infrastructure. A founding member of the UK Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA), he has been closely involved with the implementation and regulation of new internet based telephony systems for past four years. He was responsible for SIPCall, the first UK public SIP<>PSTN system and was also co-founder of Gossiptel, a leading consumer based VoIP offering. He spent 20 years as a an officer in the Royal Corps of Signals before retiring from the British Army to focus on implementing VoIP based telephony systems.
Slava Borilin, Vice President, Products, SPIRIT DSP
Slava Borilin has been with SPIRIT for more than 5 years. He currently holds the position of VP Products and is responsible for market introduction of SPIRIT's Voice Engines under TeamSpirit™ brand name, new product initiatives and definition of the next generation product strategy.
Slava brings more than eight years of product management experience. He made a priceless contribution to the development and success of SPIRIT VoIP-product line. Thanks to Slava, SPIRIT's VoIP software is now deployed by Tier 1 customers, like Adobe, HTC, Microsoft, Oracle, etc.
Slava is keenly interested in voice quality issues and metrics; especially as they apply to impaired and congested networks.
Prior to joining SPIRIT he was among the e-commerce pioneers on the Russian high tech market, always engaged in innovative projects and foreseeing the hottest market trends. Slava combines extensive multidisciplinary technical knowledge with experience in voice and telecommunication business.
Jaime Borras is a Motorola Senior Fellow responsible for leading and creating new technology for the development of breakthrough products that ultimately become key elements of success for various high volume businesses at Motorola. He holds the title of Master Innovator with 41 United States patents, several Engineering Awards of Excellence and many publications in the field of Wireless Communication Systems, Digital Signal Processing and Integrated Circuits. He also received the title of Dan Noble Fellow for his innovations and excellent technical contributions.
Jaime has instituted the ThinkTank sessions corporate wide and the Innovations gate (i-gate) process to funnel new ideas into products faster, hence having high impact on many Motorola products.
Jaime participates actively in technology at the Motorola Science Advisory Board; in education at the Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University Advisory Boards; as well as the Latino Community where he was awarded the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Award for Outstanding Technical Achievements.
Jaime is also a mentor, coach and role model to engineering students and his staff. He has participated in several Engineer Week fairs at Colleges and Universities, in addition to speaking at Career Day events in local schools. He has coached and trained new engineers in the Technical Mentor Program and has actively participated in the Excellence in Engineering summer-internship program, working closely with the summer engineering students.
He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Physics and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering degree from Florida Atlantic University.
Frederic Bourget, Director, Product Management, Octasic
Frédéric Bourget is the Director of Product Management with Octasic and is responsible for product definition and product-portfolio management. Mr. Bourget has over nine years of experience in telecommunications. He joined Octasic in 2001 from Marconi Communications, where he directed the worldwide strategy of their Optical Networks Data Products. Mr. Bourget received his B. Eng (Physics) from Laval University in Quebec and is an active member of the ITU-T Study Group 16/WP1 focusing on signal processing network elements, voice quality, voice processing and echo cancellation. Mr. Bourget’s papers, with topics including call-clarity optimization and simplifying adaptive filter design in echo cancellers, have been published by industry-leading technical publications.
Robert Bownes, Managing Director, Seiri
Robert (Bob) M. Bownes, has been a contributing member of the technology industry for over 20 years. With a background in hardware, software, and systems engineering prior to moving into marketing and corporate strategic planning, Bob brings a unique and broad perspective to many issues with a specific focus on the convergence of computing, networking, and telecommunications fields. He has worked for Sun Microsystems, General Electric Corporate Research and Development, Intermedia Communications, and UltraDNS. He has founded 5 companies, Archon, NeWorks, Seiri, Tello, and Voice Interchange.
David Boyer, Chief Architect - Unified Communication Clients, Avaya
David Boyer is a Chief Architect in the Unified Communications Soft Clients Department at Avaya. He is a founding member of the PAM(Presence and Availability Management) forum, and an active member of multiple IETF SIP presence related working groups. David has nineteen patents and more than 40 publications to his credit,including "Presence Awareness for Future Telecommunications Systems", published by Wiley books.
Prior to joining Avaya, David spent more than 17 years as a researcher and developer of presence-based systems and video object-based conferencing at AT&T, Bellcore (Telcordia), and Lucent Technologies. David holds a BS in biomedical engineering from Duke University and an MS in computer science from North Carolina State University.
Norman Brandinger, President, GOES Telecom
Norm earned an Engineering degree in Computer Science from the University of Florida. He spent the early part of his career as an IBM Mainframe Systems Programmer specializing in VTAM/SNA communications while working for such companies as IBM, AT&T, Mars Inc. and Komerchni Bank in both full-time and consulting capacities. Over ten years ago, Norm started Global Online Electronic Services (GOES) as a full-service ISP. More recently, he created GOES Telecom, a CLEC registered in New Jersey and has started offering VoIP services to the public under the GOES Digital Voice brand.
Hiawatha Bray, Technology Columnist, The Boston Globe
Hiawatha Bray is a technology columnist for the Boston Globe. Born in Chicago, he started as a reporter and managing editor for Computerpeople Weekly. He joined the Globe in 1995. He has received the John Hancock Award for Business Journalism, and has been honored by the National Association of Black Journalists. He received the 2001 Overseas Press Club award for covering the development of the Internet in Africa.
Danny Briere, CEO, TeleChoice, Inc.
Danny is a successful entrepreneur and recognized technology visionary. His extensive professional experience as a consultant, author, speaker and journalist led to his vision for many leading brands in the industry. Danny is the founder of TeleChoice (www.telechoice.com), a company he built into one of the premiere communications industry consulting groups. He is also one of the original telecom strategists, having advised carriers, vendors, regulators, startups, and governments for more than 20 years. Danny has built a reputation for identifying trends across technologies ranging from telecommunications to consumer electronics and is frequently quoted in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and The Financial Times. He is also a long-time contributing editor for Network World and columnist and contributor to other leading publications such as Telephony and Telecommunications Magazine and a frequent speaker at a wide range of industry events. Danny also regularly consults with the leading Wall Street financial brokerage houses and venture capitalist firms. Danny's ability to identify new noteworthy, new, industry trends, well before the industry as a whole recognizes them, has led to early exploitation of opportunities in wireless networking, home networking, DSL, PON, VoIP, VoD, IPTV, and network-hosted applications. Danny has also launched several new companies lately, including mBLAST -- a marketing relationship management company -- and MoxMe! -- a group alerting and notifications platform company he's building with his kids.
He is the co-author of Internet Telephony for Dummies, HDTV for Dummies, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 PCs for Dummies, Smart Homes for Dummies, Home Theater for Dummies, Wireless Home Networking for Dummies, Wireless Hacks and Mods for Dummies, Virtual Networks-A Buyer's Guide, Long Distance Services-A Buyer's Guide, and A Buyer's Guide to Long Distance Services.
Danny earned his Master's in Business Administration from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Telecommunications Policy at Duke University.
David Brown, CTO, Trinity Convergence
David Brown, co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Trinity Convergence, has been with the company since its inception in 2000. Mr. Brown is Trinity’s chief software architect and is responsible for the technical implementation of the company’s original vision — to solve the deployment needs of a rapidly growing VoIP infrastructure and consumer electronics market with a comprehensive, yet flexible software solution. He leads an accomplished, multi-national engineering team of more than 80; is a frequent speaker at industry forums and conferences; and has authored a number of technical papers for publication. Prior to Trinity Convergence, he served as director of telecom software development at Blue Wave Systems (acquired by Motorola Computer Group) and was responsible for implementing the company’s VoIP and other telecoms-focused solutions. Previous to Blue Wave, he served as system architect for British Telecommunications Research Labs in Martlesham, UK. Mr. Brown’s background is in packet-voice, voice and video conferencing, signaling protocols and standards, intelligent networks and wireless applications. Brown holds a BSc (Honors) in Computer Science from University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Cynthia Brumfield, President, Emerging Media Dynamics, Inc.
Ms. Brumfield is widely recognized as an expert on the communications industry, with a particular focus on the cutting-edge developments driving the future of voice, video and data services. She is a veteran analyst of the print and electronic media, having served as Senior Analyst at Paul Kagan Associates, Inc. and as Vice President of Research and Policy Analysis at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. Ms. Brumfield began her career as Director of Research at the Media Institute, a nonprofit organization in Washington, DC. She has launched several high-profile publications in the media and technology businesses, including the first daily publication devoted to the broadband businesses. Ms. Brumfield also writes a blog, IP&Democracy.
David Bryan, CEO, Sipeerior Technologies
David Bryan is a leading expert in the area of P2PSIP. He plays an active role in IETF P2PSIP, and has published numerous IETF drafts, academic papers and industry trade articles on the subject. David is active in the SIP community, including heading up p2psip.org, the leading community site for P2PSIP, and is involved with SIPFoundry, the reSIProcate project, and Vovida.org. David was co-founder and CTO of Jasomi Networks, a pioneer in the SIP Session Border Controller (SBC) market. Jasomi was sold to Ditech Communications (Nasdaq: DITC) in 2005. David previously worked for Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Vovida Networks. David holds bachelor's degrees in Computer Science and Physics from Richard Stockton College in NJ, as well as a master's degree in Computer Science from The College of William and Mary, where he is completing his Ph.D.
Dean Bubley, Founder, Disruptive Analysis
Dean Bubley is the Founder of Disruptive Analysis. An analyst with 15 years’ experience, he primarily specialises in mobile, wireless and telecoms fields. His present focus is on wireless technology, including mobile device architecture & software, fixed-mobile convergence, IMS, wVoIP, shifts in service provider value chains, enterprise mobility, in-building technologies, wireless broadband, and the integration of cellular and WLAN technologies.
He was formerly an equity analyst with the investment bank Robert W. Baird and previously spent eight years at UK research firm Datamonitor, where he co-founded the company's Technology business unit and held the titles of Chief Analyst and Director of Consulting. Mr Bubley holds a BA in Physics from Keble College, Oxford University. He authors the Disruptive Wireless blog.
Alan Bugos, Vice President, Advanced Technology and Engineering, iBasis
Alan R. Bugos, Vice President of Advanced Technology and Engineering, iBasis, is responsible for overseeing the engineering design, testing/evaluation, systems integration, and new technologies associated with iBasis' International Internet telephony network, including interoperability, enhanced VoIP services and applications. Mr. Bugos has more than 14 years of hands-on experience in telecommunications, optical networking, data networking, and communications systems integration and has been involved in VoIP, R&D and deployments since 1998. He was the recipient of GTE's highest technical merit award, the Warner Award for Technical Achievement in pioneering DSL data networks in 1997. He has published over 45 technical publications, is a frequent speaker at VON, IEC, and many other global conferences and received BS and MS Engineering degrees from the University of Tennessee - Knoxville.
Dr. Eric Burger, Deputy Chief Technology Officer, BEA Systems
Dr. Eric Burger is Deputy Chief Technology Officer for BEA Systems. Eric works in several standards bodies, writing many of the SIP media RFC’s in the IETF and contributing to VoiceXML and CCXML in the W3C. He is Chair of IETF mobile e-mail, media control, and speech services work groups. He serves on the Board of Directors of the IMS and SIP Forums. Eric co-founded and was CTO of SnowShore Networks, where he invented the SIP-controlled multi-function media server. He held senior positions at Cable&Wireless, MCI, Texas Instruments, Cantata/Brooktrout Technology, and ADC/Centigram. He holds over eleven issued patents and has numerous patents pending. He is a Senior Member of the ACM and IEEE, and a Patron of the AAAS and Benefactor of the Internet Society.
Dr. Burger taught at GMU and GWU and holds degrees from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Catholic University of Leuven, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Lyn Cantor, Vice President of Worldwide Sales & Marketing, Communications Business, Tektronix Inc.
Lyndon Cantor currently holds the position of Vice President of Worldwide Sales & Marketing for the Communications Business at Tektronix.
Cantor joined Inet Technologies, Inc. in 1996 as Director of North American Sales and later held Vice Presidential positions overseeing North American Sales, Global Channel Management, Product Management/Marketing and the Diagnostics Business Unit at Inet. Tektronix acquired the company in 2004 and consolidated sales and field marketing for the Communications Business under Cantor, who brought more than 20 years’ experience in the telecommunications and information industry. Cantor currently has the responsibility for both the network management and the diagnostics sales and field marketing.
Cantor received his Bachelor of Business Administration degrees in Data Processing and Analysis and Management from the University of Texas at Austin.
Gary Carter, Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, International Datacasting
Gary is responsible for the development of new products and implementation of cutting-edge applications. He joined International Datacasting in 1987 as Director, Systems Engineering and later held positions as General Manager and President of IDC's US subsidiary. Gary has many years of experience in the communications technology field. Before joining IDC, he worked at Canadian Satellite Communications (CANCOM) in the development of a Direct-To-Home platform and the implementation of MSO based cable TV systems. Prior to that he worked in line-of-sight microwave communications at Raytheon Canada, and held product management positions at Varian Canada and General Instrument Canada.
Ed Casaccia, Director of Product Mangement and Marketing, Thomson
Ed Casaccia is Director of Thomson’s Product Management and Marketing for Grass Valley’s Digital News Production systems. Casaccia has over 25 years of experience in the broadcasting industry, with an extensive background in production and news gathering techniques. He also has unique experience in the area of applying DTV technology as a means of converging traditional broadcasting with interactive New Media from his work in 2000-2001 as Vice President of Content Operations and Planning at Geocast Network System. His work there included the creation of a real-time system for encoding, segmentation, and metadata tagging of television programming for re-distribution as personalized, interactive content.
Casaccia also oversaw the successful launch of Sony’s NewsBase non-linear newsroom production system as Marketing Manger, Newsroom for Sony’s Broadcast and Professional Company. His work in newsroom automation spans nearly two decades, and includes coordinating the conversion of the ABC Owned and Operated Television Stations to computerized newsroom operations in 1988 and 1989, and deep personal involvement in the creation of the Orange County NewsChannel’s automated “news wheel” production system. The economic advantages of that production method for all-news broadcast content has since led to its adoption by numerous cable news operations, including New York 1 News and CNN Headline News.
Prior to his work in news technology, Casaccia was a newscast producer and newsroom manager for top-rated stations in Fresno, Buffalo, and San Francisco, and holds the prestigious Peabody Award for his work in the live coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Casaccia holds a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from California State University Fresno, was a
1969 National Merit Scholar, and is the author of several published papers and articles on the subject of applying computer technology to broadcast production.
Xavier Casajoana, Co-Founder and CEO, VozTelecom - OIGAA
Xavier Casajoana was born in Spain in 1968, graduated in Computer Science Engineering and Master in Business and Technology, has a degree in Business Administration and Information Systems. After more than 10 years managing IT Departments on public and private held firms, he addressed his career to the Internet and Telecom industry in 1999, starting as CTO for World Online Spain, and later driving Tiscali Spain as Country Manager-CEO till Dec 2002. In February 2003, he founded VozTelecom, an innovative VoIP start-up (achieving venture capital funds), and today leads European and Latin America white-label IP Telephony ASP offer for ISPs, ITSP or any broadband providers, based on its Web-SIP Application Services Platform.
Chris Celiberti, Director, Advanced Services, NeuStar
Chris Celiberti works in the strategic technologies group at NeuStar, Inc. and is a telecommunications VoIP veteran focused on the OSS\BSS space. Chris has worked in positions including System Engineering, Product and Program Management and Business Development for several fortune 500 companies. Additionally, Chris has been an active participant in several global standards groups as well as an industry speaker.
Leo Chan, VP of Business Development, Powernet Global Communications
Leo Chan has played key roles in delivering technology-based solutions for major telecom companies globally. He previously served as Director of Wireless Business Development for Hawaiian Telcom, specializing in developing and implementing next generation services for their wireless and fixed mobile convergence initiatives.
Mr. Chan also developed mobile data services over 3G and IP based technologies for Cincinnati Bell. He proudly launched their GSM/EDGE network, BlackBerry service and Wi-Fi HotSpots.
In earlier days he worked with several international telecom operators and vendors including China Unicom, France Telecom, Nokia, Motorola, Telesystem and Japan Tomen to build out GSM networks in Guangdong and Hunan Provinces in China. Leo holds an MBA degree in Information Systems from University of Cincinnati. Leo is also an ISO9002 lead auditor certified by BVQI.
Anand Chandrasekher, Sr Vice President & GM, Ultra Mobility Group, Intel Corporation
Anand Chandrasekher is Senior Vice president and General Manager of Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group. This group is responsible for Intel’s low power products – delivering leading edge technology for mobile internet devices. Chandrasekher’s responsibilities include strategic direction, platform planning, design, development, marketing and business management.
Prior to his current assignment, Chandrasekher was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Sales and Marketing Group; in this capacity, he had responsibility for worldwide sales and marketing operations and served Intel’s global customer and market needs.
Previously, Chandrasekher was Vice President and General Manager of the Mobile Platforms Group. Chandrasekher led the team responsible for the architecture, design, development and marketing of Intel's platform solutions for the mobile computing segment. He led the team that delivered — Intel® Centrino™ mobile technology—to the market; and, under his leadership the mobile group became the fastest growing business unit at Intel. He was promoted to Intel Corporate Vice President in 2003.
Prior to his Mobile Platforms Group role, Chandrasekher was Vice President of the Intel Architecture Group and General Manager of the Intel Architecture Marketing Group, where he led strategic planning and marketing activities for Intel's enterprise, mobile and desktop platform products – in this capacity, he was responsible for the launch and ramp of the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor family of products. In 1997, Chandrasekher formed and led Intel's Workstation Platform Group and was its General Manager through 1999 – under his leadership, Intel’s workstation business grew into a multi-billion dollar business. From 1995 to 1997 he served as Technical Assistant to Craig Barrett, current Intel Chairman.
Chandrasekher earned his bachelor's degree in computer science and a master's degree in engineering from Cornell University. He received an MBA from Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. Chandrasekher remains an active supporter of Cornell's programs and of the American India Foundation; he is an elected member of Cornell’s Council of Trustees. He has been with Intel since 1988.
Bang Chang, Director of Product Marketing, SeaChange International
With over 10 years of experience in storage engineering, product development and marketing, Bang Chang leads the marketing of SeaChange’s storage and server product lines in support of on demand, broadcast and open storage vertical markets. SeaChange's products are deployed in hundreds of mission-critical operations worldwide.
Prior to joining SeaChange, Chang was responsible for strategic planning, next-generation storage architecture and new business initiatives at EMC. He led a team to develop a line of data management products at Auspex Systems, Inc. While at Alphatronix, Inc., he was an architect of the Hierarchical Storage Management product that became the target of acquisition by Auspex.
Chang earned a Masters of Business Administration degree from Duke University, a Masters of Science degree from North Carolina State University and a Bachelors of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China.
Warren Chao, Co-Founder and COO, My Damn Channel
Warren Chao, formerly VP of Business Development and Strategic Planning for Gemstar-TV Guide International, is My Damn Channel's Chief Operating Officer.
Mark Chinn, VP, Marketing & Product Development, RCN
Mark Chinn is Vice President of Marketing and Product Development at RCN and is responsible for Marketing creative, media planning, product development and life cycle management, retail pricing, and web strategy.
Prior to joining RCN in October 2005, Mr. Chinn spent seven years at Nextel where he held several positions, most recently as Sr. Director of Planning and Pricing. During his final year with Nextel, Mr. Chinn also served as Marketing lead for Nextel's merger with Sprint.
Mr. Chinn holds an M.B.A. from the College of William and Mary and a B.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.
Caitlin Clark-Zigmond, Director of Product Management, New Global Telecom
Caitlin Clark-Zigmond brings over 12 years of telecommunication and product development experience to her role as Director of Product Management at New Global Telecom (NGT). Clark-Zigmond has been a driving force in NGT's wholesale and private label hosted VoIP services which are targeted at service providers (CLECs, MSOs, VARs, ISPs, ASPs, new-providers) across the country.
Prior to joining NGT, Clark-Zigmond was a member of Global Crossing’s collaboration product management team where she led video product line revenue growth 40% while re-positioning the enterprise video products and driving new strategies for the future.
Clark-Zigmond also held senior positions in Product Management, Marketing, System Development and Business Development for Instec, and Electrocomponents, Inc.
Clark-Zigmond holds a BS/BA in International Business and Finance from American University.
Dr Clark is the Founder and CEO of Telchemy. He was previously CTO of Hayes, Director of Research for Dowty Communications and System Architect with British Telecom. Alan has a Ph.D in Information Theory, has driven the development of the performance management framework for VoIP within IETF and ITU, was the developer of the V.42bis compression algorithm, has twelve granted patents and has been actively involved in the development of networking and telecom technology for over 20 years.
David Clarke, Business Development Manager, PIKA Technologies, Inc.
David is a graduate of Carleton University and holds a degree in Electrical Engineering. David has been a key member of the PIKA Technologies management team since 1993. As Business Development Manager, David is responsible for expanding the business through partnerships as well as identifying new market opportunities. David is a well-respected and seasoned technical expert. Prior to his current position, he managed the Customer Care Department here at PIKA Technologies. He has been instrumental in helping many customers get their applications to market quickly and cost effectively.
Peter Clem, Vice President, Broadband Programming & Production, Scripps Network Interactive
Peter Clem is responsible for the development, creation and distribution of video content for Scripps Networks popular Web destinations including HGTV.com, FoodNetwork.com, DIYnetwork.com, FineLiving.com, and the Emmy Award-wining site Living.com. Clem was instrumental in the development and launch of the broadband channel HGTV KitchenDesign. This new destination, accessible at HGTVKitchenDesign.com, takes full advantage of the rich video library Scripps has built over the past 11 years, as well as “fat pipe” interactive capabilities including customizable design tools and personalized portfolios. Clem joined Scripps Networks in 1998 as executive producer for HGTV Productions. Prior to joining Scripps, Clem was a supervising producer for Northwest Teleproductions in Minneapolis and a staff producer for The Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago.
Tim Cody, Director, Product Management, NeuStar
Tim Cody is NeuStar’s Director of Product Management, IP Exchange Services. Prior to joining NeuStar, he performed R&D and Product Management functions at Nortel, Jetstream Communications and Paradyne Networks. Mr. Cody led teams in the development and architecture of SIP-based real-time applications. Tim, started his career at NASA developing avionics software for the Space Shuttle.
Michael Coffee, President & Chief Executive Officer, Commetrex
Mike is a co-founder of Commetrex, and has served as its CEO since its inception. Following receipt of his degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech, he held engineering positions in computer design, mixed-signal system design, and computer-based process-control systems design. Since his move to marketing he has held positions in sales, product and market management, and marketing communications. Prior to founding Commetrex he was VP, Marketing and Sales, for NMS Communications.
Integrating his widespread digital authority in music, mobile, IPTV and product & service development, Ted Cohen is the Managing Partner of TAG Strategic.
In an industry that's been slow to embrace change, Cohen is the exception to the stereotypical music-exec rule. Of course, when you start a career on the road with Alice Cooper and Van Halen, you're more primed for the unexpected.
Known throughout the technology and music industries as being "part ambassador and part evangelist," Cohen was instrumental in crafting the licensing agreements upon which the Rhapsody subscription service and the iTunes Music Store were built.
In his previous role as Senior Vice President of Digital Development & Distribution for EMI Music (home of artists including Coldplay and the Rolling Stones), Cohen led next-generation digital business development worldwide for this "big four" record company, which includes labels such as Capitol, Virgin, Angel/Blue Note, Parlophone and Chrysalis. During that time, EMI led the industry by embracing and exploiting new technologies and business models such as digital downloads and online music subscriptions, custom compilations, wireless services, high-definition audio and Internet radio.
In addition to seeking out, evaluating and executing business opportunities for the company on a global basis, Cohen served as both a strategist and key decision-maker for EMI's global new media and anti-piracy efforts. He worked to establish company-wide digital policies, which have provided EMI's artists and labels a substantial advantage in the digital music arena.
Prior to his role at EMI, Cohen served as Executive Vice President of Digital Music Network Inc., where he co-founded and served as Chairman of the groundbreaking Webnoize conferences.
Cohen also led two highly successful new media consulting operations, DMN Consulting and Consulting Adults, attracting clients such as Amazon.com, Microsoft, Universal Studios, DreamWorks Records, Liquid Audio, Wherehouse Records/Checkout.com and various other entertainment, technology and new media organizations. Cohen also held senior management positions at both Warner Bros. Records and Philips Media.
A 30-year industry veteran, Cohen was recently elected Chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum Americas board, and currently chairs MidemNet, an international music/technology conference convened in Cannes each year. Cohen also serves on the NARAS (Grammy) Los Angeles chapter Board of Governors as well as the national Trustee Board, the Board of Directors for the Neil Bogart Memorial Fund, co-chairs the new media arm of the T.J. Martell Foundation, and lends his time and talents to music & technology education efforts such as the Grammy In The Schools Program.
Vince Connors, Gateway Product Line Manager, Dialogic Corporation
Vince Connors is the Product Line Manager responsible for the Gateway Products within the Dialogic Enterprise PLM team. Vince Connors is responsible for the product strategy, product roadmap, and overall product responsibility for all of the gateway products.
Prior to this position, Connors was head of the Getzville site Program Management Office and manager of the Enterprise Product Line Management team for Intel prior to the sale of Intel’s Media and Signaling assets which helped to form Dialogic. Connors also held positions in the development group as a program manager and hardware development engineer for Voice Technologies Group prior to its acquisition by Intel in 2000.
Before joining Voice Technologies Group, Connors spent almost 8 years as a development engineer. Connors holds MEEE and BSEE degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Anne L Coulombe, SIP Strategy, Avaya, Inc.
Anne L Coulombe has 20+ years of experience working at the intersection points of high tech, telecom and IT. Her converging technologies work experience includes messaging, gaming, LANs, WANs, wireless, VoIP, video, security, and SIP-based systems. Anne's track record includes technology and business positions with F500 companies such as Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Avaya, bringing over 125 products to market. A frequent speaker on topics surrounding the influence of SIP, she holds an MBA in Tech Eng Management, certificate in Computer Science and the PMP designation.
Tim Counihan, Director of Product Marketing, BitWave Semiconductor
Tim has over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, with roles in engineering, operations, marketing, and business unit management. He has held senior management positions at NetSilicon, Ratheon’s RFIC Division, Digital Equipment’s Semiconductor Division, and running Analog Device’s DSP Business Unit.
In these positions, Tim has focused on flexible, integrated, signal chain solution strategies - focusing on system partitioning across the analog, digital, and software domains.
Tim received an MBA from the University of Chicago and an MSEE from Northeastern University. He also holds a BA in Mathematics from Middlebury College.
Joe Crispo, OpenCall Solution Sales Specialist, Hewlett-Packard
As OpenCall Solution sales specialist for HP Software, Joe is responsible for the development, sales & marketing of partner-based voice and video solutions enabled by OpenCall's Media Platform. Joe brings over 15 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, specializing in network based multimedia and messaging applications. Prior to joining HP, he held positions with Comverse Technologies as SE regional sales manager of network based multimedia messaging applications; Thomasson Telecommunications as National Director of Sales and Marketing for Wireless Tower Infrastructure deployment services; and Intellivoice as regional account manager for Speech activated network applications.
Joe holds a Masters in Electrical Engineering with emphasis on Digital signal processing from Syracuse University; and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from WPI
Peter Csathy is a digital media veteran and is the CEO of SightSpeed Inc., widely recognized as being the leader and innovator in “Personal Video Services”, including video and voice over IP communications. Csathy previously served as president and COO of Musicmatch, Inc., the pioneering digital media company acquired by Yahoo!. He also previously served as COO of eNow, Inc. (now Relegence Corp.), another innovative company acquired by AOL. Previously, Csathy served nearly a decade in senior management roles in traditional media companies, including Universal Studios and New Line Cinema. Csathy is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Minnesota. He currently also serves on the Boards of Digital Music Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: DMGI) and the Epilepsy Foundation of San Diego County.
Russell Cyr, Vice President, CMO and Co-Founder, BitWave Semiconductor
Russ is a 20-year veteran of the wireless communications revolution. Russ is currently the Chief Marketing Officer and Co-founder of BitWave Semiconductor. He and his colleagues have been designing the world’s first programmable Softransceiver platform for software defines radios. BitWave will begin shipping commercial product in 2008 into handset and Femtocell applications. This technology will change radio development by increasing end device flexibility while reducing time-to-market for multiple applications.;
Prior to founding BitWave, Russ was Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Strategy for Global Communication Devices (GCD), the first company to develop a single chip CMOS radio for the WLAN market. He was Co-founder and VP of Marketing, Strategy and Business Development of Engim, a chip developer of multi-channel technology for WiFi infrastructure devices. He was VP and General Manager of Adaptive Broadband delivering Broadband Wireless Access infrastructure and CPEs. At Steinbrecher, Russ was responsible for the Strategy and Marketing of Steinbrecher’s SDR technology. There he brought to market the CityCell™, MiniCell™, CDPD base station and numerous high performance digital tuners for government programs.
Russ has published numerous articles and has been granted several patents in radio technology. He received his BSEE and MSEE from the University of Massachusetts and his MBA from Rivier College. Russ has also engaged in rather unique hobbies where he has raised freshwater shrimp and honeybees.
Jim Dalton is the founder and CEO of TransNexus, Inc. TransNexus, a software development firm, provides commercial and open source VoIP Operations and Billing Support System (OSS/BSS) solutions. Dalton began his career as a petroleum engineer working in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Yemen from 1981-86. After graduate studies in finance, Dalton began his telecom career with BellSouth in 1988 and became a Chartered Financial Analyst. His work at BellSouth included financial analysis and market planning for BellSouth's GSM and mobile data businesses. This experience led to his early recognition in the promise of Voice over IP and the founding of TransNexus in 1997. Dalton holds four patents for VoIP clearing and settlement technology. He received a mechanical engineering degree from Duke University and a MBA degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton school.
John T. Davis, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Broadcast
John T. Davis is CEO of Digital Broadcast, Inc. His experience includes 30 years of corporate management applied specifically to the television broadcast industry. Mr. Davis holds a Bachelors degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, a Masters degree in Computer Science and an MBA from the University of Florida. He worked for United Technologies Corporation managing a team of engineers on the Apollo project for NASA. He was employed by Vital Industries, a company that produced an extensive line of equipment for the television broadcast industry. There he was involved in technical and administrative management including product planning. He later founded Digital Services Corporation, which developed and produced computer-based equipment for the television production market. As President and CEO of Digital Services Corporation, he oversaw DSC’s steady growth until it was sold to Chyron Corporation.
As a founder of Digital Broadcast, he has spearheaded the company’s development of a premier line of broadcast program and news automation control products including master control automation, newsroom automation, automated media delivery transference, on-air verification, disaster recovery, archiving, and broadcast centralization.
Ron Del Sesto, Partner, Bingham McCutchen LLP
Ron Del Sesto advises businesses that offer innovative products and services through a synthesis of unique intellectual property, computer technology and telecommunications networks and represents clients before the Federal Communications Commission and state public utility commissions.
Ron advises numerous companies on legal issues that arise at the state, federal and international level relating to the provision of Internet Protocol Enabled Services, including services that use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. Ron also advises on numbering administration, privacy matters, cost and provisioning of unbundled network elements, interconnection agreements with incumbent local exchange carriers and next-generation network architectures. Additionally, he assists domestic and international clients on regulatory, transactional and litigation-related matters including regulatory compliance for mergers, acquisitions and securities issuances. Ron also negotiates purchases of large packages of customized telecommunications services for numerous Fortune 1000 companies.
Steve Desrochers, Vice President, Engineering, Brix Networks
Steve DesRochers brings more than 20 years of progressive high-tech engineering, operations, and management experience to his position as vice president, engineering, at Brix Networks, where he has senior management responsibility for all of the growing company's software and hardware development, quality assurance, and IT efforts. DesRochers is co-holder of U.S. Patent No. 7,058,020 that covers a technique for hardware time-stamping data packets, which permits the precise measurement of various network characteristics, such as latency and jitter. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire.
Al Digabriele, Vice President, Global Crossing
Al DiGabriele is Global Vice President, Network Applications, and oversees Global Crossing's complete line of voice and VoIP services. Prior to joining Global Crossing Mr. DiGabriele held a wide range of positions in finance, sales, business planning and business management across AT&T's consumer and international business units.
Brad Dick, Editorial Director, Broadcast Engineering magazine
Mr. Dick is currently editorial director of both the US and World editions of Broadcast Engineering magazine. In addition, he was previously editor of two other Intertec magazines: BE Radio, and Broadcast Engineering de Laitinoamerica. He’s been editor for 20 years.
He has a Bachelor's degree in Radio/TV/Film from Wichita State University and a Master's degree in Broadcast Station Management from the University of Kansas.
He is a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) and certified as an SBE Professional Broadcast Engineer. He is a former President of the SBE and held the position of SBE secretary for seven years.
Prior to becoming an editorial director for Broadcast Engineering, Brad worked for more than 20 years in radio and television, serving as; chief engineer, director of engineering and director of engineering & operations.
David J. Donovan, Worldwide Vertical Business Manager, Wireless Infrastructure , Analog Devices
David is responsible for worldwide vertical market business development for wireless infrastructure, including FemtoCells. He has served over 25 years in the semiconductor industry in advanced wireless and multimedia technologies.
Prior roles include a succession of senior marketing, sales and engineering positions such as VP of Sales and Marketing, Marketing Director, Director of Field Applications with semiconductor companies such as Spirea AB, Anadigics, Mitel, GEC Plessey, Harris, and Analog Devices.
David received his Masters degree in Business Administration from Florida Institute of Technology in 1983 and his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Lowell in 1979. He also completed executive programs in technology & product strategy development at MIT Sloan School of Management.
Dennis Drogseth, Vice President, EMA
Dennis brings 24 years of experience in various aspects of marketing and business
planning for systems and network solutions. He directs a team of analysts that
focus on the development of the Networked Services Management practice areas
that span performance availability and service management across enterprise and
telecommunication markets.
At EMA, Dennis has pioneered research in converging management strategies such
as performance/availability, integrated security, changing organizational dynamics in IT, and management issues shared between the enterprise and the service provider communities. Dennis works extensively with clients to help establish meaningful product positioning within an overcrowded marketplace.
Dennis is a speaker on many management related issues and author of featured articles in Network Magazine and Business Communication Review.
Alan Duric, Co-Founder and CTO, Telio
Alan Duric is co-founder and CTO at Telio ASA, the fastest growing Nordic Broadband Telephony/Multi-Modal service provider. Mr. Duric is an early pioneer of VoIP with over a decade of active contribution in VoIP, through his sw development and standardization work (as a co-author and/or contributor to number of IETF, ETSI and ITU standards).
As a developer and senior systems architect at Ericsson, Mr. Duric took part in the early deployment and development of the world's largest VoIP networks such as Deltathree.
At Global IP Sound (creators of Skype´s audio), Mr. Duric was Senior Systems Architect, where he steered standardization efforts and was responsible for iLBC (internet Low Bitrate Codec), an IETF and CableLabs standard codec for VoIP.
Mr.Duric is also Co-founder of Sonorit/Camino networks and was Director of its Board of Directors from its inception (June 2005) until it was acquired by eBay/Skype (April 2006). Also serves as Director of Sipfoundry.org BoD and is an Advisor at CounterPath´s, Xconnect's and Kayote´s Board.
Ed Dylag, IP Services Segment Manager, Intel
Ed Dylag is the IP Services Segment Manager with the Embedded and Communications Group (ECG) of Intel. He is responsible for defining and delivering world-class silicon and servers to the many service providers now implementing IP Services in their networks.
In previous roles, Dylag worked extensively with media server products in both the enterprise and service market segments, with significant focus on SIP and IP telephony.
Dylag began his career in telecommunications more than 14 years ago as a software development engineer designing and building embedded telecom solutions. He then took a position as a field applications engineer where he was responsible for cultivating customer design wins.
Dylag has previous experience in factory automation at CBQ, Inc. and communications satellite design with the Astro Space Division of General Electric.
Dylag received a BS degree in electrical engineering from the University of Buffalo and holds a patent for some of his work in telecommunications. He is a member of the CompTIA Convergence Group Advisory Council, which promotes growth and development in the convergent technologies (CT) industry.
Yaakov Elkon, President & CEO, Graphnet
Mr. Yaakov Elkon has led Graphnet for nearly two decades through his focused vision, his strong leadership, an unmatched sense of business & work ethics, and a lifetime of expertise in computer based telecommunication systems. Mr. Elkon became CEO of the company in 1989 and provided the foundation that has allowed Graphnet to emerge as a global leader in the information transport industry. Under his guidance, Graphnet has come to specialize in systems integrations, developing unique solutions for Fortune 1000 clients over its proprietary voice and data IP network. As a result of Mr. Elkon’s dedication, Graphnet’s reputation as a well-respected and professional business-solutions provider continues today.
Prior to joining Graphnet, Mr. Elkon served as the Vice President of Messaging for Sprint Corporation. Before joining Sprint, he had a successful carrier at IBM for over 18 years first as a Senior Architect for large-scale systems then moving onto several managerial roles in Business Development with the Latin America & the Far East division. Mr. Elkon received a BSc & MSc degrees in Aeronautics & Astronautics as well as ScD degree in Computer Science – all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Bob Emmerson, European Editor, VON Magazine
Bob Emmerson is an English national living in the Netherlands. He holds a degree in electronic engineering from London University and now works as a freelance writer, part-time consultant and industry observer. Bob writes about Information and Communications Technology for various technical and business publications. In addition he has produced three market reports for the Financial Times as well as a number of white papers. He is currently the European Editor of VON Magazine.
David Epstein, President & CEO, PTel
David Epstein, President & CEO of PTel, LP has over thirteen years experience running and operating Internet access and telecommunications companies. In 1995 Mr. Epstein founded and built one of the fastest growing ISPs in the Northeast, JavaNet, which was acquired by RCN in July 1998. As President of RCN's Internet Division, Mr. Epstein oversaw all aspects of its Internet business. He was responsible for the integration of six ISPs totaling 350,000 customers. He then grew this base by 43% in a little over a year to more than 500,000 customers. In 2000, Mr. Epstein was named CEO of Connecticut Telephone, which he transitioned from a pure re-seller of telecommunications services, including cellular, to a facilities based broadband CLEC based in Hartford, CT. Most recently, Mr. Epstein served as President of BroadVoice, a VoIP service provider he co-founded in 2003.
Joe Epstein, Senior Director of Technology, Meru Networks
Joe Epstein is Sr. Director, Technology at Meru Networks, where he is responsible for Meru’s product conception, architecture, and core algorithms. Additionally, he serves as company representative to the various standards bodies. Prior to joining Meru, he held engineering positions at Bytemobile, Inc., where he was responsible for next generation products including seamless cellular WAN-LAN mobility. His background covers wireless MAC, networking, and applications for Fortune 500 enterprises. Epstein has a BS in EECS from the University of California, Berkeley.
Christopher Fine, Vice President, Global Technology Division, Goldman, Sachs & Company
Christopher Fine is a Vice President in the Global Technology Division of Goldman, Sachs & Company, based in New York. In his current position as Business Strategist for the Workplace Technology group, Chris focuses on identifying, integrating, and implementing technology that can be used to enhance productivity and collaboration among Goldman Sachs employees, clients, and other partners. Prior to his current assignment, Chris was an Equity Analyst, specializing in the Communications Equipment sector. Previously, Chris was Chief Technology Strategist for the Technology Investment Banking team at Goldman Sachs. Chris received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University, and an MBA in Finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Jaime Fink, Director of Product Marketing, 2Wire
Jaime Fink has over 10 years of experience heading product marketing and management for a variety of video telephony, voice telephony and broadband Internet products and services. As director of product marketing for 2Wire, Inc., a provider of broadband service platforms for the DSL market, Fink defines and implements corporate product strategy for wireless home networking, VoIP and DSL markets. Prior to 2Wire, Fink was head of product management at Zhone Technologies, and senior product manager at Polycom, Inc. Fink earned a B.S. in engineering from the University of California at Irvine.
Michael Finn, Industry Management, Consumer Service Lead, Microsoft Corporation
As Telco Consumer Services Lead for the Industry Management team in the Communications Sector for Microsoft Corporation, Michael Finn is responsible for driving the strategy, roadmap, and business plan for Microsoft’s consumer services in partnership with telecommunications carriers.
Mr. Finn brings with him more than ten years in the telecommunications industry. Prior to joining Microsoft, he held a product management role at Sonus Networks, a leader in the VoIP industry, where he worked on solutions development and operations integration.
Previous roles included sales and marketing at Linguateq and operations support at MCI Communications.
Mr. Finn holds an M.B.A. from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. from Virginia Tech.
Yuval Fisher, Chief Scientist and Founder, Envivio
Dr. Fisher conceives, plans, and advocates major research and development activities which have led to the creation of innovative features for the Envivio product line. Currently on the Board of Directors of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), he was one of the lead editors of the MPEG-4 Systems specifications. He has also been a chair of the MPEG-4 Conformance Group and Advanced Text and 2D Graphics Group. Prior to Envivio, he worked on several MPEG-4 implementations for participating MPEG-4 companies including Rockwell International, Conexant, and France Telecom. Dr. Fisher has degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Cornell University.
David Foote, CTO, Hitachi Telecom USA
Mr. Foote is the Chief Technology Officer for Hitachi Telecom USA. He is currently responsible for strategic product planning and technical marketing of optical transport, fiber access, data switching and cellular systems. He has been instrumental in establishing Hitachi’s network systems business with major North American telecommunications carriers like Sprint, Time Warner, and Global Crossing. Mr. Foote has been a member, contributor, and committee chairman in leading standards organizations such as the IETF, OIF, ANSI T1, IEEE 802 and the ATM Forum. He is an invited speaker and paper author to various industry conferences and symposiums. Before joining Hitachi, he served as a decorated communications engineering officer in the U.S. Air Force responsible for network design and implementation of various secure telecom and packet data networks including ARPAnet/MILnet.
Mr. Foote received a B.E.E. from Georgia Tech in 1980 and a Master’s degree in Management from Webster University/Air Force Institute of Technology in 1982.
Carl Ford, Community Developer and VP Content, pulvermedia
At pulvermedia, Carl Ford is a Community Developer, looking to enable business development and customer contact between companies. He also develops the content for pulvermedia conferences and is a highly interactive program moderator. As a pulverite he serves as an advisor to several companies in various degrees. Ford's professional career includes 20 years at telecommunications companies such as Telcordia Technologies and Verizon. He has worked in positions including Costs, Operations, Marketing, Regulatory, and Product Management. His accomplishments include architecting and product-managing a carrier-grade billing mediation device for softswitches that was compatible for ILEC billing systems; and moderating the development of the pulver.com CDR for Internet Telephony, enabling VOIP gateways to be used with carrier billing systems.
Robert Franzo, Director, VoIP Marketing, Broadcom
Rob Franzo is Director, VoIP Marketing for Broadcom Corporation and leads the team at Broadcom that is enabling current and future VoIP applications and services through innovative and cost effective integrated silicon and software. Mr. Franzo has over 20 years' experience developing and marketing communication platforms and products that integrate proximity, personal, local and wide area wireless technologies with rich multimodal user interfaces and applications. Prior to joining Broadcom Corporation in 2006, Rob held technical and business leadership positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Lucent Microelectronics and Agere Systems.
Josh Fraser, Vice President, Business Development, CallWave, Inc.
Mr. Fraser is Vice President, Business Development at CallWave and is responsible for bringing innovative communication solutions to service providers. Prior to joining CallWave in April 2004, Fraser was with Student Advantage, Inc., a leading marketing and transaction services provider to higher education and operator of the nation’s largest student membership program. Fraser held a number of senior management positions at Student Advantage including VP, Business Development and General Manager. Prior to Student Advantage, Fraser held Business Development and Financial Planning roles at ESPN.com. Fraser started his career with Coopers & Lybrand’s Financial Advisory Services as an Analyst.
Chris Fullam, Director of Product Management, Media Service Provider Products, Dialogic
Chris Fullam is the Director of Product Management responsible for Dialogic’s new MultiMedia Platform (MMP) products. With 26 years of industry experience, Fullam joined Dialogic from Hewlett-Packard, where he was manager of information technology, responsible for all areas of information technology at the company's manufacturing site in Rockaway, NJ. Fullam has an MS degree in information technology from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and a BS degree in computer science from New York State University College at Plattsburgh.
Sekar Ganesan, Director, New Technology/Product and Development Planning, AT&T Wholesale
Responsible for network and service planning of TDM and VoIP services and network routing. Mr. Ganesan has been with AT&T for 19 years. During that time, Ganesan has worked on the various aspects of the TDM and VoIP network architecture and services planning. Mr. Ganesan has a Ph.D in Systems Science from the University of Houston.
Chris Gatch is the CTO and a founder of Cbeyond (NASDAQ: CBEY), a successful managed services provider started in 1999 and now publicly traded on the NASDAQ. Mr. Gatch has worked at Cbeyond since its inception in 1999 as Vice President of Business Development, Vice President of Product Development, Vice President of Engineering and now Chief Technology Officer. Prior to Cbeyond, Mr. Gatch worked at Intermedia Communications where his last role was Senior Director of Strategic Marketing.
Chris is a contributor to the industry effort to standardize SIP Trunking and serves as an editor of the SIPconnect technical specification published by the SIP Forum. He has served on the board of the Cisco BTS 10200 Users Group, the Service Provider Board of the International Packet Communications Consortium (IPCC), and he presently serves on the Board of the SIP Forum.
Chris has a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from Clemson University and a master's degree in the management of technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Arnaud Gautier, Vice President, Product Solutions, Speakeasy
Arnaud Gautier is Speakeasy’s Vice President of Product Solutions, responsible for the deployment of data and voice services for one of the nation’s largest independent providers of broadband communications. Since joining Speakeasy in 2002, he has overseen the launch and rapid growth of the company’s Voice-over IP products, as well as its innovative broadband services. Prior to Speakeasy, he held a variety of senior marketing and product development roles with Myrio, AT&T Wireless, Boeing and Alcatel. Gautier holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (Paris) and received his MBA from the University of Washington.
Jon Gibs, Vice President of Media Analytics, Nielsen Online
Jon Gibs is Vice President, Media Analytics for Nielsen Online. He specializes in research methodology design and development using their wide array of media measurement and market research products. With 10 years of market research experience, Mr. Gibs previously managed the U.S. based survey group for Nielsen Online. Using their suite of MegaPanel products, he has in-depth experience in helping clients develop surveys and methodologies to meet their strategic and tactical needs.
Prior to Nielsen Online, Mr. Gibs was an analyst and analytics director at Jupiter Research. During his time there he developed numerous client reports based on primary survey analysis. He specialized in developing analyses merging behavioral and survey analysis to develop further insight into a wide array of online consumer markets.
Mr. Gibs received a Master’s Degree in Geography, specializing in spatial statistics, from the State University of New York at Buffalo. His Bachelor’s Degree is from Clark University in Geography.
Mr. Gibs’ expertise has been sought out by many news outlets including MSNBC, CNBC, the Investor’s Business Daily, and CBS MarketWatch.
Micaela Giuhat is responsible for developing strategic pricing for the Nortel carrier business.
Prior to joining Nortel, Giuhat held executive positions in product management and business development in several startup companies, as well as Tekelec/IEX Corporation and Newbridge Networks where she was responsible for creating and launching different products. Other experiences include system-engineering positions at Bell Northern Research (Nortel), TELRAD, and BEZEK.
Giuhat holds a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bucharest, Romania and a Masters of Business Administration Degree from the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Yaron Globus, Vice President of Operations, deltathree, Inc.
Yaron Globus has been with deltathree, Inc. since 2000 and currently serves as Vice President of Operations. He is responsible for managing the operational policies and functionalities of the company, including site development, capacity planning, vendor relationships, and routing decisions for the company. Prior to his current position, Mr. Globus had been deltathree’s Director of Network Financial Optimizations, during which time he built and managed the Least Cost Routing Department and the Voice Quality Control team. Mr. Globus has brought to deltathree his extensive experience in operations management. He had formerly held the positions of the Director of Project Management at Jerusalem Mortgage Bank, Ltd., General Manager – NY Agency of United Mizrahi Bank, Vice President and a member of the Board of Directors of United Mizrahi Global Management Services, and Senior Real Estate Project Manager of Tefahoti Mortgage Bank to israel , Ltd. Mr. Globus holds a M.B.A., and a M.A. in Economics, specializing in International Trade and Finance from The Hebrew University.
Ofer Gneezy, President & CEO, iBasis
As co-founder, president, and CEO of global VoIP company iBasis, Mr. Gneezy is one of the true visionaries of the IP telephony industry and a recipient of Pulver.com's Industry Pioneer Award. Prior to founding iBasis, Mr. Gneezy pioneered the field of industrial automation. He was president of Acuity Imaging, Inc., a multinational leader in industrial automation technology and president and CEO of Automatix, which he merged with Itran, Inc., to form Acuity. Mr. Gneezy is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Business Administration and has an M.S. in engineering from M.I.T.
Matthew Goldman, Vice President of Technology, Compression Systems, Tandberg Television
Matthew Goldman is Vice President of Technology, Compression Systems, for TANDBERG Television Inc., a world leader in live, on-demand, and interactive digital television (DTV) compression and delivery solutions.
Mr. Goldman has been actively involved in the development of DTV systems since 1992. He was a prominent participant in the Moving Picture Experts Group where he helped create the MPEG-2 Systems standard, the baseline transport technology used in direct broadcast satellite, digital cable, terrestrial broadcasting, and DVD-video. He served as project editor for the MPEG-2 DSM-CC standard, the control signaling used in video-on-demand systems and for DTV data downloads and carousels. Committed to improving the Advanced Television Systems Committee DTV standards, Mr. Goldman was a co-developer of the Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) standard, which is used by DTV receivers to navigate and tune to broadcast DTV services. He also has been influential in other industry organizations including the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers, and the Consumer Electronics Association. Recent stints have included the standardization of MPEG-4 AVC and SMPTE VC-1 video codecs.
Until 1996, Mr. Goldman was a Consulting Engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation, where he was the systems architect for a first-generation digital video server system. From 1996 to 2000, he was Director of Engineering, Advanced Systems Development, at DiviCom Inc., where he specified MPEG-2 based systems solutions. Prior to joining TANDBERG Television Inc., he was a technology consultant specializing in DTV system solutions and expert witness research; one of his projects included the definition of the broadcasting industry’s first compressed-domain high definition program splicer.
Mr. Goldman received bachelor (high honors) and master of sciences degrees in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He holds six patents related to digital video transport. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers. He has also presented papers and tutorials, as well as participated on panel discussions at numerous industry events.
Michael Gordon, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder, Limelight Networks
Mike Gordon is responsible for ensuring that Limelight's technologies and services support the emerging digital media strategies and business models of today's media companies. Prior to Limelight, Mike co-founded Axient Communications, which built a nationwide next-generation Internet network; co-founded Cyclone Commerce, an enterprise software company that provides cross-enterprise collaboration solutions; and co-founded Gateway Data Sciences Corporation, a software and services company. Mike has also held marketing and management positions at IBM and National City Bank.
Frank Green, Product Manager, ADTRAN
Frank Green is the product manager for ADTRAN’s network management, Voice Quality Monitoring solutions, IP phones and third-party applications complementing the NetVanta 7100 IP PBX. Since joining ADTRAN in 2002, he has been responsible for the design and development of these and other product families and has spearheaded relationships with third-part vendors forming business relationships for associated products.
Prior to joining ADTRAN, Mr. Green served as a product manager for Verilink Corporation. In that role, he was responsible for the WANsuite product line of intelligent, frame-aware CSU/DSUs and routers. Mr. Green also served as a design engineer for Atmel, a multimedia communications company. In this position, Mr. Green was responsible for ASIC design and testing for digital signal processing applications.
Mr. Green holds a degree in Physics from North Georgia College and State University.
Vicki Griffiths, Product Manager, Cellular Applications, picoChip Designs Ltd
Vicki Griffiths is Product Manager for 3G systems at picoChip Ltd.
Having graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Physics and a Masters in Computation – she joined Inmos where she initially worked with the Transputer architecture team before moving to manage several projects including the ST20 embedded core development. Vicki now has over 20 years experience in the semiconductor industry and has worked in management and marketing roles at Hewlett Packard, 3Com and Lattice Semiconductor before joining picoChip in January 2006.
Since joining picoChip she has been responsible for bringing picoChip’s solutions for indoor and residential 3G access points to market.
Ronald Gruia, Principal Analyst for Emerging Telecom, Frost & Sullivan
Ronald Gruia is the Program Leader, Enterprise Solutions and Senior Telecom Analyst at Frost & Sullivan, where he covers topics such as VoIP, triple play services, IMS, and carrier messaging platforms. He is a frequent speaker at conferences such as VON, IPComm, 3GSM, Supercomm, Intel Communications Summit, and IP World Canada.
Ronald also writes articles for various publications, appears on Report on Business Television (Canada), and is often quoted in publications including Business Week, Forbes, Chicago Tribune, National Post, Globe&Mail and Washington Post. He is an MIT graduate in Electrical Engineering, and has accumulated years of experience in the telecom industry (held several roles at Nortel Networks' Enterprise Division, where he earned a U.S. patent).
Ben Guderian, Vice President of Marketing, Spectralink, now a part of Polycom
Ben Guderian is vice president of Marketing for SpectraLink, now Polycom. He currently guides the company’s wireless product and marketing strategies. Before taking on his current role, Guderian held key positions at the company in the areas of market strategy, industry relations, marketing and sales. He has been instrumental in developing vertical markets and driving product development to meet the voice communication requirements of mobile workers in a wide variety of enterprise applications.
Guderian’s experience includes more than 20 years in telecommunications and networking. As an early evangelist for workplace wireless telephony, he has written numerous articles and presented at many industry events. In 2006, Guderian was recognized as one of the “Top 100 Voices of IP Communications” of all time by Internet Telephony magazine.
Guderian received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Colorado and an MBA from the University of Santa Clara.
Roar Hagen, CTO, Global IP Sound
Dr. Roar Hagen began R&D within speech processing and coding in 1989. He previously held positions at AT&T Bell Labs and Ericsson Research. He holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and an M.Sc. in Physics from the Norwegian Institute of Technology, Norway. Roar Hagen has filed more than 10 patents.
Robert Hagens is CTO of Envysion, a provider of web-based video management services for multi-location businesses. Rob is responsible for Envysion’s hardware and software technology. Previously, he was senior vice president at Level 3 Communications, where he was responsible for the design and development of the Level 3 infrastructure, including the IP/MPLS network, the voice network and the development of Level 3's softswitch. Prior to joining Level 3, Rob was director of Internet engineering at MCI Telecommunications Corp., where he was responsible for the architecture and engineering of MCI's Internet backbone service. He has an MS in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a BA in Biology from Carleton College.
John Hannan, Director, Business Development, QUALCOMM
John Hannan has been working in the wireless communications sector for the past ten years. Currently, he holds the position of Director, Business Development at Qualcomm Inc. San Diego, Ca. where he is responsible for assessing business opportunities for emerging wireless technologies. In the past, he has also been active in the area of technology assessment and economic modeling of 3G wireless systems. Hannan joined the company in 1998 as a Senior Network Planner. Prior to joining QUALCOMM, he worked as a Senior RF Engineer for Sprint PCS deploying its CDMA wireless network in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Hannan holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Bucknell University and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from The University of Arizona.
Larry Hargrove, Worldwide Sales Leader, Telecom Industry Software, IBM
Larry is the Worldwide Sales Leader for IBM's Telecom Industry Software. Larry's role is to help Telecom Service Providers grow their revenues and profits by leveraging IBM's software to help them discover, create, integrate, deliver and manage new services. Larry works closely with the IBM's hardware and professional services teams and IBM business partners to help accelerate the delivery of new services, solutions, platforms and networks. Larry's previous responsibilities at IBM included business development in the telecommunications industry, relationship management in the telecommunications industry and marketing management for web hosting services. Prior to joining IBM Larry launched and managed several business in the telecommunications industry, including a consulting firm and a long distance telephone company. Larry holds an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of New Brunswick.
Curtis Hartmann, Director of Product Management, BroadSoft
As a Director of Product Management, Curtis Hartmann has end-to-end responsibility for BroadSoft's SIP Trunking solution. Curtis has over 15 year experience in the telecommunications software industry having held leadership positions in software development, product management, and business development at ADC NewNet, Interswitch, and most recently at Cisco Systems where he was responsible for Cisco's cable telephony softswitch. Curtis holds a BA in Chemistry from Connecticut College, and Master's degree in Computer Science from Union College.
David Hattey, President & CEO, FirstHand Technologies
Dave's 26 years of technology and leadership experience spans the entire value chain including end user, reseller, operator, and OEM.
Prior to joining FirstHand, Dave served as VP and GM, Enterprise Voice Solutions at 3Com. Dave also served as President of EFJohnson, a provider of wireless communications systems, leading a turnaround resulting in the company's first profitable year since going public 5 years earlier.
Before, Dave served as VP, Operations for RACOM Corporation and held executive positions at General Electric, the Ericsson/GE joint venture, and Ericsson. Dave earned bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering and computer engineering from the University of Michigan and his master's degree in business administration from Duke's Fuqua School of Business. Dave holds 11 patents.
Steve Heap, Chief Technology Officer, Arbinet
Steven Heap joined Arbinet in April 2004. Prior to joining Arbinet, Mr. Heap served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer for ePHONE, a VoIP service provider. Mr. Heap was also Senior Vice President and Chief Network Officer for the Internet backbone company, Aleron, Inc. and also held senior executive positions at Teleglobe, Inc., Concert Communications, and British Telecom. Mr. Heap has over 30 years experience in the international communications industry.
Kaynam Hedayat, VP, Product Management & CTO, Brix Networks
As vice president, product management, and chief technology officer at Brix Networks, Kaynam Hedayat is responsible for defining and driving the strategic technology direction of the firm, the company's various product management and product marketing initiatives, and representing Brix on relevant standards bodies. He earned a Master's of Engineering degree from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Northeastern University.
Chad Herren, Field Systems Engineer, Service Provider, F5 Networks
Chad Herren is a Field Systems Engineer for F5 Networks, the market leader is Application Delivery Networking. With several years experience in the Service Provider market, Chad is responsible for enabling customers to integrate application acceleration, high availability and security.
Patrick Herron, Director of Product Management, McLeodUSA
Patrick Herron is Director – Product Management at McLeodUSA. McLeodUSA provides managed IP-based communications services to small and medium-sized enterprises, and traditional circuit-switched telephony services to commercial customers in the Midwest, Rocky Mountain, Southwest and Northwest regions of the nation. McLeodUSA delivers a wide variety of broadband IP-based voice and data solutions, targeting primarily small and medium-sized enterprises and multilocation commercial customers. Patrick has over 20 years of Engineering, Sales, and Marketing experience in the telecommunications industry. In his current role, he is responsible for management and marketing of all McLeodUSA retail products and services.
Eyal Hertzog, Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Metacafe
Eyal Hertzog is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Metacafe, a place where artists create, consumers interact and technology enables communication. Prior to co-founding Metacafe, where he drives product innovation and content strategy, Mr. Hertzog co-founded Contact Networks in 1998, one of the first interpersonal, professional online networks. At Contact Networks, he was responsible for overall product strategy and overall technical architecture, and managed strategic relationships with Nokia, GemPlus, Comverse and other large partners. He has also advised US and Israeli high-tech startups on strategy, product roadmaps and technology architecture, and worked with Israeli venture capital firm Millennium Capital Venture as an investment advisor. Mr. Hertzog got his start in the technology industry in the Israeli army, where he served four years as an IT department manager for the Intelligence Core. After leaving the military in 1997, he joined serial networking startup Class Data Systems as an application marketing engineer. The company was later sold to Cisco for $50 million, and Mr. Hertzog invested his windfall from the deal into his first startup, Contact Networks.
Daniel Hesse, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Embarq Corporation
Mr. Hesse joined Sprint in 2005 to lead the effort to create EMBARQ, which separated from Sprint Nextel in 2006. From 2000 – 2004, he served as Chairman, President and CEO of Terabeam Corporation. Mr. Hesse spent 23 years at AT&T, including serving as the President and CEO of AT&T Wireless Services.
Jörg Heuer, 44, started working for a Deutsche Telekom engineering subsidiary in 1997, defining and leading more than 30 projects for all divisions of the Deutsche Telekom group. Currently Heuer is responsible for Technology Exploration and the publishing of a periodic report on technology developments for CTO/ CMO level management and innovation departments of Deutsche Telekom group. He is the responsible senior manager for a research program on identity management, AAA (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting), and Web X.0 enabling across all telecom divisions.
Joe Hildebrand, Chief Technology Officer, Jabber
Joe Hildebrand is responsible for the technical vision of Jabber, Inc.’s product line. Additionally, Hildebrand is a frequent speaker at conferences and a source for professional journalists. Prior to Jabber, Inc., Hildebrand served as the chief architect for a regional information technology company where he built frameworks and teams of technology leaders for rapidly automating complex business processes. Hildebrand has also designed and implemented systems for sending and parsing Department of Defense battlefield messages. In addition to his work at Jabber, Inc., Hildebrand is a member of the XMPP Standards Foundation; formerly the Jabber Software Foundation; he contributes to several Jabber open source projects, and he maintains a blog where he often shares technical information for the purposes of maintaining an open customer forum. Hildebrand holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Rod Hodgman, Vice President, Market Strategy, Covergence, Inc.
Rod is a co-founder of Covergence and is currently responsible for the company’s overall market strategy. Rod brings over 25 years of experience in both start-ups and large companies. Prior to Covergence, Rod was the VP of Enterprise Products at Macromedia where he was responsible for the introduction of Flex, an XML-based programming environment for the creation of rich, multi-modal Internet applications based on the Flash platform.
Dan Holden, Comcast Fellow / Chief Scientist , Comcast
Dan Holden is a Comcast Fellow and Chief Scientist for Denver-based Comcast Media Center (CMC). In this position, Holden is responsible for providing technical and strategic leadership for the CMC.
Holden, a 16-year veteran of television, joined the Comcast Media Center in 2002 as a Video of IP Engineer. Since then, he has led the engineering efforts for the CMC’s content distribution platforms, including video on demand, broadband television, and user generated content. Prior to joining the CMC, Holden served as the architect for AT&T Broadband’s telephony provisioning systems. Beforehand, Holden served on the engineering team at CableLabs as a senior consultant for Go2Broadband, Holden also served as the CIO of Weather+ and led the Transmission Manager efforts for Encoda systems.
Holden’s current focus at the CMC includes defining its strategic direction for interactive television, advanced advertising, and content delivery. He holds a M.S. and B.S. in Computer Science from Regis University, where he graduated summa cum laude. Holden is actively involved in the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and the Society of Cable and Television Engineers.
Denver-based Comcast Media Center (CMC), a business unit of Comcast Cable, provides a Total Content Solution for cable system operators and members of the content community, including television programming networks, independent producers and advertisers. CMC’s products include its HITS all-digital platform of over 200 linear digital video and audio services; an Advertising Distribution Network (ADN) for centrally managing cross channel promotions and advertising; and a video on demand (VOD) platform serving over 15 million VOD-enabled cable households. The CMC also provides a full spectrum of content production, management and distribution services, including channel origination, transcoding, hosting, storage and IP multicasting, for traditional and new media platforms.
Dr. Mike Hollier, CTO, Psytechnics
Dr. Mike Hollier is a technical and commercial pioneer in perceptual engineering.
He directed BT’s research into audio, video and multimedia performance assessment for nearly a decade before leading the incubation of Psytechnics Ltd. in 2000. He left BT to become Psytechnics’ CEO and since October 2002 has served as its CTO, acting as their technology evangelist, driving business development and overseeing the research and development of a new generation of voice and video products.
Dr. Hollier is a Chartered Engineer, twice winner of the Alan Rudge Award for Innovation, a fellow of the University of Essex and member of the IOA and AES.
Seamus Hourihan, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management, Acme Packet
Seamus Hourihan, who first coined the term “session border control,” has driven industry recognition of the critical importance of the new product category created by Acme Packet. He is a prolific speaker on the conference and tradeshow circuit and is the author of several networking guidebooks and numerous articles. Recently, Seamus was recognized by Internet Telephony magazine as one of the “Top 100 Voices of IP Communications.” Seamus brings over 25 years of experience to Acme Packet in executive management, marketing, product management and business development roles at voice over IP, IP networking, web infrastructure and computer companies. Seamus was vice president of marketing for internetworking leader Wellfleet and, after its merger with Synoptics, Bay Networks (now Nortel) for nearly seven years. During his tenure, annual revenue grew from $10 million to $2 billion and Inc. recognized Wellfleet as “America’s Fastest Growing Company” for two consecutive years. More recently, Seamus was vice president of marketing for Pingtel, widely recognized as a leader in SIP products and technology. He also held management positions at Data General, MASSCOMP and Bright Tiger and has operated his own consulting company. Seamus holds an AB degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Babson College.
Thomas Howe, CEO, Thomas Howe Company
Thomas McCarthy-Howe has nineteen years of experience in telecommunications product development. He is currently an independent consultant to service providers, enterprises and equipment vendors in the design and development of next generation communications equipment and services.
Thomas has held senior management and engineering positions at industry leaders such as Comverse, Versatel Networks, PictureTel and Aware. As a member of the PictureTel engineering team, Mr. Howe designed audio and video software of the first PC-based video conferencing system, as well as software for the original version of NetMeeting, and as Aware Inc.'s software architect for the first commercially available ADSL chipset. In 2007, Thomas won the O’Reilly Emerging Telephony Mashup Contest.
In addition to his writing and teaching, he currently serves on several technical advisory boards and boards of directors.
Andy Huckridge, Director, NGN Solutions , Spirent Communications
Andy Huckridge is Director, NGN Solutions at Spirent Communications, where he leads Spirent's strategy for the Multimedia Application Solutions division. His responsibilities include product management, strategic business planning & market development. Andy has worked in the Silicon Valley Telecommunications industry for 12 years including roles at Centile, Inc., and 8x8, Inc., where he was Director of Product Marketing, and has a broad background in defining and marketing products in the Semiconductor, VoIP and IMS/NGN space. He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Surrey, England. Andy is active in various Forums including the Multi-Service Forum, where he is Chairperson of the Interoperability Working Group & NGN Certification Committee. Andy is a VoIP patent holder, an IETF RFC co-author and inaugural member of the "Top 100 Voices of IP Communications" list.
Mike Hudack, CEO, President and Co-Founder, blip.tv
Mike Hudack is the co-founder and CEO of blip.tv. He is responsible for overseeing all business, site and software development, integration with private labels and community relations with the videoblogger community.
Before blip.tv, Mike was a senior programmer and systems administrator for the National Hockey League. He managed the team responsible for one of the biggest IT projects in the history of the League: consolidating and re-developing the NHL’s internal applications, which serve hundreds of employees using dozens of technologies ranging from the IBM AS/400 to Sun’s J2EE to Lotus Notes to Perl. In addition, Mike created and developed the content management system for NHL.com, administered dozens of NHL.com servers spread across two data centers in New York City and coordinated the redesign and development of NHL.com’s real time statistics client.
In 2001 Mike worked for AOL/Time Warner’s Parenting Group, where he helped to manage the Parenting.com Web site. He oversaw tens of thousands of individual Web pages across several re-branding and redesign cycles and designed and authored an Internet subscription system for TPG’s Parenting and BabyTalk properties.
Before working at AOL/Time Warner, Mike was hired as the Chief Scientist for Knowledge Propulsion Laboratories, a computer security start-up in Norwalk, Connecticut. While at KPL, Mike designed the innovative LinearC privacy product and the Data Haven secure Internet storage service.
Mike has spoken at SXSW, NYU and other forums as an expert on blogging and digital journalism. He has created and maintained more than a half d