Get to Fast Faster 2022 - Speakers

Kurt Rodgers,

Network Strategy Manager

Chorus

Kurt Rodgers has over 20 years’ experience in the fixed and mobile broadband industry in Europe and New Zealand. He has a passion for new technology and how it will change and improve our lives. Part engineer, part storyteller, Kurt likes to take the complexity out of emerging technology and explain it in a simple way that everyone understands.  Kurt has held a wide range of technology roles within service provider and vendor organizations, including network planning, architecture, solution consulting and strategy. Over the last decade, he has been closely involved in NZ’s Ultra-Fast Broadband programme and works for Chorus as the Network Strategy Manager and Director of the Chorus Fibre Lab.

Ronald G. Brusola

Chief Technology Officer

Converge ICT Solutions

He is responsible for design, implementation, operations and maintenance of Converge network infrastructure. He plays a critical role in ensuring that its end-to-end fiber-based network delivers high-speed and reliable connectivity to residential and enterprise customers. He directed the introduction and implementation of the industry’s latest technologies within Converge’s network, making it a pioneer in the country. His deep experience in network operations and maintenance has ensured the embedding of best practices to ensure a superior customer experience.

Fatima AlDaghar

Director, Fixed Access Network

du

Fatima AlDaghar is Director of Fixed Access Network leading Plan & design of GPON and Ethernet. She has been with du for more than 15 years. Fatima started as an engineer in fixed network, moved across the organization into Data-center, Transport and OSS and lead the first Call center Digitization project in Du.

Stephen Wilson

Senior Principal Analyst

Omdia

Stephen is a Senior Principal Analyst at Omdia and focuses on the fixed broadband access space from both supply and demand perspectives. His research examines fixed broadband related opportunities for operators and vendors. Stephen has 15 years of experience as an analyst covering the fixed broadband market globally and has produced numerous reports and engaged in large numbers of projects covering the sector. He has a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from St Catherine's College, Oxford University.

Elaine Ngina Kyalo

Head, Fixed Network Solutions

Safaricom

Elaine is the Head of Fixed Networks for Safaricom PLC, Kenya. Elaine heads end-to-end and plan-build-operate function within Safaricom PLC Technology. Current Fixed Solutions offering is on FTTH and FWA technologies, and her role includes planning, deployment, maintenance, strategies formulation, governance and customer management.

An engineer by profession (Electrical and Electronics Engineering) with over 10 year experience, over which period she has served as Enterprise Technical Support Engineer, Homes Solution Support Engineer, Manager Homes Technical Support team, Manager Home Rollout & Implementation, and Senior Manager Fixed Solution.

Ayush Sharma

Chief Technology Officer

StarHub

Ayush provides leadership to maintain a robust and efficient network to support StarHub’s multiple lines of business. He is also responsible for advancing StarHub's network transformation initiatives to accelerate business growth. Ayush brings more than 20 years of experience in delivering ground-breaking technologies and industry-first products, and was most recently the Vice President, Head of Metaverse & Edge Platforms Business, Rakuten (USA). He is also a successful entrepreneur, having co-invented "Latency-as-a-service" architecture and algorithms to help MotoJeannie, a start-up business, deliver engaging rich-media interactive streaming, gaming, and XR-based collaboration experiences.

With previous leadership experience at Cisco, Ericsson, and Huawei, Ayush has led the design and technology adoption programs for over 30 fixed, satellite, mobile, and cloud networks globally. He launched several successful initiatives that have helped shape the industry, pioneering solutions ranging from the world's first Wi-Fi calling platform and first router in Outer Space, to the first commercial-grade Software Defined Networking controller.

Ayush holds a Master of Science in Data Communications from Brunel University London, United Kingdom and has completed the Stanford Executive Management program.

Dileep Agrawal

Chairman & Managing Director

WorldLink Communications

Dileep Agrawal is the Chairman and Managing Director of WorldLink Communications Ltd, an Internet Service Provider that he founded in 1995 and grew into Nepal’s largest ISP serving over 3.4 million netizens representing one-third of all active Internet users and 40% of all Internet traffic in the country.

Over the past 27 years, thanks to his vision and perseverance, WorldLink successfully navigated industry shakeups that saw most traditional ISPs wiped out, and firmly established itself as the undisputed dominant provider of data services, far ahead of much larger mobile operators. This dominance of ISP in Nepal’s data market is unique and is spearheaded by WorldLink. Today, WorldLink connects over 700,000 households using its own nation-wide, state-of-the-art optical fiber network.

A recognized pioneer in Nepal’s IT industry, Dileep Agrawal regularly appears in national and international media and as a speaker at industry events. He holds a degree in Biochemistry from Bates College, USA.

Sandy Motley

Vice President Fixed Networks

Nokia

Sandy leads the Fixed Networks Business Group at Nokia. She holds four degrees from three renowned U.S. universities.  The years she spent dealing with the wireless business makes her the perfect leader to guide our customers through the massive access journey.  In her free time, Sandy likes to read, watch sports and spend time with her family.

Ana Pesovic

Marketing Director, Fiber, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Ana Pesovic leads Fixed Networks fiber marketing in Nokia.

Ana has extensive international telecom experience, having held various positions in sales, pre-sales and R&D in Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Spain and India. She was actively involved in several industry organizations, being in the Board of Directors of the FTTH Council Europe and the Chair of the NGPON Council of the BBF.

Ana has a master degree in Informatics and Computer Science from the University of Belgrade.

Cemil Canturk

Product Marketing Director, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Cemil is responsible for Fixed Wireless Access and Optical LAN marketing in Nokia. In his role, Cemil is focusing on, respectively, how to deliver reliable broadband services to homes and businesses with 5G and promoting and increasing market awareness and adoption of passive optical LAN. He has more than 20 years of experience in telecommunications, with positions in engineering, sales support and sales.

Chris Brown

TEPS APJ SSO Manager

Nokia

Chris is part of the sales operations and planning team for Nokia Enterprise. This role focuses on the strategy to bring high-value solutions to customers across all non-telco market segments and industries.

Joining in 2009, Chris has worked on more than 50 major customer projects including the supply of ultra-broadband solutions to nbn, and the core network refresh for another major operator in Australia.

Prior to joining the company, Chris worked in a variety of telco and equipment supplier roles in Australia, Japan and Europe, covering several generations of network technology and working with some of the largest carrier and enterprise network operators around the world. Now, Chris is dividing his time between building the Nokia Enterprise organization for continued long-term success, and helping to fly the Nokia flag across all kinds of customer engagements.

Outside work, Chris enjoys playing tennis, loves the beaches in Sydney, and spends far too much time perfecting a variety of highly-spiced curry recipes!

Coert de Boer

Vice President, Professional & Deployment Services, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Coert de Boer heads up Professional & Deployment Services for Nokia Fixed Networks. His professional passion is in helping customers select, design and implement the perfect network, using all of his 25 years’ experience to full effect. His personal passions are just as fulfilling: ocean sailing, biking and charity work (when his family allows!).

Donny Janssens

Private Wireless Campus Program Lead, APJ

Nokia

As the APJ leader for the Private Wireless Campus programme, Donny brings a wealth of international experience.
Having been with Nokia for 20+ years he has developed extensive experience in business development & sales through senior roles in Antwerp, China, Singapore and Japan. His background includes multiple years running the New Product Introduction and Business Development activities in Fixed Networks for APJ driving significant business stimulation – introducing new solutions in new markets and customers. Fuelled by his passion for Enterprise he developed the initial blueprints for Passive Optical LAN with the engineering teams before taking on the Cluster Leader role for Fixed Networks in Japan.
Before his current role he was leading the Enterprise sales team in Japan, spearheading 5G private wireless deployments.

Eric Festraets

President FTTH Council Europe
Director, Strategic Marketing, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Eric leads Fixed Networks strategic marketing in Nokia. His role is focusing on consultative and best practices sharing, helping carrier & network operators in many regions to leverage on successful business models, go to market tactics and deployment strategies, suitable for their broadband market.  His consultative workshops are targeted to C-level engagements, including but not limited to Marketing & Strategy teams within the carrier & network operators.  Since May 2020, Eric presides the FTTH Council Europe, after 5 years of membership of the Board of Directors.

Filip De Greve

Product Marketing Director, Fixed Networks

Nokia

As product marketing director at Nokia, Filip focuses on new market strategies for innovative copper and fiber-based access solutions. He holds a Ph.D. in telecom and has over 10 years experience in the ICT & telecom industry with broad expertise in hardware, software and services. He loves road cycling and thrives on thinking outside the box to explore new ideas and concepts.

Geert Heyninck

Vice President, Broadband Networks
Fixed Networks

Nokia

Based in Antwerp, Belgium, Geert is responsible for the Broadband Networks Business Unit which is part of Nokia’s Fixed Networks Business Group. His scope covers all Nokia copper and fiber network products within Fixed Networks deployments. He has full profit and loss responsibility for these products worldwide. As such, his role includes investments decisions, product definition, product development, global price setting and market messaging. The Broadband Access Business Unit has five development centers across Europe, China, USA, Canada and India. Geert has more than 25 years of experience in the telecoms industry and holds Master’s degrees in Civil Engineering, Informatics and Applied Economics.

Gino Dion

Head of Innovation Solutions, Fixed Network

Nokia

Located in Saint-John, New-Brunswick Canada, Gino Dion is Head of the Nokia Fixed Networks Innovation Solutions. In his 20+ years in telecom industry, he has extensively worked with CxOs, heads of Network Operations of Service Providers & MSOs worldwide, and major webscale corporations such as Apple and Amazon.  Gino has extensive experience in all aspects IP video service delivery, low-latency gaming optimizations, advanced innovation R&D, IoT security, service assurance and cloud native technologies. Gino was recognized as a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff and also holds over 15 patents in the telecommunications space, including technology such as video fast channel-changes, ad-insertion, and secure multicast frameworks.  Gino complements the leadership teams of Nokia major accounts and primarily focuses on igniting R&D innovation opportunities for Nokia and their customers.

John Harrington

Senior Vice President and Head of Asia-Pacific and Japan

Nokia

John Harrington is the Senior Vice President and Head of Asia Pacific and Japan for Nokia, where he manages and oversees Nokia’s Customer Experience organization, business and operations for the region. John has over 25 years of technical sales, customer relationship management and business development experience in the telecommunications industry across Asia, Europe and North America. John was previously the Head of Japan for Nokia, leading networks solution sales before moving to North America to join the leadership team as Senior Vice President, US Major Accounts, where he led sales for a diverse set of wireless, wireline, cable and regional customers. In his career, John took charge of the AT&T Wireless account, one of Nokia’s largest accounts, and one of the most advanced CSPs in the world, in order to support 4G enhancement, IoT deployment, and 5G preparation. John has also held various international leadership roles as part of the acquisition of the Alcatel-Lucent business, which focused on the latest advancements in wireless technology. John started his career with Motorola as a system engineer for GSM/CDMA deployment. Born in England, John holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering.

Justin Doucette

Head of Nokia WiF

Nokia

Justin Doucette has 10 years of experience in Wi-Fi and 20 years in product management.  Doucette leads a team of product managers responsible for strategy definition and product development for Wi-Fi across Nokia’s Broadband Devices Business Unit. Through financial management, market analysis, and competitive landscaping, Justin and his team are responsible for the Wi-Fi roadmap and long-range planning.  Working with other functional leaders, Justin finds the optimal return on investment for new product introductions and existing product maintenance while driving top line growth and profitably by focusing on new business opportunities, cost management, and improving customer appeal.  Before joining Nokia, Justin held product marketing and business line management responsibilities at Linksys, Belkin, and Magellan GPS.  Justin earned his Bachelor of Arts in Geography at Syracuse University, and his MBA in Global Business and Marketing at Pepperdine University.

Kurt Pynaert

Head, End-to-end Software Defined Access Networks
Fixed Networks

Nokia

Kurt Pynaert is the head of end-to-end software defined access networks in Nokia.

He holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering, and is a Bell Labs Fellow.

After 30+ years in the industry, his career has come full circle – he started as a control and automation engineer, and now spends his days architecting and advocating closed-loop automation for the cloud era.

Laszlo Gyalog

Marketing Director, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Within Nokia’s Fixed Networks Division, Laszlo leads the Broadband Devices marketing, focusing on how to extend a broadband offer into the home with meshed Wi-Fi, and how to fully optimize the Wi-Fi performance with advanced analytics. Laszlo leverages on 35 years of experience in telecommunications, with a wide variety of responsibilities, from training to product and solutions marketing, to business development.

Luis Martin Santiago

Head, Fixed Wireless Access Business, Broadband Devices, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Luis has 30 years of experience in the Telecom Industry leading international teams and had develop his career in Spain, Belgium, Italy and China. Luis had hold different roles from Research and Development, Product management, Product Strategy and Product Line business management. Currently Luis is responsible for the Fixed Wireless Access Business Line within Nokia. In this role Luis is responsible for FWA product strategy, product roadmap as well as the product line financial performance. Luis holds a High Technical Degree on Telecommunication Engineering from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain.

Maurizio Severi

Head, Fiber Business, Broadband Networks­
Fixed Networks

Nokia

Maurizio Severi is Head of Fiber Business line at Nokia Fixed Networks. Maurizio has worldwide responsibility for Fiber access portfolio strategy and roadmap. He is accountable to have cutting-edge technology in Fiber broadband portfolio providing the most economical solution for all use cases and applications delivered via mobile and fixed services with the outmost level of automation and flexibility.

Prior to this role Maurizio was Director of Network Architect and Regional Product Line management of APAC IP and Optical Regional Business Center based in Shanghai. He spent a significant amount of his time in meeting customers to define and promote networking solution for access, aggregation and core networks.

Prior to this role, Maurizio held several positions as Channels & Strategic Industries Product Manager and prior to that as Global Project Manager for major Pan European Networks. Over the course of his career, Maurizio has developed expertise in IP, Optical and fixed network technologies and solution for Telecom Operators and enterprise customers.

Maurizio holds a Bachelor's Degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Politecnico of Milan in Italy.

Miek Dekeyser

Head, SDAN Business, Broadband Networks, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Miek Dekeyser is the Business Lead for the Software-Defined Access Nodes (SDAN) business line within the Nokia Broadband Networks Business Unit. He is responsible for Altiplano, the access domain controller providing Analytics and Automation for broadband networks, for AMS, the most widely deployed EMS in fixed access networks, and for the SDAN software across the Nokia SDAN products, Lightspan and Altiplano. The access domain technologies range across PON, point-to-point fiber, FWA, G.fast, DSL, voice and cable. Miek is active in the access segment since more than 25 years in business, product, marketing, project and systems roles.

Nemanja Pilipovic

Market Development Lead, APAC, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Nemanja leads Market Development activities in APAC, focusing on new areas of growth within Telco and Enterprise spaces.

He joined Nokia as a graduate engineer 11 years ago and has since held a wide range of roles. His extensive range of experiences and expertise cover non-technical roles in project management, business development and country leadership. On the technical front, he’s knowledge extends across copper & fiber solutions, Wi-Fi/IoT solutions, as well as virtual Converged Cable Access Platform (vCCAP) in cable access.

Nemanja holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from RMIT University.

Preetha Nadarajah

Chief Technology Officer, Malaysia

Nokia

Preetha is a creative technology business leader with broad experience in building and leading technology companies as well as increasing shareholder value.

She currently serves as Nokia Malaysia CTO. Preetha has held several senior leadership positions at Nokia in various domains - system integration, business analytics and end-to-end solutions, spanning local, regional and even global scope of responsibilities. Prior to Nokia, Preetha held key roles in IBM Malaysia and was instrumental in the growth of ADC Metrica/Vallent, then a regional telecoms software scale-up.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computing from Imperial College London and an MBa from INSEAD France.

Srinivasan KK

Head, Market Development, Software Strategy & Enterprise, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Srinivasan KK is the Head of Market Development, Software strategy and Fixed Networks Enterprise initiatives.

Joined Nokia since 2003, he has extensive experience in Communication products across Fixed and Wireless domains and Management Systems.

He led his team in Fixed Networks Copper, Fiber and Management products for the past 14 years.

Stefaan Vanhastel

CTO & Marketing

Nokia

Stefaan is the Head of CTO & Marketing for Nokia Fixed Networks. Stefaan holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering, and has 20 years of experience in the IT/telecommunications industry.

Willem Verbiest

Head of Strategy, Upstream activities and Market Enablement, Broadband Devices, Fixed Networks

Nokia

Willem Verbiest is heading the Strategy, Upstream activities and Market Enablement team within Nokia’s BroadBand Devices business unit, including FWA, ONT and Wi-Fi activities.  Before he headed the FWA Product Line Management, led the Transformation of the Mobile Transport Network of a large operator and was Partner of the Architecture Consulting Practice, in Alcatel-Lucent’s consulting organization.  He ran Alcatel-Lucent’s Multimedia Integration business, including IPTV for 5 years.  Willem joined Bell Telephone Mfg Co / ITT in 1982 and has been a pioneer in DSL and FTTH, starting with research in the eighties, evolving to Marketing and Product Line Management responsibility and General Management of Alcatel’s Access Business Unit.  He co-created Alcatel’s #1 position in DSL.  Willem holds a MS degree in Nuclear Physics from Ghent University. He has written over 30 published technical papers, was an IEEE guest editor and speaker at a broad range of conferences and became a Bell Labs Fellow in 2018.