SReXperts Speakers

Scott Brookshire

CTO

OpenColo

Scott Brookshire is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at OpenColo. He drives and develops the company’s technical strategy and provides technical direction and insight. He is hands-on in providing the OpenColo leadership with the necessary tools and insights to further the company’s mission and goals.  Scott has as Bachelor’s degree from Cogswell Polytechnical College and brings with him over 20 years of working inside and out of the datacenter space. He emphasizes developing long lasting relationships with customers, vendors and partners and is continually striving for win-win opportunities.

Matt Deibel

Data Engineering Advisor

Southern California Edison

I have my Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from UCSD.  I have worked at SCE for 11 years in Engineering, Operations, and not the Automation and Delivery organization. I was a part of the Core Team responsible for the architecture of the MPLS network deployed at SCE. I developed automation to create our device and service configurations leveraging internal databases to streamline our deployment process.

John Lozano

Principal Network Engineer

Portland General Electric

John Lozano is a Principal Network Engineer currently working at Portland General Electric. With over 15 years of expertise in the networking field, John has honed his skills through diverse roles, including his tenure at Puget Sound Energy and his service as a network engineer in the US Coast Guard. John has been recognized for architecting and deploying networks for utilities and has led several network builds, focusing on delivery of critical low latency and jitter services for mission-critical operations.

Israel Madiedo

Director, Innovation & Technology

izzi Telecom

Israel Madiedo is Director, Innovation & Technology at izzi (Televisa Group). With 30 years in the Telecommunications Industry, Mr. Madiedo has participated in a wide number of international projects, both in fixed and wireless networks, covering an array of positions in Engineering, Operations, and Technical Support organizations, to mention some.
He currently leads the efforts for evaluating and introducing new Technologies in izzi, pursuing the delivery of best of class services to the customers as well as opening new market opportunities.

Architecture design, homologation, local development, adaptation & transformation, are among the tasks covered by his team.

Prior to joining the Televisa Group, Israel was part of AT&T Network Services and Lucent Technologies, working in the CALA Region and being a part of the extended EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Asia) Transmission group, which took him to spend time in the whole LATAM Region as well as in Europe. He later became part of Cablevision México and was part of the team in charge of moving the Cable Industry in the Country towards a new phase of consolidation and higher competitive levels in the Telecom arena.  Among his tasks, he leads the team that represents izzi in several International Standards Organizations and keeps close contact with other colleagues and Operators worldwide. He is also a speaker and panel moderator in several Telecommunication events. He combines his current position in izzi with Academic endeavors as Professor in several programs (including master’s degree and Executive level “hacks”) in fields such as Telecom, Digital Transformation, ML & AI and others.  In 2021, Israel was included in “The Broadband 50 to Watch” list from LightReading.  Israel holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering, and a Masters in Telecommunications and Business Administration from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.

Inder Monga

Executive Director

ESnet

Indermohan (Inder) S. Monga serves as the Division Director for Scientific Networking Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Executive Director of Energy Sciences Network, a high-performance network user facility optimized for large-scale science, interconnecting the National Laboratory System in the United States. In addition to managing the organization, his efforts are directed towards advancing the science of networking for collaborative and distributed research applications, as well as contributing to ongoing research projects tackling programmability, analytics and quality of experience driving convergence between application layer and the network. He currently holds 23 patents and has 20+ years of industry and research experience in telecommunications and data networking. His work experience in the private sector includes network engineering for Wellfleet Communications, Bay Networks and Nortel where he focused on application and network convergence. His undergraduate degree is in electrical/electronics engineering from Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, with graduate studies in computer engineering from Boston University.

Michele Mosca

Co-Founder, President and CEO

evolutionQ

Michele Mosca is CEO and co-founder of the quantum-safe cybersecurity company, evolutionQ. He also co-founded the quantum software company softwareQ and serves as Chair of the board of Quantum Industry Canada. He is co-founder of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, a Mathematics Professor, and a founding member of Waterloo's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.   He started working in cryptography during his undergraduate studies and obtained his doctorate in Mathematics in 1999 from the University of Oxford on the topic of Quantum Computer Algorithms. He co-founded the not-for-profit Quantum-Safe Canada, and the ETSI-IQC workshop series in quantum-safe cryptography and is globally recognized for his drive to help academia, industry and government prepare our cyber systems to be safe in an era with quantum computers.   Dr. Mosca’s awards and honours include 2010 Canada's Top 40 Under 40, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2013), SJU Fr. Norm Choate Lifetime Achievement Award (2017), and a Knighthood (Cavaliere) in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2018). 
 

Mitch Rappard

Principal Solutions Architect - Service Providers

Palo Alto Networks

Mitch Rappard is a Palo Alto Networks Principal Solutions Architect focused on Wireless security. Throughout his career he has gained a deep understanding of how mobile networks function as he has partnered operators as they deployed their 3G, 4G and now 5G networks. Leveraging his experience in the wireless space, and security knowledge, he partners with operators and enterprises to deploy cybersecurity solutions for their networks and the networks they manage. Prior to joining Palo Alto Networks he founded a VoIP company based on his thesis at Carnegie Mellon University, which he later sold to dynamicsoft Inc. From there he went on to work at Starent Networks, Cisco Systems, and Ruckus Wireless. He holds two patents related to mobile network security, and one related to WiFi networks. He writes frequent blogs on Mobile Security, and from time to time can also be found writing unsuccessful mobile applications on the side.
 

Shane Sexton

Executive Corporate Technical Consultant, Technical Operations

EPB

Shane Sexton is Executive Corporate Technical Consultant for EPB’s Technical Operations group. With more than 30 years of experience in the internet service industry, Shane has worked with access technologies from the dial-up era to modern Passive Optical Network systems. Shane joined EPB in 2005 and currently leads EPB’s technology steering team that guides EPB’s networks and systems into the future by pursuing cutting edge innovation and facilitating transitions between technologies. He was a member of EPB’s Smart Grid deployment team that created the nation’s most reliable and resilient electric system and launched the nation’s first Gig Speed community-wide internet in 2010. He also played integral roles in the subsequent launches of community-wide 10 Gig and 25 Gig internet service in 2015 and 2022, respectively, as well as EPB Quantum Network in 2022. Prior to joining EPB, Shane served in leadership roles at several Chattanooga-based internet service start-ups.

Dan Snyder

Chief Principal Architect

UPMC

Dan has been with UPMC for over 20 years, with different roles of increasing responsibilities in network engineering, network architecture and enterprise architecture. He is responsible for evaluating and driving emerging trends and technologies in order to deliver greater flexibility as well as optimize UPMC’s IP network, enabling IT to better support the company’s goals. Dan also specializes in large campus networks, IoT, mobility, network automation, SDN and wireless. Dan has attained several leading industry certifications including Cisco’s CCIE and Nokia’s SRA. He is also a co-founder of a startup company that specializes in end-user experience monitoring.

Julia Watters

Principal Engineer

Charter Communications

She has 23 years of experience in the communications industry and has been with Charter for 17 years.  She is a primary administrator for the Deepfield deployment operated by Charter Spectrum and was a key figure in the system deployment processes.

Diego Achaval

Product Line Manager

Nokia

Diego is a networking technology enthusiast with more than 12 years of experience in the realms of the network design/architecture. Currently working as an IP NPI Engineer/Network Architect, he is responsible for the introduction of new technologies and for designing/architecting solutions for our customers across the Americas. He also holds several industry certifications like Nokia SRA and CCIE

Heidi Adams

Head of IP and Optical Networks Marketing

Nokia

As the Head of IP and Optical Networks marketing at Nokia, Heidi leads a global team focused on promoting Nokia’s network infrastructure solutions. With over 20 years in the telecommunications industry in roles spanning R&D, product management, technical marketing and as an industry analyst, she enjoys casting a spotlight on technology evolution and innovation and making it more accessible and compelling to a broader audience. Heidi has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s University (Kingston) and an MBA from the University of Ottawa.

Mustapha Aissaoui

Product Line Manager, IP Networks Division

Nokia

Mustapha Aissaoui is a Product Manager in the Service Router Product Group of the IP/Optical Networks at Nokia. He holds an Electrical Engineering Diploma from Polytechnic School of Algiers and a MASc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ottawa. Mustapha Aissaoui has been in the Product Management role since 2004 and is responsible for the MPLS and Segment Routing features in the SR-OS based routers. He is also the lead PLM for the SR-OS based PCEP and other SDN features of the NSP. Mustapha Aissaoui is an active participant of the IETF MPLS, PCE, and SPRING working groups. He is a co-author and a major contributor to many drafts in these working groups.

Salman Akbar

Senior Network and Solution Architect

Nokia

Salman Akbar is a Senior Network and Solution Architect, a member of Nokia’s professional services Global Network Engineering(GNE) team with over 2 decades of experience in networking technologies. Salman started with Newbridge Networks in the customer support organization and has extensive working experience in a range of Network Infrastructure products. Salman is responsible for leading and delivering professional services engagements involving Telco-cloud network design and architecture, operational and deployment consultancy as well as network automation.

ilker Alici

Regional Product Line Manager

Nokia

ilker is Regional Product Line Manager focused on SROS Model-Driven Management & SR-Linux solutions and products within Nokia's Network Infrastructure Division based in Sunnyvale, CA. ilker has 15 years of experience in the networking industry within the areas of network design, pre-sales, business development and product line management.

He has gained extensive international experiences with a deep understanding diverse cultural and business practices by participating projects and holding different roles within Nokia over 20 Countries, 5 Continents. Ilker has a Master of Business Administration, Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering degrees. 

Matt Arnoldus

Leader - Optical Pre-sales Regional Business Center

Nokia

Matt Arnoldus leads Nokia’s North American Optical Business Center. Matt has been the leader for two years and with Nokia for three, joining in 2020 from Cisco. Matt is a veteran of the Service Provider market, leading sales team for 30+ year in NAM and globally. Matt’s team leads the presales and engineering for the US and Canada including design, product alignment and commercial solutions.

Aleksandar Angelkoski

‪Solution Architect

Nokia

I work as Product Line Manager for Professional Services in Nokia’s IP and Optical Division. In my role, I am responsible for the global PS portfolio related to Data Center Fabric products and solutions, as well as leading the DC Fabric and Telco Cloud Fabric Blueprint programs. I joined Nokia in 2000 first as Network Planning and Optimisation Engineer, and then on to Technical Consultant and Solution Architect role, working with variety of customers, products and technologies focusing on Mobile, and subsequently, Cloud Packet Core design and optimisations. I hold a BSc in Computer Science from King’s College London, and MSc in Data Communications from Kingston University.

Steve Aubrey

Global Product Line Manager

Nokia

Stephen has worked in the telecommunications industry for over 29 years within the area of Network & Service Management and Mobile Data Analytics. Currently global Product Manager for the Network Services Platform (NSP) focused on configuration management across network and services. Stephen holds a honors bachelors degree in computer engineering from Cardiff University.

Luca Baragiola

Software Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division

Nokia

Luca, after a Bachelor’s degree in Micro-Electronics engineering from the Politecnico University of Milano in 1997, moved into the telecommunications industry, where he has more than 20 years’ experience. Since January 2022 he takes a new role inside the broader Nokia Optics community, as responsible for managing NFM-T Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) team, a Network Management System platform that is the core of the Optical Network. Till 2021 he had a PLM role in ION Service BU covering the Optical segment, with a focus on Automation, System Integration, Operational Enablement Solutions and Network Transformation area. In this role Luca was responsible for identifying consumer needs, developing and promoting specific Professional Services to improve customer experience on Nokia Optics network performances and indorsing the ION Professional Service portfolio internally and externally. With this position he developed a deep knowledge on the Nokia Optics product catalogue and related Network Management applications. Previously he was covering for 5 years a Product Management Role inside the Alcatel-Lucent Network Release Strategy Organization, following the homologation of specific Optics Mobile backhauling solutions.

Carlos Barroso

LAT IP Business Center Leader

Nokia

Carlos “Cadu” Barroso leads the Nokia IP Business in LAT. He has more than 20 years of experience in telco networking in pre-sales and business development at Nokia and at various CSP’s as a network engineer and consultant expert while living in Brazil, Mexico and USA. Cadu has been part of Nokia’s IP journey in LAT from its start as a customer and later joining Nokia, and with his team is passionate to live many more new chapters in it.

Andres Belloni

Senior Director PLM Network Automation

Nokia

Andres Belloni leads IP Management and Platform Product Management for Nokia NSP. In this role Andres is responsible for defining and managing the lifecycle of the NSP software foundation and applications that allow service providers to automate the operation of their IP & Optical networks. Mr. Belloni has an extensive career in telecommunications specializing in network and service management for TDM, ATM, IP and Optical networks. He has been responsible for product design, product strategy and product line management of Element, Network and Service Management Systems in Newbridge Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia. Mr. Belloni holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University Of Buenos Aires, Argentina and an Executive MBA from Queens University in Canada.

Marco Belotti

Optical Certification Program - Trainer

Nokia

Marco Belotti is a Training and Certification Professional and he deals with the “Optical Networks Certification” Program. Prior to joining the Learning Services, he played as Project Manager and TEC engineer, with focus on Optical products (1830 PSS, 1350 OMS, 1850 TSS, etc.). He handled introduction, management and configuration of optic/electric transmission systems in major customers’ networks, becoming a world traveler by joining more than 60 projects in about 25 countries worldwide during his 10-year experience in Nokia.

Hooman Bidgoli

Senior Product Line Manager – IP Routing

Nokia

Hooman has 22 years of experience in IP/MPLS protocols and network solutions. He started with Newbridge Networks in LAN emulation solutions (VIVID products) and moved to 7670 MPLS solutions. He was one of the first software designers on 7705 SAR and was responsible for IP/MPLS and L2/L3 services on SAR.  As PLM, he is responsibility ranges from Anyhaul including Fronthaul and 5G solutions to Multicast solutions and Security on SR-OS products.

Denis Bouffard

Product Line Manager

Nokia

Denis Bouffard, Product Manager in Network Automation (IP & Optical BU), is lead in supporting the Enterprise market and also responsible for Analytics and the NSP appliance and NSP Server products. Prior to his role at Nokia, Denis spent 13 years in PLM roles at various startups (AcceLight, Inkra and Radisys), and 14 years at Nortel in its switching, optical transport and EMS/NMS/OSS divisions. During this time, Denis held various roles in R&D, product management, and project leadership where his primary focus was management applications in support of the broader Nortel product portfolio. Previous and subsequent to Nortel Denis held various roles covering diverse products including geographic information systems, optical core switching and virtualized security and load balancing. Denis holds a Bachelor degree of Mathematics/Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, and a Master of Business Administration Diploma from the University of Ottawa.

Shane Branton

Learning Services Subject Matter Expert

Nokia

Shane is a Training and Certification Professional with over 22 years in the telecommunications industry. He works with leaders across Nokia to develop and deliver Network Services Platform (NSP) learning products to a global customer audience. Prior to joining Learning Services, Shane held roles as a support specialist in the IP Technical Expertise Center (TEC) and as a Network Management Services (NMS) design specialist in the Network Design Engineering team. Shane has travelled to customers in over 20 countries, performing networking tasks such as NMS installations and upgrades, regression and performance testing, troubleshooting, network operations audits and instructional design/delivery.

Peter Busschbach

Senior Director, NSP Product Management

Nokia

Peter Busschbach is Senior Director in Nokia’s IP/Optical Networks BU, where he is leads Product Management of Nokia’s Carrier SDN Controller, NSP.  Before assuming this role, Peter held several senior positions in the corporate CTO office and in product units where he was responsible for strategy, standardization and solution development in a wide range of technologies, including IP/MPLS, LTE, Ethernet, Optical Networking, Policy Management and Network Management. His standardization work included active participation in IETF, MPLS Forum, ITU-T and TM Forum. Mr Busschbach began his career in telecommunications as a software developer in AT&T. He holds a Master of Science degree in Mathematics of the Eindhoven Technical University, the Netherlands.

Luis Cambero

LAT Deepfield Pre-Sales

Nokia

Luis has been with the company since Alcatel times back to 2001 in different roles starting as a Support Engineer for TDM/ATM (former Newbridge portfolio) and IP/MPLS networks across LAT. Then became a Consulting Engineer for IP/MPLS/SDN products and currently takes care for the Biz Dev and Pre-sales of Deepfield portfolio (Analytics and Security) for LAT working closely with the customers during the implementation and on the operation of the solution. He enjoy working with customers learning about issues they might have and contributing on the solution.

Flavio Caracas

Senior Director, IP and Optical NAM Regional Business Center

Nokia

Flavio Caracas leads a team responsible for IP/MPLS, Optics and SDN/NFV Consulting Engineering and Business Development support for Vertical markets in North America within the ION Division. Previously he was the head of Product Line Management of the 7705 SAR IP/MPLS Routing Portfolio and the Multiservice WAN Switches product families, with responsibilities for product strategy, roadmap definition, future development, and portfolio life cycle. Prior to Nokia, Flavio joined Alcatel-Lucent in 2000 through the acquisition of Newbridge Networks, having held senior management positions in Business Management, Systems Engineering, Marketing and Sales. Flavio has a very broad experience in Information and Communications technologies encompassing IP/MPLS networking, satellite communications, and radio transmission. Flavio Caracas holds a bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering.

Martin Charbonneau

Head of Emerging Product Unit, Optical Networks Division

Nokia

Martin Charbonneau is currently the Head of the Emerging Product Unit for the Optical Networking Business Unit of Nokia.  In this role, he is responsible for driving Optical Networking business in new and emerging segments such as Mobile Transport convergence, Cloud/edge and access transport, including new software and practices to address Software Defined Networking, and Open Networking deployments. Prior to this assignment, Martin was leading portfolio product management activities for the 1830 Photonic Service Switch in Metro network applications (Packet and OTN solutions), and complementary Metro product lines of the portfolio, such as 1830 Versatile WDM Module (Nokia’s Mobile Front Haul solution). He has been with Nokia for 10 years where he has also worked as a Product Line Manager for the Fixed Access product. Prior to joining Nokia, Martin held various roles of increasing responsibility in Product Line Management, Business and Network Planning and Professional Services for Metro Ethernet & Optical Transport Business units. Martin received a Bachelor of Science in Space Sciences from the Canadian Royal Military College (RMC, St-Jean) and graduated as a commissioned officer in the Canadian Forces.
 

Sylvain Chenard

Senior Product Manager

Nokia

IEEE senior member Sylvain Chenard received his BScA from the Département du Génie Electrique at Université Laval, Québec, Canada in 1994. He also received a technical degree in microelectronics from Collège de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada in 1988. Sylvain is a member of the IEEE Communications and Computer Societies and the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec. He is currently a senior product manager at Nokia with a focus on optical network analytics. He works closely with Nokia Bell Labs to define and productize state-of-the-art techniques and algorithms for estimating and monitoring transmission quality.
 

Steve Cotter

Deepfield Principal Consulting Engineer

Nokia

After 6 years in the US Air Force building deploying and maintaining tactical computer and telephony networks, Steve joined Cabletron Systems in 1995 where he worked with exciting technologies like Thick-NET vampire taps, Token Ring, FDDI, IBM hermaphroditic connectors, AppleTalk, SecureFast, Cell Matrix Backplanes and more. When Cabletron divested into four companies, Steve became part of Riverstone Networks focusing on highly scalable IP/MPLS networks for large enterprise, and service provider customers. In 2006 Lucent Technologies acquired Riverstone and later merged with Alcatel to become Alcatel-Lucent. Ten years later Alcatel-Lucent was acquired by Nokia. The primary result of all these mergers and acquisitions is an extensive business card collection spanning 27 years. Steve has an extensive background in design, deployment, and optimization of IP/MPLS networks, VoIP, SD-WAN, and Network Analytics. Steve’s likes include 3AM network redesigns, 2000 question RFP’s and long walks through airport terminals. Holding more different positions than he can count, Steve continues working with customers around the globe, from Teir-1 Telcos and MSO’s to small enterprise customers, destroying multiple laptops and cellphones along the way. Steve holds a degree in Applied Electrical Systems from the Community College of the Air Force. When not on plane to see a customer, Steve is based in the east coast of Massachusetts where he keeps busy collecting after use, every cellphone made by Nokia and Blackberry.

James Cumming

Senior Product Line Manager, SROS Routing, Platform and Programmability

Nokia

James Cumming is the Product Line Manager for the Nokia SR OS router software with a specific focus on Network Programmability (NETCONF/YANG/GRPC/MD-CLI) within Nokia’s IP and Optical Networks Division.

He has an extensive background in the Internet Service Provider industry beginning in 1997. He has worked as the lead Network Architect in several global service providers leading the efforts in network integration, product and service development as well as end-to-end network architecture across all technologies.

He has a particular passion for the virtualization and programmability areas as his background combines networking, systems, programming and operations which all collide in this exciting period for the industry.

He holds a B.Sc. Hons. degree in Computer Science from the University of Kent. James is based in London, England.
 

Ritesh Dass

Optical Transmission & Subsea Product Line Manager

Nokia

Ritesh Dass is the Product Line Manager of photonic line systems, amplifiers and node configurations at Nokia. He is also the Product Line Manager of Terrestrial-Subsea integration. Ritesh has extensive knowledge of optical communication systems and expertise in fiber-optic communications. Ritesh holds a Master’s degree in Electronic Engineering Systems from King’s College London, UK and is based in Ottawa, Canada. 

Alp Dibirdi

Director, Product Management – IP Routing

Nokia

Alp leads software product management on 7250 Interconnect Router and 7705 Service Aggregation Router product families. Alp has over 21 years of experience in telecom industry and joined Alcatel in 1998. His previous roles include NW Architect and Product Line Product Manager on ATM Products. In addition currently focuses on 5G transport NWs and traffic management. He is recognized as Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS) in 2010 for his sustained outstanding technical contribution to Alcatel-Lucent by Bell Labs. He is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Tony Dicorato

Director of Optical Portfolio Solution Product Line Management, Optical Networks Division

Nokia

Tony Dicorato is a Director of Optical Portfolio Solution Product Line Management within Nokia's Network Infrastructure Optical division specializing on both scaled and simplified solutions across multi-layer optical transport technologies and multi-domain initiatives. His role includes leading the cross-functional strategy for coherent routing converged IP/Optical cross-domain coordination management solutions for the optical network business unit.Tony has over 25 years of optical transport and networking experience and has held a wide range of senior level positions in hardware architecture engineering, product management, and optical systems. Tony holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ottawa and away from work enjoys time coaching hockey, playing sports, and time with his family and friends.

Roman Dodin

Product Line Manager

Nokia

Roman is a Product Line Manager at Nokia, where he steers the development of various programmable interfaces featured on Nokia's data center switching gear. Before joining the product management team, Roman has been helping major service providers to embrace model-driven network automation in his consultant engineering role. During his seven years tenure at Nokia, he spanned multiple technology domains, gaining experience in networking, virtualization, network testing, and network automation.  Roman heavily gravitates towards software engineering and open source communities. He is a maintainer of a few popular open source projects as well as an avid contributor to various community-renowned ones.

Pedja Dragovic

Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division

Nokia

Pedja has spent 17 years in the telecom industry with various roles ranging from network architect to systems engineering. His current role is Product Line Manager for Multi-service Transport platform, 1830PSS. He holds a Bachelor and Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Belgrade in Serbia. His career interests include: advancing technical and operational knowledge in transport network evolution, how emerging technology in optical and electronics domains enables network transformation, network functions virtualization, software aspects of transport networks evolution and extending expertise into other communication technologies that complement optical transport.

Tim Drake

Principle Consultant 

Nokia

Tim Drake is a Principle Consultant within the IP and Optical Networking division with special focus on the Partner and Alliance segments. Prior to joining Nokia he has held multiple technical and business development positions.

Steve Dyck

Principal Consulting Engineer

Nokia

Steve Dyck is a Principal Consulting Engineer specializing in WAN and Data Center networking including IP/MPLS, WDM and automation. Steve’s focus is on providing innovative networking solutions for enterprise markets including research and education, state and local government, community broadband, health care, financial services and wireline/wireless service providers serving these market segments. Steve has over 25 years experience in telecom and IT networking with roles ranging from R&D, Systems Engineering, Product Management, Business Development, Solutions Architect and Consulting Engineer. He holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Computer Engineering) degree with a minor in Business Management from the University of Waterloo, Canada.

Pierre El-Haddad

Senior Product Line Manager

Nokia

Pierre El-Haddad is a senior product line manager for IP routing hardware. He currently manages several product portfolios aimed at mobile anyhaul, datacenters, wholesale transport, TEPS, and more. Pierre has 23 years of experience in product development, network architecture and product management for IP/Ethernet and legacy technologies. He holds a bachelors degree in electrical engineering and a masters in business administration. He is based in Ottawa, Canada.

Drew Elliot

IP DevOps Consulting Engineer

Nokia

Drew Elliott is a Consulting Engineer focusing on Network Programmability and Automation for Nokia’s major accounts in the North American market. He has been automating network tasks since the late 1990’s, using languages such as Perl, Expect and Python and technologies including (but not limited to) screen scraping, SNMP, Netconf, REST/RESTconf and gNMI/gRPC. He has worked for both vendors and service providers including Concentric Network/XO Communications, Yahoo!, Cisco, Juniper, DriveNets and now his current role with Nokia. Drew lives in Michigan and enjoys all things outdoors – especially camping, kayaking and fly fishing with his wife at the many beautiful state parks in Michigan.

Ed Englehart

Vice President of Engineering and Head of Subsystems Product Unit, Optical Networks Division

Nokia 

Ed Englehart leads two roles in the Nokia Optical Business unit. The first is leading the worldwide R&D for the 1830 portfolio of products. The second is leading the R&D and PLM for the Optic’s Subsystem team, this team is taking some of the key innovations from the Optics R&D teams to new application spaces and markets. In his 31 years of experience he has worked in key areas of Optics, Enterprise, and Access with a focus on service provider and enterprise customer solutions. He was part of the original development team that introduced the 1830 to the market and has held leadership positions in Product Line management and throughout R&D to evolve and expand this product to where it has become. Ed holds a Masters of Engineering from Columbia University.

George Francis

Optical Networking Software Product Line Manager

Nokia

George Francis is a Product Line Manager for the ‘Wavesuite – Network Operations Center’ management software. In this role George is responsible for managing key customers and key product enhancement requests for North & South America regions. George has over 22 years of experience in the Optical Telecommunications domain specializing in SONET, SDH, OTN and DWDM technologies. George started his career within R&D team and has since taken up System Engineering and Product Management roles, and also has diverse experience across Network Elements, Management Systems and Planning Tools. George holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai, India.

Felipe Garcia

Head of Marketing Brazil

Nokia

Felipe Garcia has more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications sector in Brazil and Latin America, having successfully led sales and business development in several digital services and software companies. Felipe is an electronic engineer, with an MBA in Telco Management. He has expertise in digital services, ecosystem development, go-to-market strategies and customer engagement and is Head of Marketing Brazil in Nokia.

Maurizio Ierace

Director Optical Professional Services

Nokia

Maurizio Ierace is a Director of Optical Professional Service delivery within Nokia's Network Infrastructure Service organization specializing on both delivery of traditional product attached services as well as new digital transformation’s related services. His role includes leading direct and cross-functional teams to design, develop, validate and deliver professional services worldwide which includes both management’s solutions as well as network’s solutions. Maurizio has over 20 years of optical transport and service experience and has held a wide range of senior level positions in product management and engineering. Maurizio holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Lugano, Switzerland.

Jeff Jakab

Vice President, Hardware Product Management – Service Routers

Nokia

A 25 year employee of Nokia, Jeff is the Vice President of Hardware Product Management in the IP business unit. Jeff has extensive experience across a number of roles within Nokia ranging from engineering, support, marketing and PLM. Jeff has a focus on strategic responsibilities in the product portfolio as well as ownership of hardware technical marketing. He holds a B.Sc in electrical engineering from the University of Calgary, Canada and an MBA from the University of Ottawa, Canada. He presently works in the heart of Silicon Valley out of the Nokia office in Sunnyvale, California.

Erwan James

Network Architect

Nokia

Erwan is a Senior Network and Cloud Architect, a member of Nokia’s professional services Global Network Engineering(GNE) team.  He has a full time focus on Software Defined Networking (SDN) technologies, specifically working with the Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Platform and 7750 Service Router product lines. Erwan is responsible for leading and delivering professional services engagements involving network design and architecture, operational and deployment consultancy as well as training.

Alastair Johnson

Deepfield Pre-sales Technical Lead

Nokia

Alastair Johnson (AJ) is the North American lead for Nokia Deepfield pre-sales, based in Sunnyvale, California. AJ’s focus is working directly with customers to introduce, explain, and expand technology based on Deepfield – solving customer problems through new, innovative technologies. AJ has been with Nokia for 15+ years in a variety of roles. 

Greg Johnston

Product Line Manager, NSP Platform

Nokia

Greg has been working in NSP for three years and is responsible for overseeing the evolution of the NSP platform to a Kubernetes based deployment model as well as ensuring that the NSP software meets today’s software security requirements.  Prior to joining the NSP team Greg worked for several years as an R&D leader focused on delivering multi-vendor network management and network security management solutions, including the evolution these solutions from application server based deployments to Kubernetes based deployments.

Vach Kompella

Vice President and General Manager, IP Networks Division

Nokia

Vach is VP and GM of the IP Networks Division (IPN) in the Network Infrastructure Business Group at Nokia. IPN consists of 6 business units: Service Router, Network Automation, Data Center, Nuage Networks, Packet Core and Deepfield. He started with Timetra Networks in 2001, leading the development of MPLS and related technologies, and arrived at Nokia through a series of M&A activity. In 2008, he started the Mobile Gateways program in the IP Division, and was Vice President of Engineering for the Mobile Packet Core. Vach has been a speaker at many conferences, and a regular contributor to standards in the IETF. He was co-chair of the l2vpn Working Group at the IETF for five years. Vach was awarded a Bell Labs Fellowship in 2009 for his contributions to MPLS and VPLS. Prior to Nokia, Vach held positions at IBM, working in network security and IP protocols. Vach holds a PhD in CS from the University of California, San Diego, and obtained his BTech in CS from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Ken Kutzler

Vice President, IP Hardware

Nokia

Ken joined Alcatel-Lucent in 2003 through the acquisition of privately held TiMetra Networks, where he was co-founder. TiMetra was a venture-backed Silicon Valley start-up focused on service routers for IP/MPLS networks. Since the acquisition, Ken and his team have steadily grown Nokia’s IP strategy and hardware portfolio. The business has gained market share consistently for a decade, attaining the #2 position in service provider IP/MPLS routing and selling into 700+ customers including the world’s top 60 service providers. Ken is a recognized industry leader who enjoys being at the forefront of IP network evolution and portfolio development. He holds a Master’s Degree of Science in Telecommunications from the University of Colorado.

Craig Labowitz

Deepfield CTO

Nokia

Craig Labovitz is Nokia CTO for the Deepfield business line. Previously, Labovitz was Co-Founder and CEO of Deepfield. Labovitz has developed the core technology, key patents, architecture and commercial strategy behind more than $1 billion in sales of large enterprise and telecom security products. His technology is deployed in more than 700 Internet Service Providers, cable operators, content providers, and mission-critical networks around the globe.  Dr. Labovitz is an expert on Internet infrastructure and cloud evolution. In the 1990s, his seminal Internet research developed the foundation for Arbor Networks technology and served as a catalyst for significant changes in commercial Internet routing software implementations throughout the world. His work was recently recognized with the prestigious ACM SIGCOMM Test of Time Award in 2008.  In addition to his extensive commercial product and research background, Dr. Labovitz has over a decade of operational network engineering experience, including NSFNet backbone engineering, Sprint's first Internet email infrastructure, design of the Department of Defense research network, and the first commercial aviation Internet service. Dr. Labovitz is an active participant in the global network engineering community, including service on the program committee and as the Chair of North American Network Operators Group (NANOG). Labovitz is the author of more than a dozen peer-reviewed networking research papers, journal articles and patents. His is a frequent guest on national television and radio news programs and his research is widely cited in national media articles and academic publications. Dr. Labovitz received his PhD and MSE from the University of Michigan.
 

Reda Laichi

Consulting Engineer and Regional Product Manager

Nokia

Reda Laichi is a key member of the IP Routing and Transport Consulting Engineering team who is focusing on Nokia’s Network and Service Management product line. Reda also has a role as a regional Product Line Manager responsible for incorporating customer requirements into feature development of the Network and Service Management portfolio. Reda has over18 years experience in Alcatel-Lucent and has contributed to development of Alcatel-Lucent’s Network and Service Management products as well as numerous IP/MPLS network deployments and integrations for service providers and large enterprises customers worldwide.

Thierry Lebugle

‪Product Line Manager

Nokia

Thierry Lebugle is a Senior Product Line Manager with a focus on Automation and Software as a Service. Thierry has over 25 years of experience within telecom industry, and more than 15 years in Product management and Professional services. He is currently focusing Network Test Automation (NTA) and Cloud Network Verification (CNV). Thierry is based in Paris, France.

Karyn Lennon

Leader, NI Learning Services

Nokia

Karyn Lennon leads the Learning Services function for Nokia’s IP/Optical Networks Business Group. In her role, Karyn is responsible for setting the strategic direction and development of Nokia’s Optical educational services which includes the Nokia Optical Networks Certification Program. In addition to the Optical program, Karyn directs both Nokia’s flagship IP/MPLS certification program, the Service Routing Certification (SRC) Program which has over 14,000 individuals participating globally and the Nuage Networks Virtuoso Certification Program (NN-VCP). Prior to her role in Learning Services, Karyn held various PLM and Marketing positions at Newbridge Networks and Alcatel-Lucent. Karyn received her Bachelor of Commerce from  McGill University and holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Ottawa.

Mike Mangino

Sales Enablement NAM RBC Leader

Nokia

Mike Mangino is the Sales Enablement Leader for the NAM RBC. Mike has over 25 years of experience in networking. He started at Nokia as a consulting engineer with Alcatel-Lucent in 2008 supporting a wide range of customers in adopting technology to solve their business problems. Today his focus is on technology education for both our customers and Nokia internal towards the goal of enabling sales.

Alan McBride

Principal Consultant, Bell Labs Consulting

Nokia Bell Labs

Alan McBride is the cybersecurity lead at Bell Labs Consulting, He has over 30 years of experience in the communications industry, primarily in the areas of network management and cybersecurity. He is based in Dublin, Ireland. His current focus areas are security for AI/ML, Critical Infrastructure, Cloud, and 5G. He has engaged in risk assessments, security maturity assessments and security framework definition projects for critical infrastructure companies and government agencies globally, primarily for telecommunications and energy sectors. Alan began his career at British Telecommunications as a software developer. He joined Lucent Technologies in 1998 as a systems architect and was awarded the coveted accolades of distinguished member of technical staff (DMTS) and consulting member of technical staff (CMTS) in 2000 and 2008 respectively for his contributions to Lucent’s network management strategy and architecture. Mr. McBride received a BA degree in Computer Science from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and has attained Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge certification (CCSK) from Cloud Security Alliance (CSA).

Bruce McNaughton

‪IP Transformation Product Line Manager

Nokia

Bruce, who hails from Ottawa, Canada, is currently leading the product line management role for Nokia’s Network Infrastructure IP Transformation and Cloud Managed SD-WAN Platform portfolios. He has over 29 years as a networking professional, with recent positions in IP routing professional services PLM, IP video business development lead for Americas, network architect to AT&T’s U-Verse platform, and network design services. Bruce is a proud graduate from one of Canada’s top engineering schools, the University of Waterloo, with a Bachelor of Applied Science (Electrical Engineering).

Ahsanuddin Mohammed

‪Network Infrastructure Transformation Services 

Nokia

Ahsanuddin Mohammed is a strategic and collaborative transformations leader responsible for creating the capability build frameworks to excute large scale complex multi-vendor global transformation programs. He has been directly involved in migrations of over 50+ customers using on prem & native cloud-based infrastructures. He promotes Customer first attitude across all organizations, translates the voice of clients to drive technology innovation & cultural transformations in alignment with industry trends and best practices. Ahsanuddin is a trusted technology advisor for global clients to provide innovative solutions and possess a business development and consultative mindset.

Sasa Nijemcevic

Vice President and General Manager, Network Automation Business Unit

Nokia

Sasa Nijemcevic is Vice President and General Manager of the Network Automation Business Unit at Nokia. He leads the company’s Carrier SDN portfolio and Network and Service Automation efforts for the ION BG.

Sasa’s passion is building great software products. He started early writing computer games as a kid and continued into adulthood building network management and control applications. Whether it’s AI/ML or network automation, Sasa cares about the application of new technologies in solving real problems in the industry.

Alfred Nothaft

Senior Director, SR Product Management 

Nokia

Alfred is the Senior Director of Product Management for the Service Router product group, focusing on IP routing, MPLS and Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN services. Alfred has been involved the with 7x50 product lines since 2000, when he originally joined TiMetra Networks. Prior to that, Alfred was the Director of Network Architecture at BroadbandNow! and before that he held various management and engineering positions at Bay Networks and NASA.

David Novosel

Product Line Manager

Nokia

David Novosel is a Product Line Manager focused on the SR Linux platform. Based out of Ottawa, Canada, he has spent over a decade working at Nokia across a range of Network Infrastructure products and solutions including Service Router, Nuage Networks, and SR Linux. Previous roles in support, technical sales, and solution architecture have enabled David to build a strong skillset across the networking and virtualization fields with experience in Data Center, SD-WAN, and IP/MPLS routing deployments.

Rodger Nutt

Senior Director NAM Optics Regional Product Line Manger/Sales Engineering

Nokia

Rodger has 26 years of professional experience in optical communications. Have served in roles such as product line management, new product introduction, technical marketing and sales engineering. Previous employers include Apple, Cisco Systems and Fujitsu.

Roberto Oya Luengo

Deepfield Business Development Leader

Nokia

Deepfield Business Development Leader, in charge of hardware and networking features for overlay and underlay. Consulting Engineer in NA based in Mountain View (CA) since 2012, previously in EMEA (based in Madrid) since December 2006, including two years in Mexico (2008 and 2009, whole CALA support). Great experience in IP/MPLS solutions for the main European and Latin American Service Providers and a regular speaker at Alcatel-Lucent and industry conferences. Systems Engineer in Riverstone Networks and Lucent Technologies in South Europe, focused in IP/MPLS/VPLS, in 2005 and 2006. Data Presales Engineer for Iberia (mainly Telefonica) for Nortel Networks during 2000-2004.  System Engineer/Project Manager in Telefónica Sistemas and TSIP between 1998-2000, based in LATAM for more than two years in several countries (mainly in Venezuela and Puerto Rico). Telecommunication Engineer in Alcala University in Madrid (final thesis done in Linkoping University, Sweden, between 1997 and 1998), and Marketing in UAM University (Madrid). Preferred hobbies: Mountain and road bike, running, mountaineering and hiking, triathlon, kite surfing and love traveling (with a good book!)

Senad Palislamovic

Director Enterprise-US Energy Sales Engineering

Nokia

As head of the technology enterprise, Senad is responsible for the strategy and technical evolution of Nokia's enterprise presales organization, solution architecture and sales engineering teams. As part of his role, Senad is directly engaged with the customer base spanning from Fortune 500, large and small enterprises all the way to public and private utilities and energy companies. Senad's technical involvement with Nokia's enterprise customer base spans the entire Nokia ION wireline and wireless portfolio.  His current focus is on data center technologies and ongoing DC evolution. Prior to this role, Senad led a sales engineering organization focusing on SDN and SDWAN technologies as part of Nuage Networks BU. Begore Nuage, Senad worked as Consulting Engineer within Nokia's RBC ION organization focusing on the service provider market. And before joining Nokia, Senad spent ten years with Juniper Networks in various customer-facing engineering roles. Sendad holds a BS Degree in Telecommunications from Weber State University and has over 20 years of experience in networking and the telecom industry, is a co-author or JUNOS High Availability Book, and numerous IETF RFC Standards int he are of IP/MPLS Control Plan signaling.

Philip Pilgrim

North America Business Development Leader for Optical Subsea Market

Nokia

Philip Pilgrim has recently joined Nokia’s business development group for subsea. He has a rich and diverse experience from working within many organizations that operated submarine cable systems or provided submarine cable system equipment and guidance. His work has touched over 40 submarine cable systems which included: operations, maintenance, deployment, purchase, capacity expansion, planning, design, commissioning, testing, restoration, RFP creation, RFP response, contract review, training, or repairing. Philip's area of interest is in real-time wet plant health monitoring and automated fault locating using electrical and optical methods. Philip also has an active interest in the history and research of very early submarine telegraph cables. Philip is based in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Erica Poppe

‪IP-MPLS Network Engineer

Nokia

Erica Poppe is a Senior IPMPLS Network Engineer, in Nokia’s professional services Global Network Engineering(GNE) team with 25 years of experience in network design, development, deployment, training, and consultancy. She started with Newbridge Networks working on NMS and ATM network solutions and was a founding member of the SRC certification program responsible for the MPLS and QoS courses. She has worked with customers in all four corners of the globe, from telecom service providers to utilities agencies to enterprise customers. Erica currently leads the 5G Anyhaul transport blueprint solution. 

Dennis Porteous

Product Line Manager

Nokia

Dennis is a Senior Hardware Product Line Manager for the 7750 SR & Packet Core platforms, with over 24 years of experience in networking and data communications. Dennis has been involved with the 7x50 product lines since 2003, joined the hardware PLM team in 2008.  Based in Ottawa Canada.

Chip Pratt

Principal Consulting Engineer

Nokia

A 35 year veteran of the telecommunications industry having spent time at Alcatel, Fujitsu, Xtera and now Nokia. For the last decade Chip has focused on IP, Ethernet and optical networking solutions, most recently with a focus on solutions for Utilities.

Denis Proulx

Senior Product Manager, Professional Services

Nokia

Denis Proulx is a Senior Product Manager for professional services with more than 36 years in the telecommunication industry. He has been providing Product Research and Development in the areas of Network Management System for our Global customers. With over 17 Patents filed, now his focus is on simplifying customer network lifecycle through automation and professional services, reducing cost and time to market for the deployments of new greenfield or on existing networks. He is now involved in helping customers transform legacy networks to new technologies using Nokia IP/Optical products.

Raghu Puttaraju

Product manager-Planning Tool PLM Group

Nokia

Raghu Mysore Puttaraju is a Product Manager for the Wavesuite planning. In this role Raghu is responsible for handling customer feature request across all regions. Has over 21 years of experience in Telecommunication industry, domain specialized in VoIP, OTN and DWDM technologies. Raghu started his career with Customer support and within R&D team and has since taken up Lead E2E system testing and Scrum master roles, and also has diverse experience across Simulator Network Elements, Management Systems and Planning Tools. Raghu holds a Bachelor degree in Electronic & communication Engineering from the university of Bangalore, India.

Jorge Rabadan

Senior Product Line Manager

Nokia

Jorge Rabadan is a product line manager responsible for the development of EVPN and Data Center Gateway technologies in Nokia’s SROS. Jorge has more than 20 years in the telecom industry (working for different networking vendors), being part of Nokia’s IP Division for more than 12 years and is an active member in the IETF community, contributing and authoring more than 30 drafts and RFCs. When he is not working he enjoys traveling, reading a good book or working out.

Karim Radhouani

Technology and Architecture Consulting Engineer 

Nokia

Karim Radhouani is a Technology and Architecture Consulting Engineer at Nokia, based in California. Karim focuses on assessing future technologies that will help shape the networking platforms of tomorrow. He has 14+ years of technical experience with Nokia spanning multiple regions, covering Support, NPI, Consulting and Product management in various networking domains. He has a passion for network emulation, automation and open interfaces. He is also the maintainer of a few open source projects.

Pierre Rahme

Software Services Product Manager

Nokia

Pierre leads the Network Infrastructure Security Practice, is responsible for accelerating growth for Nokia Network Infrastructure division through a portfolio of security services solution spanning across the IP, Optical, and Fixed Network. Pierre brings more than 20 years of experience in the informatics, telecommunication and Cyber Security industries.

Prior to joining Nokia in 2021, he built a career in cybersecurity consultancy leading and directing multiple turn key cyber security projects for high profile clients in areas such as big data security, machine learning, network security, and threat detection.

Saju Abdul Razak Salahudeen

Principal Consulting Engineer

Nokia

Saju is a Principal Consulting Engineer for Webscale solutions within the North American Regional Business Center. In this role, he works on 7750 SR, 7250 IXR, 7220 IXR, NSP with SROS and SR Linux Operating systems. He has 12 years of experience in IP routing and Multi-vendor Network Automation across a diverse range of roles including Deployment, Tech Support, Technical PM, Solution Architect and Systems/Sales Engineer. Saju is based in Toronto, Canada.

Mike Reeves

Professional Services Product Manager

Nokia

Mike Reeves is a senior product manager for professional services with more than 20 year in the telecommunication industry. His experience spans the areas of software development, IP/MPLS system consultation, product management and most recently product management for services and solutions. He has worked with customers to help them deploy IP/MPLS core networks, migrate from legacy infrastructure and move from 3G to 4G mobile infrastructure. He is now involved in the evolution of mobile core networks toward a cloud based infrastructure and software defined networking environment to help provide a more flexible and scalable solution for our 5G customers.

Mariano Reimundi Scafidi

NPI and Trials IP Engineer

Nokia

Mariano has been working for Nokia for around 14 years now. In the last 4 years, he has been focused on Nuage Networks doing Integration for most of LAT projects, before joining Nuage Team he worked with 7x50 portfolio doing pre-sales and post-sales activities for different Service Providers across the region. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of the Republic (UDELAR) in the Eastern Republic of Uruguay.

Juan Rodriguez

Senior Director

Nokia

Juan is Sr. Director leading the IP Network Consulting Engineering supporting Multi-System Operators (MSOs) and US Major Service Providers accounts in Nokia’s IP & Optics Networks (ION). Juan has been with Nokia since 2008 in various technical positions throughout Latin America and North America and is currently based in Orlando, Florida. Juan holds a degree in Telecommunications and Telematics Engineering from PUCMM in the Dominican Republic.

Leonardo Serodio

Principal Consulting Engineer - Deepfield

Nokia

Leonardo Serodio is a Consulting Engineer in the Deepfield division of Nokia, where he is responsible for designing and testing traffic analytics and DDoS security solutions for Service Providers and large Enterprises using the Deepfield product line. Leonardo has extensive experience in the ISP and Carrier space, having worked for over 20 years with large Operators in the Americas and Europe. Prior to Deepfield, he worked in Nokia/ALU as a Consulting Engineer for the SR router product line. Prior to joining Nokia/ALU, Leonardo worked at Arbor Networks as a Corporate Systems Engineer for the Peakflow product line.

Mau Rojas

Principal Consulting Engineer for Network Automation

Nokia

Mau is being working in the IT Industry for more than two decades, most of this time, leading the introduction of new technologies for Data Centers and Cloud in new markets. Originally from Santiago of Chile, he's currently working as Principal Consulting Engineer for Network Automation and rPLM in Nokia, supporting US and Canada. He's continuously testing the limits of use cases for Kubernetes and network automation tools in the Data Center and the Edge. Mau's also passionate with art (Instagram: p1nrojas), using what is left of his creativity at work into the canvas or digital illustrations. Fluent in Portuguese and native in Spanish.

Adam Simpson

Senior Product Line Manager

Nokia

Adam is a senior product line manager with Nokia. He is responsible for the IP routing & service features in the SR OS operating system software. He is the lead PLM for BGP routing and the route policy infrastructure. He owns the strategy for these areas and works closely with software and test engineers on architecture and design. He has been in this PLM role since 2009. Before that he held PLM and network engineering roles at Nortel. Adam is based in Ottawa, Canada but the scope of his work with engineering teams and customers is global. He has been a routine speaker at SReXperts events since 2010.

Tod Sizer

Optical Research Leader, Nokia Bell Labs

Nokia

Dr. Theodore(Tod) Sizer is Executive Vice President of Optical Systems and Device Research in Nokia Bell Labs, leading teams innovating in all aspects of optical systems and devices for core, submarine, and data center communications. Prior to his current role, Tod lead Wireless Research in Nokia Bell Labs for eight years driving the vision and research of 5G. Tod graduated from Amherst College, and received his Masters and Doctorate in Optics from the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. In 2012 he received the Popular Science Breakthrough Innovation award for the lightRadio invention.  Tod is a Fellow of Bell Labs, WWRF, and IEEE.  He is the author of 55 US patents and a member of the IEEE and OSA.

Piotr Stpiczynski

Senior Product Line Manager, Professional Services

Nokia

Piotr Stpiczynski is a Senior Product Line Manager responsible for IP Transformation in ION business group. In his 15 plus years of experience in network transformation and software development he helped many companies to achieve their business objectives when executed transformation programs. Extensively experienced in product, programs and delivery teams management as well in business development and consulting.

Lubo Tancevski

Leader Software Strategy and Solutions, Optical Networks Division

Nokia

Lubo Tancevski is currently is responsible for Product Strategy and end-to-end solution for Transport SDN and Cloud services.  Prior, he worked on various aspects of transport networks, including  Data Center Interconnect, and  Ethernet for LTE Mobile Backhaul. He also worked on early developments in Carrier-Grade Ethernet, including IEEE 802.1 standardization activities. Lubo has more than 20 years experience in the  telecommunication industry, has authored numerous papers and patent, and invited presentations and talks at industry’s main events. He joined Alcatel in 1998. He holds BSc, MSc, and PhD in EE from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Hans Thienpondt

Technology and Architecture Consulting Engineer

Nokia

Hans is a Technology and Architecture Consulting Engineer at Nokia based in Antwerp, Belgium. He is focusing on the automation aspects of networking and assessing future technologies. Hans has close to 20 years of experience in the industry and prior to Nokia, worked in several network or systems engineering positions at companies operating at Web- or Service Provider scale. 

Mike Thompson

Global Network Automation Practice Leader

Nokia

Mike Thompson leads Nokia’s global network automation practice focusing on Nokia’s Network Services Platform (NSP) and SDN to help service providers and large enterprise customers improve operational efficiency, productivity, lower MTTR, reduce churn, and accelerate revenue streams. Prior to Nokia, Mike was a leader at Charter Communications in Operations and Engineering. He has held leadership positions at Nokia, Charter, Cisco, BearingPoint, and Verizon. Mike has extensive experience in large scale software, network automation, routing, and optical. Mike has held leadership roles in Engineering, Software Development, Operations, Architecture, Sales, Consulting, and Product Management teams and as a Business Unit General Manager. He has a Master of Science in Information Management and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology.

James Tindall

SVP Network Infrastructure IP and Optical Americas

Nokia

Jim holds the position of Senior Vice President in the Network Infrastructure Division and is responsible for the IP and Optical business for the Americas. In this capacity he leads a diverse team, including consulting engineering and technical presales support, delivery and logistics, program management, and customer and resident engineering functions. Jim’s interest in technology and communications began at an early age with an interest in Amateur Radio, and he became a licensed operator at 11 years of age. After studying physics at SUNY Oswego for several years, he enlisted in the US Navy as an Electronics Warfare specialist and was on active duty for 6 years from 1982 to 1988.  His first job out of the military was at Proteon, an early pioneer in Internet Routing, starting as a bench technician in manufacturing and leaving as the global director of systems engineering. From there he worked in a series of successful startups, including IPOs with Cascade Communications and Redback Networks, in a variety of customer facing technical roles, leaving Redback as Vice President of Product Management. He joined Alcatel in 2005 in the newly formed IP division from the acquisition of Timetra and found a home away from the startup world. Jim still maintains his passion for technology and building world class networks, and the shared sense of accomplishment that comes for successful deployments. 

Bharath Udayshankar

Hardware Product Line Manager

Nokia

Bharath Udayshankar is a hardware product line manager for Nokia’s IXR 7220 portfolio. Bharath has 14+ years of experience in network automation and design, solutions engineering and product development for IP/Ethernet and wireless technologies. He has previously held engineering and management roles in several companies focusing on product and service offerings for the enterprise, hospitality and education verticals. He holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University at Buffalo, NY and Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Anna University, India. He is based in Sunnyvale, CA.

Hans Vanderstraeten

Virtual Networks Orchestration team lead

Nokia

Hans Vanderstraeten is the founder and leader of the Virtual Networks Orchestration team within the IP division of Nokia, working on automation of the design, validation, and deployment of end-to-end connectivity across Clouds. Prior to this assignment, Hans has been with the Sales Organization for 10 years, leading Technical Sales teams across the EMEA region. The last 3 years years of his sales chapter, Hans has created and led the Global Cloud Practice in Customer Operations.

Sanjay Wadhwa

Senior Director, Product Management

Nokia

Sanjay has over 20 years of experience in data communications and IP networking industry. He currently heads product management for Broadband Edge in Nokia’s IP division, driving products and roadmap for fixed and fixed-wireless (4G/5G) broadband gateway, network functions and fixed-mobile convergence. Sanjay came to Nokia via Alcatel-Lucent acquisition. Prior to Nokia, Sanjay held executive roles in Engineering and Product Management at Fore Systems, Unisphere Networks, Juniper Networks and Alcatel-Lucent. Sanjay holds several patents in IP networking and is an active contributor in IETF and BBF. He has a Masters in Computer Science & Electrical Engineering from University of Kentucky, and has completed an executive program in management from MIT, Sloan school of management. He is based in Sunnyvale, California.

Bruce Wallis

Senior Director Produce Line Manager

Nokia

Bruce Wallis leads SR Linux and Fabric Services System product management within Network Infrastructure division. Originally from New Zealand, now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, he cut his networking teeth on supporting Internet Service Providers in New Zealand and in the wider APAC region. Before taking the leap into product management, his role within the NI Consulting and Solutions Engineering team supporting PoC and demos on yet-unreleased NI products allowed him to build an extensive skill set in virtualization, all things Linux, and general system and solution design. Starting in the industry in 2008 at the age of 17, he now has 14 years experience across a wide array of roles.

Howard Wang

Subsystems Business Development, Optical Networks Division

Nokia

Howard Wang is part of Nokia’s Optical Subsystems Group, where he is responsible for product ownership and applications engineering of Nokia's Silicon photonic optical front-end portfolio. Howard joined Nokia via the acquisition of Elenion in 2020. Prior to Nokia, Howard was part of the Network Architecture and Engineering team at Bank of America responsible for the redesign and build-out of the bank’s nationwide coherent metro DWDM network. Howard earned his BS, MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, where he focused on photonic-network and switch architectures for High Performance Computing and data center applications, and has more than 40 publications in scientific journals and conferences proceedings.

James Watt

Vice-President and General Manager, Optical Networks Division

Nokia

James Watt is Vice President and General Manager for the Optical Networks Division at Nokia. Prior to this, James was the Vice President and General Manager for the Services Business Unit, IP/Optical Networks, at Nokia and its predecessor in Alcatel-Lucent, President of the Optics Business Line in Alcatel-Lucent and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the Alcatel-Lucent Carrier Product Group. Until 2008, James held the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Business Division and had previously held the role of Vice President Network Strategy for Alcatel. James joined Alcatel in 2000 as Chief Technology Officer of the Carrier Internetworking Division through the acquisition of Newbridge Networks, where he was Assistant Vice President, Access and Network Management Strategy. During his 15 years with Newbridge, James held a variety of positions within the research & development, product management and marketing organizations. James holds multiple patents, primarily in the areas of traffic management and Internet Protocol. He received a B.SC. in Electrical Engineering from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario in 1986.

Greg White

Senior Consulting Engineer

Nokia

Greg White is a consulting engineer in the IP and Optical Networking business unit focused on Network Management solutions for Strategic Industries customers in North America. Prior to serving Strategic Industries customers, Greg provided Consulting Engineering and Business Development services to MSO and wireless customers for Alcatel-Lucent in the US and Canada. Prior to Alcatel-Lucent Greg served customers in telecommunications, enterprise, government, education, medical, channel partners and resellers through various sales and technical positions. He has a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Christian Brothers University and currently resides in Nashville Tennessee.

Sven Wisotzky

Senior Network Management and Automation Consultant

Nokia

Sven Wisotzky is a senior network management and automation consultant working for more than 20 years in the communications and networking industry. He joined Alcatel’s IP Division in 2004, working in the areas of product support, training, integration, technical sales, network and solution design and consultancy. Since 2017 he is part of the NSP platform product management team, driving model-driven, multi-vendor nodal mediation using NETCONF/YANG and gRPC, automation frameworks and telemetry. He is based in the metropolitan area of Frankfurt/Main, Germany.

Rob Wright

Senior Consultant

Nokia

Rob Wright is a Senior Consultant within the IP Routing division at Nokia with a special focus on providing innovative networking solutions for vertical and enterprise markets including utilities, oil &gas, state and local governments, public safety, and transportation. He has over 25 years of data network design experience on telecom networks. His roles have included initial design consulting, identifying feature requirements, configuration development, and implementation of final solutions. When not working, he enjoys kayaking and biking.

Szilard Zsigmond

Senior Director, High-Speed Electro-Optics subsystem Product/Portfolio/Strategy/Sales

Nokia

Szilard Zsigmond is responsible for overall product/portfolio strategy and component sales. Leading multiple teams covering different aspects of subsystem components from DSP to optical frontend leading the silicon photonics programs through the former Elenion PLM team and related engineering rules. Responsible for the go-to-market strategy, and business development, for subsystems products.  Szilard has extensive knowledge of optical communication systems and expertise in fiber-optics communication, high-level modulation formats, coherent transmission, and digital signal processing.

Footer

Product Line Manager/Consulting Engineer

Nokia

Footer has many more years experience in networking than he cares to divulge. To provide some context, he considered 4Mbps Token Ring connected SNA controller to Front End Processors some darn impressive technology. That was of course until he discovered the dipswitch that allowed for 16Mbps Token Ring, on the same card. What speed! What a technology! Everyone could move on, networking was now complete. What else was left. As time progressed and networking evolved, ventures into Ethernet switching, IP Routing protocols, and MPLS and the consumption of large steaks became the focus. The years flew by and about TEN years ago, yes TEN, IP & Ethernet OAM fault and performance management became the cool kid on the block. Footer lept at the opportunity to get involved in something so cool. Looking back to the Token Ring days, it was apparent he had always had an attraction to OAM. It was always fun to see how fast one could find a beaconing Token Ring NIC connected to a non-intelligent MAU using a stethoscope. OAM certainly has progress beyond the stethoscope days. It remains the wickedly cool, complicated and multifaceted technology that everyone wants to be involved with. Footer is currently a Senior PING Product Manager with responsibility for IP & Ethernet OAM strategy and architecture. He regularly attends the IETF quarterly meetings and participates in the IPPM working group, where excitement shines through on so many faces.   His efforts in the working group include, “Why you need PING and why PING doesn’t need you.”  As well as the most recent consideration, “PING PING PING PING, for the love of PING.”  He joined Riverstone Networks in 1999, and through acquisition, merger, and acquisition, has 19 years as part of Nokia. Footer is based in Toronto, Canada and we believe he still has a Token Ring network in his house.