SReXperts Speakers

Simon Challinor

Principal Network Architect

BT

Simon started working for BT as a graduate in 1993,  landing in the team that was just starting to develop BT’s first Internet service.  It’s normally good advice to a graduate to seek new roles every few years, but Simon realised that his first posting was a lucky one and he choose to stay where he was and be part of the ever-expanding world of IP in the heart of the UK’s largest telecommunications company.  Over the past 30 years he has taken part in each of the key developments that transformed BT from a traditional telco to the largest ISP in the UK, with all services now based on a converged IP/MPLS core network.    Today as principal architect he oversees the end-to-end design and evolution of BT’s UK IP/MPLS core network.

Neil Mcrea

Chief Technology and Information Officer

CityFibre
 

Mark Boost

CEO

CIVO

Dr. Thomas King

Chief Technology Officer

DE-CIX

Dr. Thomas King has been Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at DE-CIX since 2018, and a Member of the DE-CIX Group AG Board since 2022. Before this, King was Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at DE-CIX, starting in 2016. He has been instrumental in his role at keeping DE-CIX at the forefront of technological development of Internet Exchanges, establishing DE-CIX as a neutral Cloud Exchange, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of high-bandwidth access technology and security solutions for IX platforms, and trailblazing the automation of IX services with the implementation of patch robots, the development of the DE-CIX API, and overseeing the DE-CIX self-service customer portal. Thomas King has also overseen the technical implementation of the international expansion in markets spanning from North America to Europe, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and most recently Africa. He started his career as a member of the technical staff at DE-CIX in 2008. In 2010, Thomas King joined 1&1 Internet AG as a Product Manager responsible for mobile applications and mail. In 2011, he founded the startup company audriga, for automatically migrating email accounts from one hosting provider to another. Dr. King re-joined DE-CIX as Head of Research & Development in 2014. Thomas King received an M.Sc. degree in Computer Science and Business Administration from the University of Mannheim, Germany, in 2004, and a Ph.D. degree at the chair of Computer Networks from the University of Mannheim in 2008.

Ross Chandler

Principal Network Architect

Eir

Andrew Chant

Director of Infrastructure

Exponential-e

Andrew has been at Exponential-e since 2005 and heads of the team responsible for the design and operation of the core network. The team, part of the Engineering department within Exponential-e is also responsible for the R&D and introduction of new technologies to the network and development of network based services.

Seva Vayner

Product Director, Edge Cloud & Edge AI

Gcore

Seva Vayner, an experienced figure in the AI and Cloud industry, has been the Product Director for Edge Cloud & AI at Gcore since 2018. Since then, Gcore has expanded to over 50 locations worldwide, hiring a highly skilled team to enhance its capabilities in computing, networking, storage, Kubernetes, and AI. Under Seva's leadership, the company has successfully launched its cloud products across six continents and created highly anticipated services such as Everywhere Inference, GPU Cloud, Bare Metal, AI Platform, Load Balancers, Kubernetes, and the 5G eSIM Cloud solution. With a strong background in Cloud Computing, Seva is responsible for product development strategy, go-to-market strategy, development and coaching of the AI and Cloud team.

Daniel Verlouw

Network Architect

GEANT

Daniël joined GÉANT in 2024 as a network architect. He is an experienced network professional with a passion for technology in general and specifically network architecture, design and operations of large-scale and mission-critical networks, network virtualisation, programmability, monitoring and automation, Linux eBPF, Kubernetes, content delivery, peering, DDoS protection, etc.

Johan Trouwborst

Vice President Fixed Networks

KPN

Enthusiastic entrepreneur with passion to manage innovative IT & Technology developments and continuously improve operational performance. A 20+ years track record in the Telecommunications industry with various positions fulfilled in both technology and commercial domains and from strategy & innovation to operations. Currently holding the position of VP Fixed Networks at KPN Netherlands with responsibility for the development and operations of fixed access, core and transport networks and the technical housing portfolio.

Ross Moya Jimenez

Senior Network Engineer

Netomnia

An experienced Senior Network Engineer with over 17 years experience in the IT and Internet industry. Has a keen interest in all aspects of IT with a particular focus on Internet technologies, Security and Linux.

Jennifer Graul

Network Engineer

RelAix

Network Engineer at RelAix Networks since 2023. Master of Science in Computer Science.

Dave Hughes

Chief Technology Officer

Stelia

Dave is CTO at Stelia, a company that hosts and delivers full-stack AI solutions. He was formerly CTO at Genesis Cloud, which pioneered what is now commonly known as 'neoclouds', and engineering leadership at Adjust where he built large-scale data engineering infrastructure and products for marketing and ad-tech. Dave has a strong background in software engineering, data engineering, systems admin and network engineering. He has worked in traditional HPC, early GPU-accelerated computing (ML), and now AI. He has significant experience in building networks, systems and many other tech stacks, including for the UK government and defence. He is a long-term contributor to open source.

Lukas Stockner

Principal Engineer

Stelia

Lukas is principal engineer at Stelia, a company that hosts and delivers full-stack AI solutions. He specialises in HPC and cloud infrastructure, GPU computing, and computer graphics. He is an avid contributor to the open-source community, with significant work on the Blender 3D software. Previously he worked in the Genesis Cloud IaaS team.

Juan José Marfil

Senior Director for Network, IT and TV

Telefonica

Pawel Novak

CCIE Network Engineer

Verda

CCIE network engineer with a background in enterprise and data center networking. Currently focused on scalable, high-throughput AI/ML switching fabrics and resilient cloud infrastructure. He previously worked at Cisco and Dropbox and now leads network design and operations at Verda - the cloud platform for frontier AI.

Alperen Akpinar

Data Center Sales Engineer

Nokia

Swamynathan (Swamy) Balasundaram

Principal Product Manager

Nokia

In this role, Swamy is responsible for Optical Transport - Network Management applications for past 6 years with a focus on Ethernet Management and integration interfaces. Previously Swamy has held multiple roles in R&D team of Network management and Network planning tools in Nokia. Swamy has over 20 years of experience in the Telecommunications industry in DWDM, Ethernet and Wireless technologies. Swamy is a MEF CE2.0 Carrier Ethernet Certified Professional (CECP). Swamy holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from Indian Institute of Technology BHU.

Kayssar Ben Hammadi

IP&SDN Consulting Engineer for North Africa

Nokia

Started carrear 16 years ago with Siemens then NSN then Nokia , focused mainly on dealing and deploying end to end IP solutions on different domains and with different vendors , certified CCIE (#48406), JNCIE-M (#471), NRSII (#1765) and NNIS(#54).

Hooman Bidgoli

Senior Product Line Manager – IP Routing

Nokia

Senior Product Line Manager – IP Routing 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.

Bashar Bou-Diab

IP Consulting Engineering Manager

Nokia

Bashar leads the IP-Networks Consulting Engineering team in the Middle-East. He has more than 20 years of experience in ICT within research, product development, and technical consulting roles. Bashar has authored numerous papers and more than fifteen innovative patents in the field of telecommunications. Bashar holds Master’s degree in Telecommunication Innovation Management from Canada.

Mathis Bramkamp

Network Automation Consulting Engineer

Nokia

Mathis joined Alcatel-Lucent in 2012 as a student as part of a cooperative study program in Germany.  He permanently joined the IP networks division in a regional delivery team after finishing bachelor studies in 2015.  After that he proceeded with master studies next to the job until 2017 and then moved on into different roles more and more focusing on the software side of Network Management and network automation.  Mathis holds a bachelor of engineering in business administration and electrical engineering (as a combined program) and a master of science in distributed Computing systems engineering.

Michael Bushong

Vice President of Data Center

Nokia

Mike Bushong is Vice President of Data Center at Nokia, where he has remit over strategy and go-to-market. Mike joined Nokia having served separately as the General Manager for Juniper Networks’ Data Center and Software businesses, during which time he led efforts in data center operations, multicloud, and automation, including leading the acquisition of Apstra. Mike has also led Brocade’s Data Center and Software businesses, having driven product and strategy for data center switching, automation, SDN, and NFV. Mike was also a pioneer in the software- defined networking space, responsible for the first carrier-grade implementation of OpenFlow, and having been a part of the executive team at high-flying SDN player Plexxi (later acquired by HPE).

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.

Jeroen Claessens

Director of Product Management

Nokia

Jeroen is the Director of Product Management for the Nuage SD-WAN solution. He has over 10 years of experience in the industry covering SD-WAN, DC SDN, backhaul and IP/MPLS routing. He got excited by carrier grade networking as a New Product Introduction engineer and later as a Consulting Engineer for Nokia’s IP division in EMEA. Jeroen has been in SD-WAN product management since 2015, based at the NI headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. Jeroen holds a MSc in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Ghent, Belgium.

James Cumming

Senior Product Line Manager, SROS and SR Linux Platform, Programmability and Virtualization

Nokia

James Cumming is the Product Line Manager for the Nokia SR OS and SR Linux router software with a specific focus on Network Programmability (NETCONF/YANG/gRPC/MD-CLI/Python) and Virtualization within Nokia’s Network Infrastructure Division. He has an extensive background in the Internet Service Provider industry over the last 25+ years. He has worked as a lead Network Architect in several global service providers leading the efforts in network architecture, deployment, integration as well as product and service development 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.

Stefaan De Cnodder

Regional Product Line Manager

Nokia

Stefaan has over 25 years of experience in the telecom industry and is currently a Regional Product Line Manager for Europe and MEA focusing on IP Routing hardware within Nokia’s Network Infrastructure Business Group. He holds a Master degree in computer science from the University of Louvain (KUL) university. Stefaan is based in Antwerp, Belgium.

Bruno De Troch

Head of PLM IP Routing and Automation EMEA

Nokia

Bruno has over 20 years of experience in the telecom industry and joined the Alcatel-Lucent (now Nokia) Product Line Management team in EMEA in April 2014. His focus is on Service Provider core, edge and aggregation networks and solutions. Prior to his current role he was a Technical Lead at Juniper Networks for 14 years, providing guidance to carriers and large enterprises on how to deploy and optimize their IP/MPLS and Carrier Ethernet networks. He holds an MSc in Telecommunications from the Military Academy in Brussels and made it to Captain in charge of the Belgian Armed Forces country-wide data network before leaving and joining BT Belgium as a Design Engineer. He is based in Antwerp, Belgium.

Zeno Dhaene

Regional NPI Engineer

Nokia

Regional NPI Engineer Nokia I’m a regional NPI engineer for the BNB region, where I help customers with the design and implementation of their datacenter fabrics and WAN networks. While it’s been only 4 years since I graduated and started working for Nokia, I have touched on a wide range of our portfolio including SR-MPLS, EVPN, and our automation platforms. I have a masters degree in computer science engineering.

Alp Dibirdi

Senior 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.

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.

Greg Dorai

Senior Vice President and General Manager, IP Networks Division

Nokia

Greg Dorai is currently the SVP GM of IP netwaorks at Nokia. At IP Networks, he is leading our growth in CSP and mission critical enterprises while helping ramp up efforts in the datacenter with Hyperscalers and AI / cloud providers globally. Prior to Nokia, Greg spent 10 years with Cisco and was most recently the SVP and GM for Cisco’s Switching Business. He has also successfully led the product teams in enterprise wireless, network access management, network management and enterprise switching at Cisco, before taking on the GM role for Campus Connectivity. Before joining Cisco, he held senior positions at AT&T and at Bain & Company. Greg lives in the Bay Area with his wife and son.

Olivier Duroyon

Government and Defense Segment Lead

Nokia

Olivier Duroyon serves as the Head of the Public Sector segment for Network Infrastructure at Nokia, with responsibility for Defense, Public Safety, Research and Education Networks, and the modernization of local government and metropolitan infrastructure. Drawing on an engineering background, he has accumulated extensive experience in public affairs and business development, supporting national, regional, and local governments in the advancement and modernization of their ICT infrastructure.

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.

Jose Gallardo

SRC Program IP/MPLS Subject Matter Expert

Nokia

Jose Gallardo is a courseware developer with the IP/Optical Networks Learning Services team. He has been with Nokia for almost 10 years and has worked in both the Service Routing Certification (SRC) program and the Nuage Networks Virtuoso Certification Program (NN-VCP). He holds a Ph.D. degree from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Gilles Geerts

Networking Engineer

Consulting Engineer

Gilles Geerts is Consulting Engineer in the Network Solutions and Consulting team at Nokia, EMEA region. In this role, he provides design guidelines based upon best practices and customer requirements with a special focus on Carrier Wi-Fi, IP/MPLS architectures and next-gen Business Services. For this, he interworks with Nokia technical sales as well as technical experts in leading EMEA service providers.  Currently based in Antwerp, Belgium, Gilles has more than 17 years of experience working on Enterprise and Provider IP/MPLS networks throughout the world. He has been part of the Alcatel-Lucent¹s IP Division for the last 13 years in a consulting and new product introduction role. Prior to that, he held positions as QA/integration engineer for an Alcatel IP Core router project.  He holds Alcatel-Lucent SRA (#28) certificate and has a master degree in electro-mechanics.

Burkhard Germer

IP Consulting Engineer

Nokia

Burkhard is IP consulting engineer for the Nokia IP Router portfolio, covering Central and Eastern Europe. He has over 20 years of experience in the communications and networking industry, working in various positions in pre-sales, technical-sales and Product Marketing at Cabletron, Infonet and Nortel before joining Alcatel-Lucent in 2008 which became Nokia in 2016.  In his role he is supporting the regional sales teams in all aspects of the IPD product range.  Burkhard is also heavily involved in SDN/NFV topics in the region.  Burkhard holds a MSc. from the advanced technical college of Fulda.

Igor Giangrossi

Senior Director of Consulting Engineering

Nokia

Igor Giangrossi is a Senior Director of Consulting Engineering at Nokia leading the Wireless and Web teams in North America. Igor has over 20 years of experience in the Telecom industry covering both IP/MPLS networks and Mobile Packet Core. Prior to Nokia, he held various technical leadership positions in Latin America working on fixed and wireless infrastructure and managed services creation for selected verticals. Igor holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Instituto Maua de Tecnologia and is a Harvard Business School alumnus from the Program for Leadership Development.

Thomas Hendriks

IP Consulting System Engineer

Nokia

IP Consulting System Engineer Nokia Thomas is one of the consulting engineers for Nokia's IP portfolio covering EMEA, specializing in network automation. He interacts with customers and colleagues alike to come up with solutions to streamline processes. Thomas has an overall fondness for automating tasks backed up by a master's degree in Computer Science specialized in computer networking.

Douglas Henderson

IP Regional Product Line Manager

Nokia

Douglas Henderson is a regional PLM within the IP/Optical Division of Nokia primarily covering Nuage VCS for service provider DC environments as well as Hybrid Access solutions. Douglas has nearly 20 years worth of experience within the networking industry and has worked in various post sales support and pre-sales consulting positions. He has previously held positions with Alcatel-Lucent, Ascend Communications and Bay Networks. He holds a BEng (hons) in micro-electronics from Glasgow Caledonian University.

Rudy Hoebeke

Vice President of Product Management, IP Networks

Nokia

Rudy Hoebeke is Vice President of Product Management for Nokia’s IP Service Routing portfolio. He has over 15 years of experience in the communications and networking industry, in the areas of engineering, network design, technology & product strategy and product management. Formerly, Rudy was Vice President of Product Management for IP Service Routing and Mobile Packet Core in Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Division. He holds a MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Brussels (VUB) and a Masters in Business Administration from the Vlerick Leuven-Gent Business School.

Jeff Jakab

Vice President and Head of IP Hardware

Nokia

A 25 year employee of Nokia, Jeff is the Vice President and Head of IP Hardware. 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.

Chris Jones

Vertical Leader Energy

Nokia

Chris leads the Energy segment for Europe at Nokia supporting utilities to develop secure next generation communication solutions to address the challenges of meeting the carbon neutral aims being set within Europe though digitalization and automation. Having previously led the development of private wireless solutions to the off-shore wind industry, he is passionate about the renewable energy sector and the future advancements in storage and carbon capture. With a background in cyber-security and operational support systems in sales and delivery he is able to help customers address the challenges of deploying and running mission critical networks.

Johann Kellerman

IP Regional Product Line Manager

Nokia

Johann is a Product Line Manager in the Europe and MEA team, with a focus on routing protocols and SDN across the Nokia IP/MPLS portfolio, Nokia SROS, and on the Network Services Platform (NSP). Johann joined Alcatel-Lucent as Consulting Engineer in 2014 after several years in South Africa’s incumbent service provider and at a startup fibre infrastructure company, where they enabled international service providers to own national fibre and deploy their own equipment in record breaking time. Johann holds a Doctorate in Engineering from the University of Johannesburg, where his research focussed on optical sensing at the Centre of Optical Communications & Sensors.

Craig Labovitz

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.

Peter Landon

Director Product Line Management

Nokia    

Peter Landon is a Director of Product Line Management for the Nokia Network Services Platform, with a focus on Enterprise and multi-layer SDN solutions. Peter has over 25 years of experience in Product Management and system design including senior roles at Juniper Networks, Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs, and while at BTI Systems, leading the architecture and design of the BTI/Juniper 7800 Series Intelligent Cloud Connect platform. Peter earned his BSc in Engineering from Queen’s University with post graduate work at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario.

Karyn Lennon

NI Learning Services Leader

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.

Suresh Leroy

Regional Product Line Manager, BNG/residential services, EMEA

Nokia

Suresh Leroy is the EMEA Regional Product Line Manager for BNG and the residential services within Nokia’s IP and Optical Networks Division.  He joined Alcatel in 1998 as mobile research engineer and has now almost 20 years of experience in telecommunications. He joined Nokia IP division in 2017. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and Master degree in software engineering at Brussels university. Suresh is based in Antwerp, Belgium.

Victor Lopez

Product Line Manager

Nokia

Victor is a telecommunications industry professional with a profound passion for transforming ideas into tangible products. With a Ph.D. background and over 20 years of experience, I currently hold the role of central Product Manager in the Network Services Platform (NSP).

Nacho Martin

Deepfield Consulting System Engineer

Nokia

Jose Ignacio (Nacho for short) has been working in the networking industry for the last 18 years. From Integrators to ISPs and lately vendors, his focus has been the Service Provider domain, helping to design and implement cutting-edge networking solutions that have improved efficiency, reliability, and security. With a personal interest in analytics and data science, he decided to take the train of Nokia 3 years ago, where he has been working closely with customers to deliver DDoS protection, Internet and subscriber analytics leveraging the Bigdata driven approach of Nokia Deepfield.

Paul Meyers

Regional Product Line Manager

Nokia

Paul Meyers is Senior Regional Product Line Manager within Nokia's (and previously Alcatel and Alcatel-Lucent's) IP Division since 2005. Before joining this team, he was active within Alcatel for several years (starting from 1994) as Supply Chain project engineer looking into advanced planning systems and reverse logistics and from 2000 on as Marketing Manager and Business Consultant for data products (ATM & IP).  Paul holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louvain (KUL) and a Masters degree in Economics.

Carlos Neves

Europe Enterprise BusDev DC Fabric Lead

Nokia

Carols is in charge of Business Development for Enterprise Europe Datacenter Market since 2020 and with more than 25 years of experience in very positions as BusDev, Pre-Sales Engineer and Customer CTO across multiples countries in Europe, LAT and USA market always our helping our customers from Enterprise, CSP´s and Webscalers to adopt the most modern, resilient and scalable solutions to your business.

Sasa Nijemcevic

Vice President and General Manager, Network Automation

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.

Michel Ploeg

Regional IP Product Line Manager, EMEA

Nokia

Michel is a Product Line Manager at Network Infrastructure business group for the EMEA region and is based in the Netherlands. He is leading the Datacenter product management team, in addition his other focus is programmability and virtualization within the 7x50 product line and Nokia SR OS router software. He has over 20 years of experience in the networking industry with roles varying from network engineer to designer/architect.

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.

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.

Wouter Reynders

IP Consulting Engineer

Nokia

Wouter Reynders is IP consulting engineer for the Nokia IP Router portfolio, covering EMEA. In this role, Wouter interacts with customers and jointly creates IP solutions and architectures. He interworks with technical sales and provides design guidelines for optimal usage of the IP service architectures and associated platforms in customer networks. Recently his focus is on modern WAN SDN technologies such as Network Telemetry, BGP-LS, PCEP, Segment Routing and others. Wouter has over 10 years of IP/MPLS networking experience, in the past also in the role of New Product Introduction (NPI) Engineer. He holds Alcatel-Lucent SRA (#9) certificate and has a master in Engineering in computer science.

Darren Richards

IP Regional Product Line Manager, EMEA

Nokia

Darren is a Regional Product Line Manager for Nuage Networks Virtualized Network Service. His current focus is on Software Defined WAN product development and has been working with this technology for the past 4 years. Darren’s principle focus is customer engagement, developing use cases which the customer can productize & subsequently deploy, feature definition & development and finally assisting with the strategy for product evolution with specific focus from within the EMEA region. With more than 25 years of experience within the telecommunications industry, prior to working at Nokia, Darren spent a number of years working in a design role for Virgin-Media (formally ntl:) and also within a design and support role for Ericsson. This resulted in exposure across a broad range of technologies and market segments worldwide.

Dom Schaeffer

Director IP Consulting Engineering EMEA, Nokia

Nokia

Dominique has over 20 years of experience in the telecom industry and joined the IP Consulting Engineering team in 2008. He’s responsible for the introduction, design and engineering of advanced IP solutions for major EMEA operators and enterprise on the full Nokia IP portfolio. Recently he took the role of Director of the Consulting Engineering team. Before joining the team, he had different roles including support, professional services and CTO office. Dominique holds a Master in Computer Science and a Master of Business Administration from La Sorbonne in Paris.

Marc Schoolaert

Senior Consulting Engineer, Deepfield Business Line, EMEA

Nokia

Marc has over 25 years of experience within the networking and communications industry, in engineering, auditing, supporting and selling IP/data networks and DPI/Application Assurance solutions for Network Operators and businesses around the world. He joined Nokia in 2008 working in different roles as Consulting engineer and Regional PLM for the 7750 Service Routers and Application Assurance Solution and as IT- Architect involved with planning and designing the integration of the Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia WAN after the merger of both companies before joining the Deepfield Business Line as SE/Consulting engineer 3 years ago, to help customers across Europe to get the maximum value out of the Deepfield Solution.

Aleksandar Sarenac

Solution Line Manager

Nokia

Aleksandar is a solution line manager for NOKIA ION Virtual Networks Orchestration. In his current role responsible for the solution life cycle management through all the phases of development and Started fALU career in 2006 in 5620SAM R&D. Holds MSc Degree in Telecommunication.

Siva Sivakumar

Senior Network Management and Automation Consultant

Nokia

Siva Sivakumar is a Product Experience Technical Lead at Nokia, bringing nearly a decade of experience in shaping intuitive, effective product solutions. Known for his collaborative approach, Siva focuses on creating simple, meaningful user experiences that deliver real impact. He is a strong advocate of cross-functional teamwork and draws from real world insights, often beyond traditional product boundaries, to design solutions that feel effortless and efficient. Over the years, his contributions across global regions have been marked by precision, innovation, and a deep understanding of user needs. Siva’s work has earned him multiple awards and the trust of both colleagues and the wider community, who see him as a consistent driver of positive, lasting change.

Yves Thibeault

Senior Product Line Manager

Nokia

Yves Thibeault is a Senior Product Line Manager on the Network Services Platform (NSP) of Nokia in Ottawa and is specifically responsible for Network and Service Assurance applications. Before joining Nokia & Alcatel-Lucent, Yves was a senior R&D manager at Nakina Systems for 8 years responsible for a multi-vendor network management system and various OSS applications. Yves has over 28 years of multi-disciplinary telecommunication experience in Software Research and Development and Product Management in various network domains including voice switching, ATM, Frame Relay, Optical/SONET/SDH transport and carrier Ethernet at Nortel Networks, AcceLight Networks, JDS Uniphase, Nakina Systems and now Alcatel-Lucent.

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.

Roland Thienpont

Director IP Product Marketing Europe Business Center

Nokia

Roland has over 25 years of experience within the networking and data communications industry, in the areas of engineering, technology and product strategy and product management.
From early 2000 until 2016 he had the role of IP product manager for Nokia’s IP/MPLS Service Router and Ethernet Services Switch products for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Recently he took the role of Director Product Marketing for IP.
Roland holds a MSc. in Electronic Engineering with a specialization in Telecommunications from the University of Antwerp and an Alcatel International Master in Management.

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.

Rohit Tumkur Pranesha

Product Manager, NSP Platform

Nokia

Rohit Tumkur Pranesha is a technology enthusiast with 10 years+ of experience working on Network Assurance, IP/MPLS/EPC & Cloud Technologies in various capacities. Rohit is currently exploring the possibility of applying machine learning to Network Assurance & Management. He holds a MS in Software Systems.

Jeffrey Valley

Vice President, CSP Segment – IP Network

Nokia

Jeffrey Valley leads the CSP Segment for Nokia’s IP Networks, where he is passionate about ensuring Nokia’s IP portfolio remains the top choice for forward-looking service providers worldwide. Jeffrey has been with the business unit for over 15 years in various network architecture and business roles. His areas of interest include evolving business and residential IP services, network security, converged subscriber management, data center & telco fabrics, IP/Optical convergence, and networking for AI.

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.

Bruce Wallis

Senior Director Product 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.