Wavelengths 2025 Speakers
APAC-MEA
May 26-28
Wavelengths APAC-MEA 2025
ID, Jakarta, Indonesia, Jakarta, Shangri-La Hotel
Guest speakers
Khalid Darwish
Senior Project Lead, Optical Network Transformation Program
Aramco
Khalid Darwish is the Senior Project Lead for the Optical Network Transformation and Capacity Upgrade Program in Saudi Aramco. Khalid holds bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering and double master degrees in Computer Science & Engineering and in Information Security. Khalid has been working within Saudi Aramco for more than 20 years in several IT disciplines including optics, microwaves, IP, telephones and radio.
Senior Project Lead, Optical Network Transformation Program
Aramco
Ian Redpath
Research Director, Transport Networks and Components
Omdia
Ian is the Research Director for Omdia’s, optical transport, components, routing, and networked edge services. He is responsible for strategy, client, product, and team development. Managing a team of communications technology professionals, he covers how communications and cloud service providers and enterprises utilize and deploy leading-edge optical networks, components, routing, and edge technologies.
Research Director, Transport Networks and Components
Omdia
Nokia speakers
Ragheed Al-Dabbagh
Head of Optical Transport Product Management, Architecture & Consulting, APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Ragheed is the Nokia Asia Pacific head of Optical Transport Product Management, Architecture, and Consulting. Having previously led Optical business development for Oceania, in the IP & Optical Networks Division at Nokia as well as various other technical engineering roles. He has over 10 years experience in the Telecommunications industry with particular expertise in the area of Transport Networks (xWDM, OTN, Packet, T-SDN). Prior to joining Nokia, Ragheed worked for Pacific Broadband Networks (PBN) as an xPON R&D engineer before joining Vicom Australia as an Optical test & measurement specialist. Ragheed Al-dabbagh received his undergraduate double degree in Telecommunications Engineering, Computer Science and Software Engineering from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia where he graduated with honors and specialized in Photonics and Fibre Optic Transmission Systems.
Head of Optical Transport Product Management, Architecture & Consulting, APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Devarajan Aramudhan
Network Solution Architect, APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Deva is the Network architect, focusing on our Automation software solutions and associated professional services with a special task of supporting all the countries in strategic business development of our software solutions and services. Prior to his current role, he was working as the global product manager for NRC-T and WaveSuite Synchronizer.
Network Solution Architect, APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
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.
Software Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
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.
Optical Certification Program - Trainer
Nokia
Martin Belzner
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Martin Belzner is a Product Line Manager within the Optics Subsystems Product unit. In his role he is managing the development of high-speed coherent Photonic Service Engine based modules, which are used in Nokia’s coherent line systems. Prior to his current role Martin worked for more than 10 years as a Senior Hardware Development Engineer within the Optics Subsystems R&D department. In that role he was responsible for the development, integration and testing of various generations of high-speed coherent electro-optical transmit and receive components. Martin holds a PH.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Francesco Berardi
Senior Director
Nokia
Coming soon
Senior Director
Nokia
Marco Bertolini
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Marco Bertolini is the Product Manager for the 1830 Network Element. Previous Product Management roles were focused on high speed coherent interfaces, photonic architectures and pluggable optics. Prior to joining product management, he was part of the R&D team that introduced the first generation of 100G coherent cards. Mr. Bertolini holds a Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering from University of Parma.
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Jens Blankenhorn
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Jens Blankenhorn is a member of the 1830 Network Element Product Management team with a specific focus on the GMPLS control plane software. Prior to joining product management, he was more than 10 years part of the Optics R&D team that is implementing the GMPLS control plane on the entire 1830 PSS family. Jens Blankenhorn holds a Diploma of Information Technology from University of Cooperative Education Stuttgart.
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Aref Chowdhury
Vice President Strategy and CTO, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Aref Chowdhury is Vice President Strategy and CTO, Network Infrastructure at Nokia. His previous roles in the company included CTO Optics, Senior Manager of Intellectual Property and Standards, and Member of Technical Staff in Optical Physics Research at Bell Labs. He received his Bachelor of Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1994 in electrical engineering and applied mathematics and statistics, and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2001. He is a recipient of the MIT TR100 Young Innovator Award, a Bell Labs Fellow and an Optica Fellow. He currently serves the IEEE Photonics Society as Vice President of Professional and Technical Development, as Member of the Industrial Engagement Committee, and on the Board of Governors.
Vice President Strategy and CTO, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Anson Chwee
Optics Tendering Consultant
Nokia
Anson is the Regional Product Line Manager in APAC Business Center. He has over 10 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, specifically in optical transport network domain. He started his career in Nokia as the Tendering Consultant supporting APAC countries pre-sales and business development activities including design and solutions. Prior to joining Nokia, he worked for Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corporation in various roles as pre-sales and post-sales. Anson holds a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunication Engineering.
Optics Tendering Consultant
Nokia
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.
Optical Transmission & Subsea Product Line Manager
Nokia
Vito di Maria
Vice President, Head of Optical Networks APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Vito Di Maria is currently Vice President Optics Business Development for Asia Pacific/Japan and India markets. Vito has more than 15 years of experience in the industry and worked in Alcatel, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia holding leadership positions in Research&Development, Product Line Management and Business Development in several countries in Asia Pacific region. Vito holds a Master Degree in Electronic Engineering and a Master Degree in Information Technologies.
Vice President, Head of Optical Networks APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
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.
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Kevin Drury
Head of Optical Networks Marketing
Nokia
Kevin Drury received his undergraduate degree in Electronical Engineering from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada where he specialized in telecommunications. Further in his academic career, he completed a Master’s in Business Administration. Kevin is the Strategic Initiatives PLM Leader for the Optical Networks business division at Nokia. Previously he has held several leadership roles at Alcatel-Lucent, including the Deployment and Professional Services leader for the Optical Networks business unit and the Optical Products and Solutions Marketing leader in the IP Routing & Transport Division. He has over 25 years’ experience in the Telecommunications industry with particular expertise in the areas of fiber optic transmission, wavelength division multiplexing, OTN switching, narrowband and broadband access, carrier voice and applications, and LAN/WAN networking. He has presented or co-authored papers for numerous industry events including WDM & Next Generation Optical Networking, ITPX/NCUG, ITU Telecom, Supercomm, OFC, NFOEC, Terabit Optical & Transport SDN and the Big Telecom Event.
Head of Optical Networks Marketing
Nokia
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.
Vice President of Engineering and Head of Subsystems Product Unit, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Jose Manuel Estaran Tolosa
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
José works for Nokia’s Network Infrastructure business unit where he holds a position as product line manager for high-speed coherent solutions within the 1830 PSS product family. He accumulates 10 years of experience at the cutting edge of telecom innovation and has contributed to engineer communication solutions of recognized excellence – including over 40 international publications, 2 transmission records and 2 patents. José completed the Telecommunications B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain), and the Electrical Engineering M.Sc. from the Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby (Denmark). In October 2012, he accepted a Ph.D. position in the Photonics Department at the Technical University of Denmark in applied digital signal processing and high-speed communications systems, where he coordinated various research projects in cooperation with industrial partners including Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs (Now Nokia), Huawei, and Fujitsu. Starting 2015, upon Ph.D. completion, José joined Nokia Bell Labs’ optics laboratory in France where he took on research leadership and management responsibilities along three strategic areas:
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
John Harrington
Executive Vice President and Head Network Infrastructure, Europe, Middle East, Africa & Asia Pacific
Nokia
John Harrington is the Executive Vice President and Head of the Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific region, where he manages and oversees Nokia’s sales organization and overall business for the region. He is based in Antwerp, Belgium. John has over 25 years of technical sales, customer relationship management and business development experience in the telecommunications industry across Asia, Europe and North America. John was previously the Head of the Asia Pacific region for Network Infrastructure and the Customer Experience organization based in Singapore between 2021 and 2024. He was also the General Manager and head of Nokia Japan, based in Tokyo between 2018 and 2020. Prior to his assignments in Asia, he was the Vice President, of US Major Accounts, where he led sales for a diverse set of wireless, wireline, cable and regional customers. And he spent several years as the head of the AT&T account for Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent. As an interim veteran, John started his career at Motorola in the UK before moving to the USA with Lucent technologies. Born in England, John holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering.
Executive Vice President and Head Network Infrastructure, Europe, Middle East, Africa & Asia Pacific
Nokia
Stuart Hendry
Head of Nokia Enterprise, Asia Pacific
Nokia
Stuart is the Head of Nokia Enterprise for Asia Pacific and leads all sales and commercial activities in the region. Before joining Nokia in 2016, Stuart has held various senior positions at Alcatel-Lucent where he was the Vice President for Channels and Alliances, Asia Pacific. He was also the Vice President for South East Asia (East) Regional Unit where he was overseeing the company’s business and operations in Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong. With three decades of leadership experience in general management, sales, services, product management, change management and multi-channel sales and distribution management and having lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore, Stuart has a wealth of experience in the global IT industry as well as extensive experience in leading organizations across culturally diverse teams and geographies. Prior to joining Alcatel-Lucent, Stuart was with Cisco Systems where he launched and led the Asia Pacific Commercial business for more than six years. He also spent over two years in Indonesia as the Country’s Managing Director. Stuart was also the Managing Director of the Australian operations of Logicalis – a leading systems and network integrator in the Pacific region. In addition, he was the founder of a management consultancy firm advising major global IT services companies in Australia. He was also responsible for various product development, channel, service and sales leadership roles in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong for CASE Communications and Siemens Network Systems. Stuart is a Singaporean Permanent Resident and has dual Australian/United Kingdom citizenship. He holds a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.
Head of Nokia Enterprise, Asia Pacific
Nokia
Alan Hollander
Vice President Apps & Systems Engineering
Nokia
Coming soon
Vice President Apps & Systems Engineering
Nokia
Sachin Jain
Head of Optical Enterprise Business Development
Nokia
Coming soon
Head of Optical Enterprise Business Development
Nokia
Donny Janssens
Head of Solution Business Development
Nokia
Donny Janssens is head of Solution Business Development in the Network Infrastructure business Group. Previously, he lead Japan & Korea market clusters in Nokia, Fixed Networks APAC Regional Business Center. In this role he was responsible for overall fixed networks related solution strategy, business development, project implementation and customer satisfaction in his market units. With global experience & technical expertise in telco industry, Donny has a proven track record of leading business development and management in broadband access networks & applications, R& D and cross-domain solutions. Donny holds a Master Degree in Computer Science from the University of Antwerp.
Head of Solution Business Development
Nokia
Gary Kang
Network Management & Control & Virtualization Optics Network Architect, APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Building on the professional portfolio from Business Operations to Marketing to Business Development, and now Praoduct Management, Gary is now working as the T-SDN Business Development, Network Management & Control & Virtualization PLM and Optics Network Architecture for Asia Pacific region. He has over 10 years’ experience in the Telecommunications industry with particular expertise in the areas of software defined networking, network management, fiber optic transmission, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), optical transport networking (OTN), carrier Ethernet, and LAN/WAN networking. Gary obtained his bachelor’s degree for Business Management and Law from Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China.
Network Management & Control & Virtualization Optics Network Architect, APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Praveen Kumar
Head of Strategic Business Development
Nokia
Kumar is Head of Strategic Business Development. He was previously Network expert in IP transport domain at Rakuten, with e2e architecture experience and work across transport network layers of core, aggregation and submarine, hard/soft transport slicing, extensive engineering work while designing 400G+ routed network including MPLS, capacity planning for GMPLS based network across multi layers, 5G transport front haul, open line system and disaggregated platform. Network automation and implementation of SDN in the network across both horizontal and vertical breadth of vendors and technology. Spine leaf architecture, DCI, low latency solution. Filled patent, published multiple papers and member of IEEE, open MSA, member of subcommittee for N1 track, responsible for evaluating global innovation paper, Airtel network transformation, top rated OFC published paper for M2D, driving partner roadmap supporting enterprise business unit with major customers within and outside India, including internet content providers, data center entities and other telco’s across India. Well-balanced exposure in both class A vendor and tier 1 telco. Exposure to multi vendor technologies and products. Product experience of Nokia, Cisco, Ciena, Huawei, Ribbon, Infinera, Tejas Juniper.
Head of Strategic Business Development
Nokia
Ajay Kumar Joshi
Sales Lead
Nokia
Coming soon
Sales Lead
Nokia
Vikrant Kundra
Head of Solution Business Development & CTO Oceania
Nokia
Coming soon
Head of Solution Business Development & CTO Oceania
Nokia
Rob Levesque
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Robert Levesque is presently Product Line Manager within the IP and Optical Networks Division responsible for the Centralized RAN Transport portfolio. Robert has been working within Nokia for the past 19 years in several Product Management and R&D Management positions. Robert has knowledge and experience in Optical, IP, Ethernet, and Access technologies.
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Matteo Lonardi
Software Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Matteo Lonardi received his MSc in Communications Engineering (2016) and PhD in Information Technology (2020) from the University of Parma, focusing on the quality of transmission estimation and monitoring in modern optical transmission systems.
In November 2019, Matteo joined Nokia Bell Labs Smart Optical Fabric and Devices group as a Research Scientist, applying machine learning techniques to estimate and monitor the quality of transmission in optical networks.
Since January 2022, Matteo has embarked on a job rotational position as a product line manager at Nokia. In this role, he focuses on investigating and developing monitoring and sensing technologies in subsystems, expanding his expertise and exploring the potential of machine learning in optical modules and transponders.
Software Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Robert Maher
Product Line Manager, Optical Subsystems
Nokia
Robert Maher, Ph.D., has more than 20 years designing and developing advance optical solutions. He has authored over 120 technical publications in the field of optical transmission technologies and holds two patents. He is the recipient of the Marie Curie Research Fellowship from the European Research Council and the University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society (U.K.) for his innovative work. In recognition of his technical contributions to the optical industry, he was awarded Optica’s Paul F. Foreman Team Engineering Excellence Award and the Colin Campbell Mitchell Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering (U.K.). In 2015, he became a Senior Member of IEEE.
Product Line Manager, Optical Subsystems
Nokia
Giovanni Manto
Strategy & Advanced Technology Leader, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Giovanni has global product management responsibilities for Nokia’s Optical portfolio, covering all aspects of product management and future portfolio strategies. Giovanni has over 25+ years of industry experience and has held several senior management positions at LG, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nortel Networks. During his tenure at LG, Giovanni was the general manager of the Fiber access business unit with responsibility for the productization and commercialization of an innovative optical technology for the fiber access portfolio serving a diverse global customer base. Giovanni holds a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from Concordia University in Montréal, Canada and is based in Ottawa, Canada.
Strategy & Advanced Technology Leader, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Vincenzo Mautone
Head of Optical Professional Services Product Line Manager
Nokia
Vincenzo Mautone leads the Optical Professional Services business for Network Infrastructure in Nokia. In this role he is globally responsible of the PS portfolio including the Digital Transformation, System Integration and Network Renewal services. A growing part of the portfolio is linked to the SaaS and Automation of the network. Previously Vincenzo was the Head of the Multivendor Business Unit as a worldwide supplier of 3rd Party Equipment support used by the largest Global Service Providers. His responsibilities included Portfolio Strategy, Commercial Management, Delivery Management and Global Technical Competence Centre. Prior to that, Vincenzo took various positions in Alcatel-Lucent, including the role as Head of Care for Fixed Networks for South Europe. Vincenzo Mautone holds a bachelor in Telecommunication Engineering and an Executive MBA from Bocconi University in Italy.
Head of Optical Professional Services Product Line Manager
Nokia
Ravi Parmasad
Head of Optical Network Automation, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Ravi Parmasad is Head of the Network Automation Group in the Optical Networks Division at Nokia. Previously, Ravi held several senior leadership roles at Nokia and its predecessor, Alcatel-Lucent, including was Vice President Global IT Infrastructure, Vice President Global Real Estate, Vice President - IP/Optical Networks, Vice President R&D Strategy, Vice President / General Manager - Fiber to the Home Business Unit, and Vice President R&D Strategy. He enjoys acting as an ambassador for many Nokia programs, including student programs aimed at facilitating entry into the technology workforce, and is a former contributing member of the Telecom Industry Association QuEST Forum. Ravi earned a Bachelor of Applied Science in Computer Science from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Ottawa, where he has also returned to instruct executive MBA students.
Head of Optical Network Automation, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Perry Poehlmann
Head of Field Marketing
Nokia
Perry has been leading the Field Marketing team in APJ for the last 2.5 years, driving campaigns, roadshows, brand awareness, media releases and supporting cross Business Group activities. Perry is a long time Nokia employee with tenure nearly 35 years. Perry managed the MN pre-sales team across APJ, involved with radio business nearly 12 years bringing in OI over a billion AUD. In addition to radio, prior to that he was Sales director for Fixed Networks in Oceania has long time sales experience in optical covering diverse geographies including Europe and Middle East in addition to APJ.
Head of Field Marketing
Nokia
Raffaella Reale
Technical Domain Manager
Nokia
Coming soon
Technical Domain Manager
Nokia
Stéphan Roullot
Director Product Line Management, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Stéphan Roullot is Director of Product Line Management for Packet, TSN, Synchronization and MEF services in the ION Business Group. He holds a master degree in Electrical Engineering from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) of Lyon, France. After starting his career as R&D engineer (System Test, System Engineering & Architecture), he held several positions in technical sales, network architecture and business development on a broad range of technologies: SDH MSPP, WDM, Carrier Ethernet Switch/Router (Riverstone), xDSL Broadband Access, Mobile backhaul products, before moving into Product Strategy and Product Line Management for a number of Carrier Ethernet packet optical products, including the 1830 PSS since 2011. Stéphan is MEF CECP certified and is owning the various global packet-optical and synchronization programs on the 1830 PSS and TPS platforms. His functions encompass strategy, standards, feature definition, R&D management and customer pre-sales and post-sales support.
Director Product Line Management, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Matias Schneeberger
Professional Services Product Line Manager, Network Infrastructure Services
Nokia
Matias Schneeberger earned his BSc degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Telecommunications in 2014 from Universidad de la República in Montevideo, Uruguay. He started working at Alcatel-Lucent (now Nokia) in 2012 and during the last decade has taken over several technical roles in the domains of IP and Optics in three different countries: Uruguay, Poland and Italy (where he is currently based). Most recently he has taken over the role of Professional Services Product Line Manager in Nokia NI Services Unit with focus on areas such as: Automation, Optical Multi-Vendor Solutions (OMVS) and Optical System Integration (OSI). His current interests are working with customers and colleagues in realizing a vision of a: multi-domain, multi-vendor, SDN network.
Professional Services Product Line Manager, Network Infrastructure Services
Nokia
Archana Shetty
Senior Director Engineering
Nokia
Archana Shetty has been serving as the Senior Director of Engineering for Optical Network Automation at Nokia since July 2023. In this role, she spearheads the development of the groundbreaking WaveSuite platform and applications, which are pivotal to the future of Optical Network Management. Archana's journey began with a Bachelor's degree in Information Science and Engineering from UVCE, Bangalore, earned in 2005. Her illustrious career commenced at Lucent Technologies, followed by significant contributions at Alcatel-Lucent, and ultimately leading her to Nokia. With each step, Archana has demonstrated unparalleled expertise and creativity, transforming customer requirements into innovative product realities. Her leadership and foresight have contributed to technological progress and the evolution of optical network management systems. Archana is committed to quality and motivate the team to deliver to their potential.
Senior Director Engineering
Nokia
Paolo Somaschini
Software Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
With over 25 years of extensive experience in the telecommunications industry, Paolo has accrued deep expertise in optical technology, Nokia products, and related network solutions, following the evolution of telecommunications technologies and applications. Throughout his career, Paolo has played roles in Research and Development (R&D) and later in Product Management for Network Management solutions. He has contributed to the design, development, and delivery of various Wavesuite Network Management Systems (NMS) releases, leading to their deployment in hundreds of telecommunications companies worldwide.
Software Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Christian Uremovic
Senior Marketing Director
Nokia
Christian Uremovic is Sr. Director Solution Marketing at Nokia, where he champions the company's comprehensive solutions with the focus on optical networking systems. Christian has a rich history in the optical transport network industry, having served as Director for Technical Solution Sales at Coriant from 2013 until its acquisition by Infinera in 2018. From 2010 to 2013, Christian managed Solution Sales at Tellabs, which later merged with Coriant. Earlier in his career, Christian held system sales engineering and business development positions at Nortel Networks and ADVA Optical. Christian holds a diploma degree (Dipl. Ing.) in Telecommunications from FH Mannheim in Germany.
Senior Marketing Director
Nokia
James Watt
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.
President and General Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Sang Xulei
Vice President & Head of Network Infrastructure, Asia Pacific & China
Nokia
Sang Xulei is Vice President and Head of Network Infrastructure (NI), Asia Pacific & China in Nokia. He is in charge of the NI business in the APAC region and provides end to end support for pre-sales, post-sales, delivery and program management for Nokia’s IP, optical and fixed network customers. He has more than 20 years’ of experience in the telecommunications industry for networks technologies and solutions. He has held various technical and management positions in Nokia and is now based in Singapore.
Vice President & Head of Network Infrastructure, Asia Pacific & China
Nokia
Ben Zhao
Network Architect for Packet & Optical Transport Solutions, APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Ben Zhao is Network Architect for Packet & Optical Transport solutions in ION APAC Regional Business Center; with a working experience of 15 years in the Packet & Optical Transport arena. Ben started his career in R&D as software engineer on MSPP platform in photonic bridge (Siemens acquired company ) since the year 2004, then he moved to System Architect team leading Packet and OTN design in the P-OTN design in Nokia Siemens Network and took the Product manager role later. Ben has a rich experience on SDH/EOS multiple service platform and Packet and OTN transport platform design and network architecture.
Network Architect for Packet & Optical Transport Solutions, APAC Regional Business Center, Network Infrastructure
Nokia
Szilard Zsigmond
Senior Director, Optical Subsystems Group
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.
Senior Director, Optical Subsystems Group
Nokia