Stefano Cantarelli - EVP, Strategic Business Development, Mavenir

Stefano has been spending almost three decades in the Telco industry and brings leadership in technology vision, innovative IP solutions in the mobile and convergent communication and also operational excellence in major technology transformation cycles and introduction in the overall Telecommunication market worldwide.

Stefano as EVP, Strategic Business Development at Mavenir is responsible for helping Mavenir expand its market share as a partner of choice for its global customer base, and ensuring that Mavenir continues to drive innovation that provides value to customers and agility to their technology.

Most recently, Stefano was driving the Network and IT strategy for O2 UK and defining the Virtualisation Strategy in the Telco Cloud project.

Previously, Stefano was CTO and R&D Vice President of Acision and at Huawei in UK as Vice President of Carrier Networks for UK and Ireland, and at Vodafone, where he was responsible for the network engineering and operations, transforming the infrastructure and launching 3G and internet services together with a lot of innovations to give agility and leadership position.

In addition, Stefano has held senior roles at Bulldog, Vodafone Italy, Ericsson, Siemens Telecomunicazioni, AT&T Network Systems, and Lucent Technologies.

Stefano graduated in Milano at the Politecnico of Milano in 1988 for Electronic engineering.

Gilles Garcia - Data Center and Communications Group Business Lead Senior Director, AMD

Gilles Garcia is the Data Center and Communications Group Business lead Senior Director at AMD. He was previously Wired and Wireless group Comms Business Lead Senior Director at Xilinx. He has more than 35 years’ experience in the networking/telecom field. Prior to AMD & Xilinx, he was Director of Marketing and Communications for AppliedMicro in 2006 and Director of the Switch Fabric Business Unit in 2003. He also worked for IBM for 19 years, including four years as Strategic Marketing Manager of the IBM Micro-electronics division, where he was in charge of managing the switch fabric business. Gilles’s work experience includes managing global accounts, Distribution customers, customer wins, P&L, strategic direction and investment, operator engagements and corporate marketing and communications.

Zahid Ghadialy - Principal Analyst & Consultant, 3G4G

Zahid is a technologist with a deep understanding of architecting world-class mobile products and solutions. With over 20 years of experience in the telecom industry in various roles, he has been an evangelist for mobile and wireless technologies. Over the years he has accumulated a vast following on his blogs and social networks with simple explainer posts and videos.

His 3G4G blogs are widely read where he looks at different aspects of mobile technology and especially 5G and 6G nowadays, including the architecture, deployments, use cases, applications, etc. His YouTube channel is also very popular where he explains many new features expected as part of 5G in the future. While his style and content is unique, he also references many industry publications and provides slides that are very useful to view online.

He is also very active on Twitter under his @3G4GUK brand helping disseminate the benefits of 5G and why 5G will be needed in the long run. He covers a very wide portfolio of 5G related information that is hard to find otherwise.

Until recently, Zahid was a Senior Director looking at Technology & Innovation Strategy in Parallel Wireless. As a brand ambassador, he represented the company in various Open RAN discussions and also created tutorials on Open RAN and O-RAN which are being used as reference for new starters on the topic.

Ignacio Gonzalez - Telco and Media Business Development Manager, Red Hat

Ignacio Gonzalez is responsible for the Telco Mobile Networks Business Development in EMEA at Red Hat, supporting the adoption of Open Source Technology at Service Providers, Network Equipment Providers, System Integrators and ISVs, with a specific focus on the development of NFV within Mobile Networks like Open RAN, Cloud RAN, 5GC and Private Networks. Mr Gonzalez has been with Red Hat for over 3 years in his current role.

Before Red Hat, he worked for Vodafone for 16 years in various technical and management roles at Group y Local market levels. The last one was as Head of Technology in Vodafone Partner Markets, leading the Technology function in the Middle East, CIS, and Latin America markets.

Eugina Jordan - CMO, Telecom Infra Project

Eugina, a female Executive and an immigrant, started her telecom career as a secretary and now has gone on to become the CMO of the prominent industry organization Telecom Infra Project (TIP).

She has over 20+ years of strategic marketing leadership experience, leading marketing and communications for small and Fortune 500 global technology companies like Starent and Cisco.

Previously, she served as the VP of Marketing of the major telecom industry disruptor Parallel Wireless and was instrumental in creating Open RAN market category

She is a well sought-after speaker at many technology and telecom events and webinars. She is a well-known telecom writer contributing to publications like “RCR Wireless”, “The Fast Mode”, “Developing Telecoms” and many others.

She is also an inventor, holding 12 patents that include 5G and Open RAN.

She is a founding member of Boston chapter of CHIEF, an organization for women in the C-Suite, to strengthen their leadership, magnify their influence, pave the way to bring others, cross-pollinate power across industries, and effect change from the top-down.

Her passion is to help other women in tech to realize their full potential through mentorships, community engagement, and workshops. Her leadership development book “Unlimited: How to succeed in a workplace that was not designed for you” is due for release in May 2023.

Ms. Jordan resides in Massachusetts with her husband, teenage son, and three rescue dogs. She loves theater and museums. She volunteers for dog rescues and programs that help underprivileged children and women.

Ms. Jordan has a Master’s in Teaching from Moscow Pedagogical University, and studied computer undergrad at CDI College in Toronto, Canada.

Ravishankar Sethuraman - Senior Vice President - Head 5G Engineering, HCLTech

Ravi leads the 5G Engineering practice at HCL Technologies. He has more than 3 decades of experience spread across Application and Technology space in software. His specialties include Telecom Software, Mobility, Delivery & Transition of Large Complex Applications & Teams Turned around challenged accounts from Delivery and Cost perspective, 5G.

Iris Barcia - Pr. Mng. MPN Architecture, Vodafone

Iris Barcia is a multidisciplinary professional with entrepreneurial experience in the telecommunication industry. She is an innovator and forward-looking technologist that has worked directly with international executive teams and engineers at Tier 1 network operators, network infrastructure vendors, neutral-host vendors, government organizations, and services companies. She has been involved in the proposal and assessment of novel HetNet strategies for nation-wide 4G, 5G, IoT and public-safety networks, with a focus on future capacity provision and multi-technology evolution. More recently she’s focusing on Open RAN and MPNs. Prior to Vodafone, Iris has been the co-owner and COO of Keima, and has worked on RAN design, optimization and deployment projects at Telefonica and European rural broadband wireless initiatives. She has a BSc and MSc in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Vigo (Spain) and an MBA from Cardiff Metropolitan University (UK).

Roberto Kompany - Principal Analyst, Omdia

Roberto is a member of Analysys Mason’s Telecoms Software and Networks research team and is the lead analyst for the Next-Generation Wireless Networks programme focusing on strategy and market research. He is also a Cambridge Wireless Special Interest Group (SIG) mobile broadband champion. Prior to joining Analysys Mason, Roberto worked for Dixons Carphone, where he analysed the effect on the business of shifts in the telecoms market – for example, in terms of mergers, operator KPIs and technology – in Europe and the UK. Previous positions included consultancy, where he helped a variety of clients worldwide with mobile-related projects, such as a capex reduction and developing a 5-year strategy for an incumbent’s wireless infrastructure. He started his career at a leading network equipment vendor, where he served in several different capacities, such as R&D, and deployment and optimisation of mobile infrastructures across multiple continents. Roberto holds an MSc in Mobile & Satellite Communications from University of Surrey and an MBA from IE Business School.

Peter Love - Techno/economic business consultant & programme manager, Independent

I am an experienced leader of diverse sales teams and a trusted advisor for Cx0/CxO-1 leaders. Educated with Six Sigma Yellow Belt, ITIL v3, and with a PMP certification, my skillset lies in my ability to excel in global project delivery, demystify complexities, and handle challenges with tenacity and good humour. I am committed to fostering industry dialogue and have chaired telecoms forums and acted as Special Interest Group champion to drive collaboration and impact. My career has spanned global strategy, operational development, geographic management, and consumer electronics, maintaining an 80:20 balance between sales and operations

Andy Sutton - BT Fellow & Principal Network Architect, BT

Andy Sutton is a BT Fellow and Principal Network Architect for Wireless Access. The wireless access domain includes 4G/5G RAN architecture and mobile backhaul/xhaul, along with microwave and millimetre wave radio systems, and satellite communications. Andy holds an MSc in Mobile Communications from the University of Salford and has over 35 years of experience within the telecommunications industry. Andy’s current research interests include advanced RAN coordination techniques, including C-RAN and OpenRAN, optical fibre and radio based backhaul/xhaul, along with LEO satellite communications and High-altitude Platform Systems (HAPS), all in the context of building resilient heterogeneous networks. Andy holds the post of Visiting Professor of Telecommunications at the University of Liverpool and the University of Salford, he is a Chartered Engineer and holds Fellowships from the IET, ITP and BCS. Andy sits on the editorial board of the ITP Journal and is a CW SIG Champion for eMBB and Wireless Heritage.