Speakers
Alex Smith
John Bretherick
Michael Ferris
Simon Fletcher
Vicky Messer
John Bretherick, Mike Ferris, Simon Fletcher, Vicky Messer, Elizabeth Rumsey, Alex Smith
Alex has been 36 years working in the telecoms industry since graduating from Newcastle Upon Tyne with a Masters in Engineering. He has worked for Bell Labs Research, Lucent Technologies, Cisco and Huawei before joining Antevia Networks in its first year of operation. Alex is now VP of Product Management and a part of the executive team responsible for 5G O-RAN fronthaul innovation.
John Bretherick is Director of Business Development at Fujitsu Network Communications, where he focuses on the Fujitsu open networking portfolio, including optical and Open RAN solutions, for Europe. John has over 30 years of experience in telecom, holding roles in engineering, sales, marketing and business development for both global service providers and equipment vendors. He has a long history of developing customized solutions for global IT, system integrators and communication service providers, as well as vertical market experience in pharmaceuticals, utilities, government and health sectors. John is married with two children and lives in Ilkley West Yorkshire, where he enjoys many sports including golf and cycling.
Michael is an industry veteran with 30 years’ experience in mobile networks. His early career was spent in Orange where he led network design activities across the core and transport networks through the major changes that built nationwide ATM, SDH and DWDM networks and saw the introduction of GPRS and 3G. He then spent many years specialising in mobile backhaul as it evolved through pseudowires and IPVPN, introducing advanced packet microwave systems and dark fibre, with roles in pre-sales, network design and product management.
Over the past six years he’s been increasingly engaged in the evolving neutral host ecosystem, and joined Dense Air at the start of 2022 as Chief Network Architect, bringing together all of his skills and experience in what he considers his perfect role. He spent five years as co-lead of the neutral host workstream at the Small Cell Forum (SCF).
Simon has spent the past 20 years working in the design and development of technical telecoms infrastructure. Beginning his career in technology demonstrators at Racal Radar Defence Systems, he moved to Telecoms Modus in 1999 to play a key role in the development of 3G products, and in 2006 he established a core architecture team that helped develop the first-generation of technology for 4G systems culminating in a Steering Board position in the LTE SAE Trials Initiative (LSTI), a global forum with a mission to assure the early adoption of LTE. His lengthy participation in Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) defining early C-RAN concepts brings great foresight on an important architectural element of emerging 5G architectures.
Simon is a regular speaker at industry events. His long-standing association with the UK innovation eco-system, as a director of mVCE, member the UK5G Advisory Board and the Innovate-UK ICT-KTN, brings a wealth of knowledge on the application of strategic research through open innovation to accelerate product and service delivery. Simon’s technical focus is on future cities, the application 5G and IoT in industry verticals, with an event horizon towards 2030 and sustainability strategy.
Vicky Messer is VP of Product Management at RANsemi with over 30 years of experience in product management, product marketing, research and development in the technology sector, primarily wireless. Vicky currently leads product management, technical marketing and partership activities at RANsemi, and is a work item lead and board member of Small Cell Forum (SCF).
Vicky was awarded the SCF ‘Outstanding Individual Contribution to SCF award’ in 2020, the SCF Industry Award 2023 for Women in Wireless and the Electronics Weekly Women of the Year (Design Focused) award in 2024.
Vicky is a certified IET registration mentor, and currently mentors a local young female engineer. In May 2023 Vicky joined Industrial Advisory Board Bath University Electronics and Electrical Engineering.
Elizabeth Rumsey is Senior Manager - Product Strategy, Partnerships and Innovation at Vodafone Business. In her role, Elizabeth has led the team that made Vodafone the first mobile operator to offer edge computing on public 5G in Europe, and the only operator in the world to launch in multiple countries.
Elizabeth joined Vodafone in 2012 as a Principal Deal Architect in the Commercial team supporting Vodafone’s multinational customers, consequently taking roles including Commercial Intelligence Team Lead, before moving into 5G and Cloud, previously as the Digital Services Offer Manager. During her time at Vodafone, Elizabeth has simultaneously connected and empowered people, including supporting the CEO of Total Mama, a partnership between Vodafone Group Commercial and Oxford University Innovation, to achieve his mission to provide women with a trusted digital source of personalised information for fertility and pregnancy, building on her experience as Chair of Vodafone Group’s Women’s Network.
Prior to joining Vodafone, Elizabeth held roles in Richard Branson’s Virgin group of companies after five years in UK Mergers and Acquisitions for both Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan Cazenove.
Elizabeth is an American citizen residing in the UK with her husband and son. She holds a CIMA from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and a BA from Vanderbilt University.