Part of a Virtual Event Series by:
Annie Turner
Editor
Mobile Europe
Annie Turner has researched and written about telecoms since the late 1980s in a number of roles — as editor of business titles including for International Thomson and The Economist Group, contributor to national newspapers such as The Times and FT, and as an analyst for Market Mettle and Current Analysis.
Richard Benjamins
Chief Responsible AI Officer
Telefónica
Dr. Richard Benjamins is Chief AI & Data Strategist at Telefonica. He is among the 100 most influential people in data-driven business (DataIQ 100, 2018). He is co-founder and Vice President of the Spanish observatory for ethical and social impacts of AI (OdiseIA), board member of the environmental non-profit CDP, and external AI expert for the AI Observatory of the European Parliament.
Mr. Benajmins was Group Chief Data Officer at AXA (Insurance) and before that held for 10 years executive positions at Telefonica on Big Data and Analytics. He is the founder of Telefonica’s Big Data for Social Good department, a member of the B2G data-sharing Expert Group of the EC, and co-founded iSOCO, an early AI startup.
Furthermore, he holds a PhD in Cognitive Science, has published over 150 scientific articles, and is author of the books “The myth of the algorithm: tales and truths of artificial intelligence” (Spanish) and “A Data-Driven Company”, and “The algorithm and I” (Spanish). He is a frequent speaker on Artificial Intelligence events, and a strategic advisor to several start-ups.
Santiago Tenorio
Fellow and Network Architecture Director
Vodafone
Nektaria Efthymiou
Network Strategy Director
BT
Dr. Nektaria Efthymiou is working in the telecommunication industry over two decades and has been part of several industry transformative initiatives throughput her career. She holds a PhD in Telecommunications, an MBA from Henley Business School and several degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Telecommunications and Computer science. She has extensive hands-on experience, and has navigated pivotal roles across well-known companies such as Telefonica, Hutchison, NEC, Motorola, Atkins/SNC Lavalin, Fujitsu. She is currently working at BT in the Network Strategy team focusing on Telco APIs, open networks, NaaS, data & AI and energy.
Beyond her professional achievements, she holds 10 international patents, numerous publications, and has been recognized for her contributions, including being shortlisted for the Great British Business Women award for two consecutive years.
Marjana Senčar Srdič
Research and Strategic Development Consultant
A1 Slovenija
Leading Research and Strategic Development at A1 Slovenia d. d., subsidiary of A1 Telekom Austria Group, with 27 million customers in 7 European countries. She has extensive, more than 20 years of experience in the field of information and
telecommunication technologies, in both small and large, international companies (former Hermes
SoftLab, Hewlett Packard). Within A1 Slovenia, she has been involved in research and innovation
projects and roll-out of new technologies for several years (NB-IoT, LTE-M, 5G and related solutions and services).
She is a registered researcher at the Research Agency of the Republic of Slovenia (ARIS/former ARRS), active in a research organization, leads the Mobility, Transport and Logistics vertical within SRIP PMiS (Strategic Research & Innovation Partnership for the Smart Cities and Communities topic) in Slovenia and is representative of the company in CER – Center of energy efficiency solutions, largest partnership for a sustainable economy in Slovenia and in AmCham Commission for Sustainable Growth.
Active Vice Chair of GSMA 5G IoT Strategy Steering Group, organization that represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide.
Terje Jensen
SVP Head of Network and Cloud Technology Strategy
Telenor
Dr. Terje Jensen is Senior Vice President heading up Network and Cloud technology strategy in Telenor Group. This covers all network domains (RAN, transport, cloud platform, core) and defines technical directions and high-level architecture principles. Collaboration with operators, vendors, industry fora and others are also part of the tasks across the different domains.
Terje has 4 decades’ experience in the telecom area from a number of positions within areas like operation, planning, strategy and research. This includes engagements in several countries and international projects. He has authorship to more than 200 publications.
Yogesh Malik
CTIO
Tele2
Yogesh joined Tele2 in 2021. In 2014-2020, Yogesh served as VEON’s Group CTO and a member of VEON’s executive board. Prior to joining VEON, he was the CEO of Telenor India (Uninor), following a number of senior technology and business roles in Europe, North and South America, China and South Asia.
Yogesh is an Executive MBA graduate of IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and holds a degree in engineering from MSU University in India. He is a firm believer that digital transformation requires a customer centric, data driven and “clean-sheet” thinking in order to deliver tangible results.
Catherine Gull
Head of Business Development and Partner Management for Private Networks
Cellnex Telecom
Catherine has held senior positions in the telecoms and technology in the USA, UK and Europe for the past 20 years. Over the last eight years Catherine has worked on Private Mobile Networks projects ranging from manufacturing to ports and airports. In addition to bringing the best of 5G innovation to industry and the public sector, Catherine’s work on the board of the Kay Mason Foundation, which funds high school scholarships for impoverished children in South Africa, has given her a renewed passion for using 5G to help to bridge the digital divide that exists in the UK today.
Yesmean Luk
Principal Consultant & Private Networks Lead
STL Partners
Yesmean is a Principal Consultant at STL Partners and leads our Slicing and Private Cellular practice. She has led and managed consulting projects with both operators and technology companies across various areas, including private networks, network slicing, edge computing and IoT. Recent projects have involved evaluating and defining the strategy, proposition go-to-market and messaging for leading technology companies in private networks and mobility. Before joining STL, she held various consulting roles at Deloitte and IBM.
Jorge Velez
TELUS
Juan Francisco Redondo
Head of RAN Strategy & Architecture
Three UK
Juan Francisco Redondo is Three UK’s Head of RAN Strategy and Architecture. As part of his role, he formulates and develops the Radio Access Network strategy and oversees the strategic budget planning, architectural governance and in-life strategic management of programmes for RAN, spectrum and devices. He also leads strategic initiatives to ensure full alignment between the business needs and the commercial, contractual, technical and delivery set-up.
Prior to joining Three, he worked for Ericsson, helping them shape and scale the Network Design and Optimisation services portfolio in Latin America, and for Optimi, an innovative software and services provider where he held different positions, including Technical Sales Director and Engineering Services Director for Latin America, before it was acquired by Ericsson.
Juan holds a Master Degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM (Technical University of Madrid).
Cayetano Carbajo Martín
Director for Core, Transport and Service Platforms
Telefónica
Cayetano Carbajo is Telecommuncation Engineer by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. In 1995, just after university, he joined Telefónica Móviles Spain as radio engineer. After working in radio engineering department, Cayetano is appointed manager for international projects for Telefónica Móviles.
In 2000 he moved to Morocco where he was responsible of the network deployment of Medi Telecom. In June 2001 he becomes radio access director in Telefónica Móviles Corporate unit.
In January 2003 he joined Telefónica Móviles México as CTO. In this exciting challenge, remains till May 2006 when he joined Telefónica SA as Technology Director.
In October 2014 he was appointed Telefónica Deutschland CTO. In this position he has the responsibility of deploying the network, implement the services and assuring that Telefónica Deutschland customers receive an excellent service. He faced the most challenging roll out project in the industry with a fast LTE deployment meanwhile obtaining the synergies due to the consolidation of Telefónica and Eplus networks.
Since November 2019, Cayetano was appointed Director for Core, Transport and Service Platforms in the Global CTIO unit of Telefónica where he is pushing the transformation of Telefónica networks.
Cayetano Carbajo was born 52 years ago in Cáceres (Spain); He is married and has two children of 17 and 13 years old.
Bela Viraj
Managing Partner
Arthur D. Little
Global lead for the enterprise segment in TIME industries Focus on service differentiation, mission critical, ICT, managed services, go-2-market, operations, audit, production model, platform design, process design.
20+ years telecommunication experience both as a consultant, but also within the industry. Led & managed sizeable teams (up to 70 people directly, 250-300 in Matrix)
Mr. Viraj holds a MBA: focus on strategy development, international marketing and finance.
Djordje S. Radovic
Core Network and Services Director
Telekom Srbija
Djordje S. Radovic is a seasoned expert at the forefront of the telecommunications revolution, with a passion for shaping the future of connectivity. He holds MScEE/MPhEE from The Faculty of Electrical Engineering, The University of Belgrade /Republic of Serbia and MBA from The University of Sheffield /United Kingdom.
As a thought leader, Djordje has dedicated his career to exploring the untapped potential of emerging technologies. With a wealth of experience in IT industry, he brings a unique perspective on the intersection of technology, innovation, and societal impact. Djordje has been a sought-after speaker at industry conferences and events globally. He possesses the ability to distill complex technological concepts into accessible insights, making him a valuable resource for both technical and non-technical audiences.
Djordje enjoys creating the comprehensible technological landscape that will shape the next era of virtual connectivity and discover the limitless possibilities that lie ahead of us in the dawn of AI. He is one of the founders and an esteeemed member of Serbian AI Society.
Shaaf Syed
Principal Architect
Red Hat
Shaaf is a Principal Architect at Red Hat. Mostly developing code with Keycloak, Quarkus, AI/ML for Edge solutions. For the last 15 years, he has helped customers create and adopt open source solutions for applications, cloud and managed service, continuous integration environments, and frameworks. Shaaf is also a technical editor and InfoQ and spends his time writing about Kubernetes, Security, and Java.
David Anstiss
Director of Solution Engineering
SS8 Networks
David Anstiss is Director of Solution Engineering at SS8 Networks. He has been with SS8 since 2015 and has significant experience in critical network architecture technology and advanced data analytics. He currently works as part of the Technical CTO Group under the leadership of Dr. Cemal Dikmen and is responsible for leading engagement with both intelligence agencies and Communication Service Providers (CSPs) around the world. He has been instrumental in helping them transition to 5G, defining system requirements to meet regulatory compliance. As a member of ETSI, he represents SS8 to ensure the adoption of cloud-native infrastructure is met with industry best practices and to guarantee that compliance of lawful interception is maintained.
André Vieira
Operations Intelligence Offer Lead
Celfocus
André started his career providing consulting and engineering services in telecommunications, developing and leading several projects focused on Telcos across Europe, Africa and Asia.
In 2020, he created an NFV Business Unit for a Cyent company. He was responsible for developing and launching new NFV-based service offerings. He also worked closely with customers to understand their needs and create solutions.
In 2021, he joined Celfocus to manage the Celfocus Order Management Product. He refined product offerings and managed customer relationships and partnerships.
He is now leading the offer of a business unit – Operations Intelligence – that combines technologies and professional services that speed up the delivery of the foundations of digital transformation while leveraging the Telecom Operator ecosystem.
He is also the communication and adoption working group leader of Project Sylva (a Linux Foundation Europe project) since February 2023.
