Pipeline Publishing, Volume 4, Issue 5
This Month's Issue:
Keeping Promises
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Contributors
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Knowledge is Power



Alon Aginsky
is the President, CEO & Co-Founder of cVidya Networks, with over 11 years of management and marketing experience in the telecommunications, software development and network management industries.  Prior to cVidya, Mr. Aginsky served as Vice President of Business Development and Business Alliances at C. Mer Industries, where he was responsible for new ventures in Telco Customer Care and Billing and Network Management Solutions. Mr. Aginsky was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Mer Telemanagement Solutions (NASDAQ: MTSL), where he was responsible for the company’s global marketing and sales efforts. In this capacity, Mr. Aginsky successfully led a public offering of MTS on the NASDAQ. Mr. Aginsky holds a BA in Business Administration from New York Technology University.  
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Mustapha Aissaoui is a Product Manager in the IP Division of Alcatel. He holds an Electrical Engineering Diploma from Polytechnic School of Algiers and a MASc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ottawa. He is an active participant of the IETF PWE3 and L2 VPN working groups, the MPLS/FR Alliance (MFA), and the ATM Forum.

Mustapha is a co-author and major contributor of multiple papers, including: draft-ietf-pwe3-atm-encap (ATM PW), draft-ietf-pwe3-oam-msg-map (PW OAM) and draft-ietf-l2vpn-vpws-iw-oam (PW OAM interworking), draft-ietf-pwe3-dynamic-ms-pw-00.txt (dynamic PW switching).
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Kerby Altmann, Director - OSS Voice Architecture, Sigma Systems
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Pano Anthos is the President and CEO of Pantero. As a co-founder and former Executive Vice President of ClearCross (previously Syntra), Mr. Anthos conceptualized and sold one of the first commercially available applications architected as a Web service, which was piloted and implemented in production by Oracle, since 1999 .  He is a frequent conference speaker and regular contributor to industry publications. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Delaware and a master's degree from Columbia University.
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Steve Bamberger is Vice President, Communications, Media, and Utilities, Oracle. Steve Bamberger is vice president of communications, media, and utilities at Oracle Corporation, where he has responsibility for industry strategy and go-to-market throughout North America.  Mr. Bamberger came to Oracle with the acquisition of Siebel Systems, where he was director of worldwide communications, media, and energy. Mr. Bamberger is a fifteen year veteran of the communications industry.
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Dr. Ben-Dov, CEO of Schema, was previously a VP with Amdocs Ltd., a software development company in the telecommunications industry, where he managed over 300 professionals and sold customer care and billing projects to Telecom operators in Europe, the far east and South Africa. Prior to that, Dr. Ben-Dov was Managing Director of the Financial Strategies Group at Prudential Securities in New York. He also was a co-founder and vice president for a start-up company, Carmel Biosensors, which developed a blood glucose sensor for diabetic patients. Dr. Ben-Dov has a B.Sc. in mathematics, economics and statistics from the Hebrew University and a Ph.D. in operations research from the University of California, Berkeley. He taught Operations Research at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Wharton school of Business. He serves as a director on the boards of Carmel Acoustics Ltd. and the Haifa Center for Entrepreneurship.
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Daniela Bendor, Head of Marketing & Business Development, North America - Ms. Bendor brings more than 10 years of international experience in business development, marketing & sales, corporate finance and strategic & financial planning with technology companies. Ms. Bendor has extensive experience in establishing joint ventures, strategic alliances and licensing agreements in the USA, Europe, and Japan. Previously she served in managerial positions at Becton Dickinson, served as VP Marketing & Operations at Tzunami Inc. and was Head of the Corporate Finance and Strategic Planning Department at Arthur Andersen. Daniela holds an M.B.A., with high distinction from the Hebrew University, Israel.  
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Todd Benjamin, joined Rodopi Software in 2003 as president and CEO. He has spent over 20 years in the telecommunications and technology industries, including management positions in sales, marketing and engineering.  Previously, he was an executive in finance and corporate development at Dorado Software in Folsom, CA.  Prior to that, he held senior management positions in service providers, hardware, and software companies. Mr. Benjamin earned his BSEE in Computer Engineering at the University of Washington and earned an MBA/JD from the University of California, Los Angeles.  
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Gregory A. Billings is the Vice President - Customer Management Product Business Unit for Amdocs. Greg is responsible for product and solutions development, and thought-leadership related to Amdocs’ customer management solutions, including contact center, customer self-service, customer intelligence and field service Keeping Promises. He has over 16 years’ experience as a business executive, entrepreneur, practice leader and advisor in areas that are directly linked to customer management issues.
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Dan Blacharski, Industry Journalist, has been a freelance writer and entrepreneur for over 12 years covering business, technology, and finance. He divides his time between Bangkok and South Bend, Indiana. He can be reached at dan@blacharski.net.  
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Dr. Marcelo Blatt is TTI Telecom's IMS Expert and Director of Product Management. Prior to joining TTI Telecom, Mr. Blatt spent several years at ECI and Tadiran Telecomm where he served as a Network Architect and Network Planner, respectively.  He has authored numerous journal publications, as well as conference presentations. Dr. Blatt has taught graduate courses in computer networking at Ben Gurion University. He received his BA and MA degrees from Buenos Aires University and his Ph.D. degree from the Weizmann Institute of Science.
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Adam Boone is Vice President of Marketing for Subex Azure’s Fulfillment & Assurance Solutions Business Unit. He has 18 years of experience in marketing, communications, and strategy, with 12 years in technology marketing, including network equipment, telecommunications, software, and related industries. Before Subex Azure, Boone was Vice President of Global Marketing for Syndesis, a leader in telecom service fulfillment systems. He also has held marketing management positions with CoManage, Marconi and FORE Systems (now Ericsson).
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Paul Budde is the Managing Director of Paul Budde Communication (trading as BuddeComm), an independent global telecommunications research and consultancy company, which includes 45 national and international researchers in 15 countries.  Since 1978 he has been involved in writing strategic plans and market reports for many of the world's leading companies involved in the new media. Since arriving in Australia in 1983 Paul has provided management consultancy services in the Asia Pacific region.  The company operates from Bucketty, in the Lower Hunter Valley, Australia.
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Paul Capozzoli is currently a Product Manager within Agilent’s Assurance Solutions Division (ASD) and has more than 23 years of experience in data and telecommunications testing and network monitoring. Paul has responsibility for product planning and management of the next-generation monitoring and management solutions. His primary focus is the monitoring and management of IP telephony networks. Over the past 3 years Paul has been instrumental in defining Agilent’s next generation network monitoring solutions. These new systems provide service assurance performance and proactive troubleshooting within converged PSTN and VoIP networks. His previous experience includes sales and business development and product management for Agilent’s portable data communications test equipment. Paul has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin.
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Brian Cappellani is Sigma Systems’ (www.sigma-systems) Chief Technology Officer.  Contact him at brian.cappellani@sigma-systems.com
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Peter Chahal is Director of Solution Marketing in the IP Division at Alcatel where he is responsible for Managed Communications Services targeting the service provider marketplace with a primary focus on next generation IP/MPLS carrier Ethernet and VPN solutions. Peter has more than 15 years of international experience in product marketing, product management, business development and technical sales in the area of carrier IP and Ethernet solutions and services.
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Craig Clausen, is Executive Vice President & C.O.O. of New Paradigm Resources Group, Inc., a Chicago-based consultancy providing strategic consulting and analytical services to communications innovators. Prior to forming NPRG, Mr. Clausen served as the Senior Policy Advisor at the Illinois Commerce Commission.  A recognized expert on the competitive telecommunications industry, he frequently provides market analysis, business plan development, financial modeling, and strategic market entry advice to carriers, and helps equipment manufacturers and the investment community gain insight into the competitive market.  Mr. Clausen is a frequent contributor to several leading trade journals.
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Stuart Cochran is the Vice President, Activation and Mediation, at Evolving Systems. Prior to Evolving Systems, he was the Director of Product Management, Development and Marketing for Tertio Telecoms, having held a number of technical, pre-sales and product management positions in the company since 1994. Stuart has an MSc degree in Computing and Computer Modelling of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems and a BSc (Honours) degree in Theoretical Physics.
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Betty Cockrell is director of industry relations for BSG Clearing Solutions. Cockrell oversees the global management of WLAN clearing and settlement products, while representing the company and the telecommunications industry through her participation with numerous trade associations and forums. With over18 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, she helps to define and develop new standards in next-generation telecommunications
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Costa Constantakis is the Director of Strategic Marketing and Business Development at Nakina Systems Inc.  Prior to Nakina, he spent  over 10 years specializing in high tech marketing, engaging both as a strategic marketing consultant and in senior level positions with emerging companies in the fields of video networking, mobile data technologies, and telecom software solutions.   With a focus on strategy and competitive differentiation, he’s served as a driving force in helping businesses translate technology and products into value for customers, partners, and other key stakeholders.  He’s authored business plans that have garnered over $30 million in venture capital financing and has played a leading role in helping organizations develop operating plans that effectively execute their long-term strategies for success. 
Costa holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from McGill University in Montreal and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.
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Michael Couture is the Vice President of Solutions Marketing for Amdocs. Mr. Couture leads a global team of telecom and financial services professionals focused on bringing comprehensive packaged solutions to market based on Amdocs’ products, services and deep business knowledge as well as those of Amdocs’ partners. Previously, Mr. Couture served as Vice President, Global Marketing Communications, Vice President, Product Marketing and Director of Product Marketing in the areas of Mobile, CRM and Prepaid. Mr. Couture was formerly with the Solect division of Amdocs where he held the positions of Product Manager, Billing and Rating and Product Manager, Emerging Markets. Mr. Couture holds a BA in Economics summa cum laude, as well as an MBA from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.
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Matthew DelPercio
, is an associate analyst at Yankee Group in their Small & Medium Business Strategies Decision Service. Matthew focuses on the buying preferences, requirements, channel support needs, and customer-centric strategies related to small and medium businesses. He has a particular focus on VoIP and IP telephony, from both a hosted and premises-based perspectives. Matt also brings experience with analyzing master data management issues as a part of a broader enterprise application focus. Before joining Yankee Group, he served as an analyst with UBS Financial Services, Inc. There he worked closely under a set of financial advisors conducing equity and fixed-income research as part of portfolio management strategies. He holds a B.S/B.A. degree from Boston University with a concentration in finance.  
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Jerome Dubois is the Vice President of Communications, Media, and Energy for Yantra, a Sterling Commerce company. Mr. Dubois has ten years of software experience - leading over 25 implementations and sales wins in Telecommunications, Retail, and the Defense industries. He has an MBA from Northeastern University and a BSME from the University of New Hampshire.
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Adi Dulberg co-founded NextNine in 1998 and has served as NextNine's CEO since July 2003. Before assuming his current role at NextNine, Mr. Dulberg served as VP R&D, Chief Technology Officer and Executive VP of Business Development and Professional Services. Prior to NextNine, Mr. Dulberg co-founded and served as CEO of BiTec, a systems engineering consulting company, where he led large-scale consulting projects. Mr. Dulberg is a graduate of the Israeli Defense Forces' Talpiot Program, and holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Sam Dunning is a freelance writer living in Chicago, IL.  He has written for numerous print and online publications, and has experience as an educator in technical fields.  When not writing about telecom and OSS, Sam enjoys dabbling in fiction and riding his bike along the lakeshore.
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Benjamin Ellis is Vice President of Global Marketing, Psytechnics.  Prior to joining Psytechnics, Ellis was at Juniper Networks, where he was Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications, and previously head of Product and Solutions marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. His track record includes tenures at a number of successful blue-chip Silicon Valley companies, including Cisco Systems.
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Jonathan Feldman is Senior Vice President, Strategic Development and Marketing at GlobeCast America, where he is responsible for leading the development of the company's strategy, and pursuing new business opportunities including partnerships, alliances, and joint ventures.  A 20-year-plus industry veteran, he has held key roles in product development, technical operations, information technology, sales and customer service management with leading players in the satellite industry.
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Ken Ferderer is CTO of LineSider Technologies. His career in information technology and telecom spans more than 13 years. Before joining LineSider in 2007, he was Chief Information Officer for TelCove, overseeing their Information Technology department, systems and strategy. Prior to TelCove, he served as vice president and chief information officer for Priority Telecom, a telecommunications company headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In his career, he has also held other senior-level IT positions at companies such as Cignal Global Communications, Level (3) Communications, and PKS Information Services. Mr. Ferderer received his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from DeVry Institute of Technology in Phoenix, Ariz., in 1991. An experienced and widely respected industry professional, he was named as one of the Premier 100 IT Leaders in 2007 by Computerworld Magazine.
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Suzanne Finch joined Rodopi Software as Director of Marketing Communications in April, 2004, and is responsible for the company's corporate communications, PR, branding strategy and marketing strategy. Finch brings 15 years of high-tech marketing experience to Rodopi, having previously worked in the network and wireless hardware industries. Finch earned a B.A. in journalism/advertising from Iowa State University.  
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Jeff Gordon is Senior Vice President, Convergys Innovation Center. Convergys Corporation is the global leader in customer management, human resources, and billing services.
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Wedge Greene is currently working as CTO and Founder of FineGrain Networks.  He also participates on the Advisory Boards of several companies.  Up until July 2002 he was a Distinguished Technical Member at MCI WorldCom responsible for the architecture and future direction of operations support systems.  Mr. Greene is generally considered a world thought leader on distributed application systems, survivable systems, telecommunications products, OSS, billing, data communication networks, and automated work management.  He has authored over a dozen patents or patents pending.
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Alana Grelyak is currently the publishing assistant and assistant editor for Pipeline. Her work has appeared in Time Out Chicago, Lumino Magazine, Midwest Beat, CMA Today, Punchline, and others. Alana earned BM and MM degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and she works as a writer and a musician in Chicago.
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Rami Hadar is CEO and President of Allot Communications. Over his 16 year career, Hadar has had extensive experience founding and leading telecommunications companies and has worked in various countries including the United States successfully developing business in over 30 countries worldwide. Early in his career, Hadar founded and served as CEO of CTP Systems (micro cellular networks) until its acquisition by DSP Communications. Hadar continued with DSPC's executive management team for two years, and thereafter, the company was acquired by Intel.

Hadar went on to co-found Ensemble Communications, a pioneer in the broadband wireless space and the WiMax standard, where he served as executive vice president, sales and marketing. Following as CEO of Native Networks, Hadar was instrumental in successfully shaping the company into a market-driven provider of MPLS based solutions to tier-1 telecoms and in orchestrating the company’s ultimate acquisition by Alcatel.
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John Hansen is Chief Executive Officer of Vallent Corporation and has a proven track record for developing world-class organizations and increasing sales of products and services. Before joining Vallent Corporation, John was the Secretary of Technology for the State of Colorado. Prior to his transition to the public sector, John founded Metapath Corporation in 1994, a software development company specializing in billing and customer management solutions for the telecommunications industry. During his tenure as founder and Chief Executive Officer, John assembled a world-class management team, grew first year revenues of $1 million to over $26 million dollars in fiscal year 1998, and initiated a complex merger with UK-based Mobile Systems International. The combined entity was ultimately purchased by Marconi PLC for $720 million. John earned his bachelor of science degree in computer science from Brigham Young University and, more recently, his MBA from University of Washington.
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Claire Hara is an Assistant Editor for Pipeline
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Steve Hilton: As director of the Small & Medium Business Strategies Decision Service, Steve Hilton manages consulting, research and programs to help vendors and service providers better serve SMBs and mid-market enterprises. Specifically, he helps clients make decisions regarding the use of technology or services, including applications, IT infrastructure and communications services, to improve time-to-market, cash flow, loyalty and to reduce churn. He provides support for the team and outreaches directly to press and media about topics related to technology and communications products relevant for SMBs and mid-market enterprises. As a speaker at various industry and client forums, Hilton maintains a brisk pace of market outreach activities with the popular, business and trade media.

Before joining Yankee Group, Hilton owned his own consultancy helping private equity funds complete due diligence and pick winning technology and telecommunications investments. Hilton has worked for Lucent Technology/Kenan Systems as a senior manager of market development for Lucent's billing and order management software products. He has also held finance roles with TDS and provided financing assistance for Aerial Communications/T-Mobile. With more than 12 years of experience, he has helped companies with market research, survey design, focus group design, competitive analysis, strategic planning, business development, public and private financing, financial modeling, and mergers and acquisitions analysis.
Hilton holds a B.A. degree in economics from the University of Chicago, and a master's of management degree in marketing from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
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Joe Hogan is the CTO, Founder and board member of Openet. He has more than 20 years software engineering experience from his years with Openet, Retix Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. Joe was a senior architect with Sun's European kernel development centre before leaving to found Openet. He is the principal architect of Openet's Fusionworks, ActiveCharge and ActiveRate frameworks and is responsible for Openet's engineering group and CTO technology office. He represents the company in the IETF, 3GPP, IPDR.org and GBA forums and frequently speaks and chairs billing mediation, IMS and prepaid conferences throughout Europe, Asia and North America.
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Dr Mike Hollier is CTO of Psytechnics, and has more than 12 years experience in the telecommunications industry within BT where he was Head of Multi-Modal Perception Research, responsible for directing BT’s research into perceptual engineering. A founder member of Psytechnics, whilst at BT, his team created the award winning PAMS (Perceptual Analysis Measurement System) speech quality measurement method which later became part of the new world standard - P.862.
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Bruce Kelley, Jr. is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at NetScout Systems, and works directly with CEO Anil Singhal and NetScout’s Fortune 500 service provider and enterprise customers to set the company’s strategic technology direction. Mr. Kelley joined NetScout in 2000, following its acquisition of NextPoint Networks, which he co-founded in 1996. Prior to assuming his current position as NetScout’s Chief Technology Officer in 2001, Mr. Kelley served as Vice President of Engineering, Service Level Management.  Mr. Kelley has presented at various IT industry and financial conferences, including the CIO Perspectives Conference and Interop. He is also the recipient of two patents in network and performance management.
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Vivek Khattar is the Associate Vice-President & Research Services Director (Business and Industrial Research Division) of IMRB International.
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Stephen Krajewski is the Manager, Product Marketing - Amdocs Self Service for Amdocs. Stephen Krajewski is responsible for product marketing activities for Amdocs Self Service. In this capacity, he drives market awareness for the role Amdocs Self Service plays in enabling an integrated customer management business strategy for service providers. He has been with Amdocs since June 2004. Stephen has more than 12 years of experience in software product and service delivery in billing and customer care, working with leading clients across Europe and North America.
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Barbara Lancaster is founder and President of LTC International Inc., she brings in-depth experience of the telecommunications industry from a number of perspectives. Prior to founding LTC International, Barbara worked in telecommunications for more than twenty-five years, during which period she held a wide range of positions in telecommunications customer service and billing management. She is an acknowledged authority in this field, specializing in user requirements analysis, systems design, data analysis, sales prospecting and methods development. As a management consultant, she has worked with a wide range of clients in North America and overseas to create and implement customer care and billing solutions, organization strategies, and market position strategies. Barbara has a well-established reputation as an effective and powerful communicator, as a trainer, and as a professional speaker. Barbara is a regular presenter at industry conferences and seminars.  
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Alon Lelcuk is the Vice President, Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Personeta, a leading provider of next generation network service platforms and IMS application servers. Alon has over a decade and a half of experience in network-based IT systems for IP, wireless and fixed carriers. He has served as an expert telecommunications consultant on OSS systems and security issues. Alon was chief technology officer at Liacom, a leading network engineering company. Prior to co-founding Personeta, Alon was vice president and chief technology officer at Macom Networking Ltd, where he led the creation of first-generation eCommerce systems.
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Grant F. Lenahan is Vice President, IMS Service Delivery Solutions, for Telcordia, and is responsible for defining product and market strategies. As part of these responsibilities, he leads the specification of Telcordia’s next-generation of OSS, service platforms and technologies that will enable wireless and cable operators to offer content-rich, IP based and converged networks. Mr. Lenahan’s experience includes 20 years with Telcordia Technologies, working in such diverse areas as Generic Requirements, transmission engineering, video services design, economic analysis and operational analysis of new communications technologies/services. Grant is also the author of numerous papers in the areas of Next Generation Networking (“NGN”), Wireless services, and the impact that advanced services will have on the business models and economics of fixed and mobile operators. Prior to joining Bellcore in 1984, Mr. Lenahan worked for GTE Lenkurt, Inc., GTE's transmission equipment manufacturing arm. He received his B.A. in Economics and Mathematics (Computer Science) from Drew University and a joint Master's Degree from the School of Engineering and the Sloan School of Management from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
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James Lochran,  is the VP Solution Strategy – Communications, Media & Entertainment for CA. Jim has 10 years experience defining and developing service assurance solutions for the telecommunications industry inclusive of Wireline, Wireless and Cable providers. Jim’s background is in development and solution architecture within Aprisma Management Technologies flagship product SPECTRUM.  In this role, Jim lead several development projects focused on extending SPECTRUM’s scalability, technology support and root cause analysis capability to address the needs of the service provider community. Currently, Jim is leading a team of solution architects within the CA Communications, Media & Entertainment business unit, focused on helping CA’s Communication, Media and Entertainment customers achieve their goals by providing solutions that unify, simplify and secure the service delivery infrastructure.
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Josee Loudiadis works on IP network and service management activities at Alcatel-Lucent.  She came to Alcatel-Lucent through the acquisition of Newbridge Networks, where she served in the business development of OSS independent software vendors (ISV).  Ms. Loudiadis holds a masters degree in Engineering.
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Kevin  Macaluso is Vice President of the Service Router product group within the IP Networks Division (IPD) of Alcatel. In his current role, he manages the complete lifecycle and P&L of Alcatel's IP/MPLS  Service Router and Ethernet Service Switch product lines and is a leader in developing Alcatel's IP strategy. Kevin holds an MBA from Harvard Business School (1993) and a BSEE from Santa Clara University (1985).
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Robert Malnati is Senior Director of Business Development at Leapstone Systems, Inc.  He has more than 15 years experience defining and implementing communications solutions that address operator requirements for new revenue generation and efficiency.  He can be reached at rmalnati@leapstone.com.
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Tom Mangan is the Senior Vice President in charge of customer management professional and consulting services at Convergys Corporation. Whether supporting companies with in-house customer care operations, or those that choose to outsource, Convergys’ real-world expertise and experience solving complex customer management problems helps companies enhance the customer experience, reduce customer interaction costs, and apply business analytics to improve operations throughout the business to grow profits and customer satisfaction. Convergys is outthinking and outdoing™ on behalf of its clients every day.
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Steve McCarthy is the Head of Mobile Market Sales at Syndesis Ltd. Syndesis is a global provider of solutions for communications service delivery management and data integrity management, enabling service providers worldwide to profitably deliver Triple Play, IPTV, VoIP and other next-generation services.  More information is available at www.Syndesis.com.
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Alexandra Mehat joined Rodopi Software as Marketing Manager in June 2007, and is responsible for the company’s marketing planning, coordination and strategy. She brings 10 years of high-tech experience to Rodopi, in areas such as Product Management, Product Marketing, Partner relationship and pre-sales for the VoIP softswitch and Intelligent Networks industries. Mrs Mehat earned two Masters in Marketing and in Telecommunications respectively from Universite Paris Dauphine and Institut National des Telecommunications in France.
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Vinay Mehta is a Vice President in Convergys Corporation’s product management group, responsible for product management and market strategy.  Convergys’ Infinys software offers an IMS-ready solution that enables operators to evolve their BSS environment with minimal risk.
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Sanjay Mewada is the Vice President of Strategy at NetCracker. His responsibilities include overseeing the strategic direction of the company and managing the company's partnership program. Prior to NetCracker, Sanjay was at the Yankee Group, where he was the vice president of the Telecom Software Strategies (TSS) Decision Service. Sanjay holds a B.S. degree in physics and an MBA from Bombay University. He also holds a Master's Degree in international business from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
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Matt Milford is the CTO of Leapstone Systems, Inc. Matt has been designing and developing innovative software solutions for carrier networks and large corporate systems for more than 20 years. Before joining Leapstone, Matt was Vice President of Research and Development for Qwest, where he ran a large software engineering and development team responsible for building a converged network integration platform.  He also has patents pending for the technology related to Leapstone's Communications Convergence Engine (CCE) products.
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Yaron Morgenstern is the Marketing Manager for the Revenue Management products unit of Amdocs. He serves on the marketing team responsible for defining the business strategy and product direction for Amdocs' products support pre-paid and convergent wireless service. Yaron's previous experience within Amdocs includes leading business analysis and system integration projects for major North American operators. Yaron is studying for his MBA and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Ben Gurion University, Israel.
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Brian Naughton is VP Architecture and Strategy for Axiom Systems. Brian joined Axiom Systems in May 2006 from global telecommunications provider Cable & Wireless, where he reported to the Group CIO in an IT Architecture and Strategy role. Most recently Brian was responsible for C&W global fulfillment architecture and was instrumental in creating the next generation OSS blueprint that underpins C&W’s transformation to NGN (Next Generation Networks).

Over the last 15 years, Brian has held a number of senior roles within leading IT and Telecommunications companies focusing on the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) arena. Prior to C&W, Brian worked on defining strategic ICT initiatives for companies such as British Telecom, Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems and Intel. Prior to that, Brian was Director of Telecoms Strategy for Sonic Software, where he was an early evangelist for the value of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services-based approach to the industry.
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Mark Nicholson, as Chief Technology Officer for Subex Azure, is responsible for the company’s long-term technology strategy and for driving the definition, direction and development of the Subex Azure software suite, encompassing Service Fulfillment, Revenue Assurance, Fraud and Risk Management. Prior to joining Subex Azure by way of Syndesis, Mark served as CTO of the Nortel eBusiness Solutions, where he was responsible for the provisioning suite of products, their integration into the Nortel Service Management portfolio, and targeting the solutions to the service provider marketplace.
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Brad Niven is the Regional Director for the Americas at Axiom Systems. With over 15 years in OSS and 20+ years in communications technology, Brad talks about the opportunities IMS presents and considers provisioning for convergent services in an IMS world.
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Antonio Nucci is the Chief Technology Officer for Narus.
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Patricia O’Hara, is responsible for marketing communications at NetCracker Technology. She has extensive experience in the telecommunications arena from both equipment and software companies that delivered solutions to service providers and large corporate enterprises. Most recently from Quantum Bridge Communications, a pioneer in the fiber access marketplace, where she helped established the company as an industry leader. Pat also has been associated with Xircom and Brooktrout Technology, she has a BS in Marketing from Boston College.  
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David Page is the Chief Technology Officer for Nexagent. Prior to co-founding Nexagent in 2000, David was Manager of Consulting Engineering with Cisco Systems' NSP Europe from 1998 to 2001. He was responsible for the technology strategy of a $1billion line of business, aligning customer strategy with Cisco's technology R&D plans. Prior to Cisco, David was responsible for the technical architecture of large-scale, multi-national, managed network service deals at IBM Global Network Services and BT Managed Network Services. Previously David was a Lead Engineer at NatWest worked in defence research at Marconi. He graduated from Bath University with a degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering.
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Dhananjay Pavgi is Sr. Consultant – OSS Product Management with TechMahindra, and has 11 years of Telecom Domain experience.  Dhananjay has worked extensively on NM/OSS systems and solutions, architecting complex projects at large Tier 1 telcos across the globe.  In addition, Dhananjay has delivered webinars on OSS/J SQM, TMF MTNM-OSS/J harmonization and other topics as a member of the TMF.  In addition, Dhananjay has participated in various Telecom industry conferences as speaker.
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Sergio Pellizzari is the Chief Solutions Architect for Nakina Systems.  In his Chief Solutions Architect role, Sergio has responsibility for Nakina Systems' future product roadmap by working closely with customers to understand their needs and how Nakina Systems' expertise can solve their operational issues. Sergio spent 18 years working at Bell Northern Research and Nortel Networks and was involved in the infancy of Nortel's highly successful line of HiCap and Metro Optical products. Sergio led design and architectural teams delivering management solutions for all Optical products and was involved in unifying management solutions of newly acquired products or those affiliated through joint-ventures.
Sergio is one of Nakina's founders and one of Nakina's key speakers and has presented several joint papers with Nakina customers at Telemanagement forum, Billing and OSS World and various HP software and customer forums.
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Neil Philpott is the Director of Solutions Strategy at Amdocs. Neil's team is responsible for: understanding the impact of emerging trends and business drivers on Service Provider's business support systems today; defining the resulting market requirements; positioning Amdocs' offers to the market to address these requirements.
Neil has more than 20 years management and consulting experience. He has worked extensively in the communications industry for fixed network and mobile operators in many parts of the world. His expertise covers business development, management, marketing, information systems strategy, change management and all stages of the software systems lifecycle. Neil was President of the Global Billing Association from 2002 to 2004 and remains a member of the GBA Executive Council.  
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Jeff Popoff is the Vice President of Marketing of Redknee. Jeff is responsible for the company’s strategic market development, product marketing, and marketing communications programs to support Redknee’s ongoing growth. Prior to Redknee, Jeff has been involved in the wireless and telecommunications industry since 1986, including supporting the first AMPS, TDMA and CDMA networks in North America and postings in both Europe and Asia Pacific launching GSM services. Jeff ran a wireless incubator in the Texas “Telecom Corridor” and led a Mergers and Acquisitions team in Silicon Valley. Jeff has a B.A.Sc. degree (Honors) in Systems Engineering (Canada), is a Chartered Engineer in Europe, and has an Executive MBA from Stanford University. He now lives in Silicon Valley, California.
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Dana Porter is the Director of Product Marketing for the Revenue Management Products Division of Amdocs. In her current role, Dana is in charge of defining the business strategy for Amdocs billing, mediation and settlement products. Her previous experience includes management consulting in the areas of business strategy, channel marketing and systems integration within the high-tech and communications industries. Dana holds an MBA from New York University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Ben Gurion University, Israel.
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Marc Price is Senior Telecoms Strategist, CTO Office for Openet. Marc is a senior subject matter expert in telecommunications systems, with more than 15 years of experience working extensively with customers to define strategies and deploy world-class solutions for mediation, rating and billing.  He has worked with some of the largest U.S. and European communications providers to achieve business success, most notably providing strategic assistance to some of the world's top wireline, wireless and cable companies implementing complex services across diverse networks.  Before joining Openet, Marc was the lead software architect for a real-time, object-oriented rating and billing system for convergent telecommunications service providers.  He holds honors degrees in mechanical engineering and international relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Chris Purdy brings more than 20 years of relevant OSS, EMS and NMS experience to Nakina in his role as Chief Technology Officer. In 19 years with Nortel Networks, Chris established a highly successful track record as Director, Product Line Management. Among his many accomplishments at NORTEL, Chris led the cross corporate project to create Nortel's end-to-end Optical Ethernet Network Management Solution giving Nortel a key market differentiator in their Optical Ethernet market offering built around the Optera Metro, Baystack, and Passport Ethernet switching platforms. Chris graduated from the University of Toronto with a BASc (Electrical Engineering) in 1985.
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Dr. Supranamaya Ranjan is a senior member of the technical staff in the Office of Narus CTO. He obtained his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Rice University and brings a wealth of expertise in designing solutions for detecting and tracking all things malicious in the Internet, including worms, spam, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and botnets. Dr. Ranjan also holds a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Rice University and obtained his Bachelor's in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He has held research internships at HP Labs and Google. Dr. Ranjan has won numerous awards, including the prestigious National Talent Scholarship awarded to 500 scholars annually by the Government of India.
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Mr. Vinay Rathore is the Director of Service Provider Marketing for CIENA. Mr. Rathore is a seasoned member of the telecom community with 15 years of experience. He has helped some of the world’s largest service providers including Sprint International, Global One and MCI design, build and market their newest products and services. Mr. Rathore’s areas of expertise include network engineering, operations, sales & marketing in both wireline and wireless systems and networking technology that includes IP, MPLS, Ethernet, ATM & Optics. Mr. Rathore holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute as well as an MBA from the University of Texas.
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Norman Rice is the Vice President of CA’s Communications, Media & Entertainment (CME) business unit, a group he helped form in October 2005 to better meet the needs of CA’s CME customers. Norman joined CA through its acquisition of Concord Communications where he was Vice President of Business Development. Prior to Concord, he was a member of the management team for Aprisma (joined in 2002) where he was brought in by the private equity owner, Gores Technology Group, to help turn the company around and return it to profitability before was sold to Concord in early 2005. Prior to joining Aprisma, Norman served as Director of Solutions for HoustonStreet Exchange. He also served as the Director of Business Development - Europe for Strategy.Com, a subsidiary of MicroStrategy, Inc., where he managed the International Finance and Portfolio Services channels as part of a multi-national, pan-European online banking business for Deutsche Bank. Before his work at Strategy.Com, Norman co-founded and sold a software company that developed statistical software for the environmental services industry. Norman holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan, is a Distinguished Fellow from Dartmouth College where he earned an M.B.A. and an M.S. in Engineering, and is published in several academic and industry journals. Norman serves on the board of early stage companies and is an active member of Dartmouth Entrepreneur Network.
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Ciaran Roche is the Lead Technical Consultant for Vanco, US.  Ciaran joined Vanco in 2001 and is currently a senior technical consultant and member of Vanco’s global design council. He is responsible for solution development in support of Vanco USA’s customer requirements and in this capacity has worked with numerous US based multi-national corporations to design a range of custom global network solutions. Prior to working with Vanco, Ciaran spent a number of years with Virtual Access in both the United Kingdom and Ireland working on the design and deployment of managed broadband Solutions for large enterprises.
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Robert Rosenberg is President of the INSIGHT Research Corporation, a Boonton, NJ-based consultancy providing comparative market research and competitive analysis to the telecommunications industry. He has commented on telecommunications industry developments for the BBC, Fox and CNBC TV networks and has been quoted in Newsweek, USA Today, and leading telecom trade publications. INSIGHT's recent work includes studies in the areas of operations support systems, IP telephony, and telecommunications usage by Hispanic consumers.

Mr. Rosenberg has over twenty years experience in telecommunications and data communications. Prior to forming INSIGHT in 1990, he was a senior consultant with the Eastern Management Group. Mr. Rosenberg was also senior computer editor at Data Communications magazine and served as editor on the staff of Electronics magazine where he was responsible for all telecommunications coverage. He won several journalistic awards including the McGraw-Hill Award for Editorial Excellence and has written about telecommunications for the Encyclopedia Britannica. He has also been a consultant to the Northrop Aircraft Corp. and Ford Aerospace. Mr. Rosenberg attended the M.S. Program in Telecommunications, College of Electrical Engineering, at the University of Colorado. He holds a B.A. from U. of Colorado and an M.A. from the Claremont Colleges.
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Kenneth Rugg is Vice President of Data Management Products for the Progress Software DataXtend and ObjectStore product lines. A 20-year veteran of the software industry, in 2002 Rugg joined the company as a result of Progress Software Corporation's acquisition of eXcelon Corp., where he was Vice President of Product Development and Chief Technology Officer. Rugg previously spent more than 10 years at eXcelon in leadership roles directing functions ranging from technical support and education to documentation, QA and product development. Rugg studied computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Rick Schmaltz is currently the Vice President of the Telecommunications Business Unit for the Wily Technology Division of CA, Inc. In his current role, Rick is responsible for developing and implementing the overall go to market strategy for Wily for the global communications market. He is a senior executive with over twenty-five years experience in technology, telecommunications and software. Rick has seventeen years experience as a company officer and six years experience as a member of the board of directors for both privately and publicly held companies.
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Dr. Gadi Solotorevsky is a Specialist in the field of Revenue Assurance (RA) with large experience in developing and deploying RA solutions. Dr. Solotorevsky is the chair of the RA team of the TeleManagement Forum, and is one of the authors of TR131. In addition, he is a member of the TMF advisory board. Dr. Solotorevsky joined cVidya Networks in year 2000 as its Chief Scientist, leading since then the design and development of cVidya's IP, methodology, and products.  Dr. Solotorevsky holds a B.Sc., M.Sc. and PhD in Computer Science. Dr. Solotorevsky wrote several scientific papers on Distributed Artificial Intelligence and Resource Allocation.
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Dr. Mohammad S. Shakouri is WiMAX Forum Board Member and VP of Marketing and Assistant Vice President of Business Development for Alvarion. He has 20 years of experience in wireless system, microwave and fiber optic networks. Previously, during three years at Lucent, Shakouri was responsible for managing, building, and developing network solutions for European and South American broadband wireless markets. Shakouri also spent 14 years in technical and management positions with Hewlett Packard developing microwave and fiber optic communication components and systems. He co-founded the wireless systems division, where he was responsible for the engineering team developing low-cost residential digital wireless systems for U.S. and Asian markets. Shakouri earned his doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University on Subpicosecond GaAs Wafer Probe Systems. In addition to his position with the WiMAX Forum, Shakouri is on the board of directors for the Wireless Communications Association and is an IEEE MTT-SVC chairman.
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Mehdi Sif is Director, Triple Play Solutions Marketing for Alcatel, in Mountain View, California, USA. Mr. Sif has previously held multiple senior product line management and marketing positions at Bay Networks, Shasta Networks (Nortel Networks), and Juniper Networks. Mr. Sif is the recipient of the 2004 U.S. Presidential Volunteer Service Award for his ICT sector assessment work with the International Executive Service Corps.
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Scott Sobers is Director, Solutions Marketing, Service Provider Industry at Micromuse, where he is responsible for developing the go-to-market strategies, rollout of new products and solutions, and identifying emerging growth markets worldwide for Micromuse's global software business. He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Maryland and a MBA from Georgetown University.  
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Chris Thatcher, CISSP, is National Practice Director, Enterprise Security, for Dimension Data North America.  
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Roger Thompson is Technology Advisor, Wireline Solutions, at Nortel.
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Richard Tomlinson, Ph D. is Executive Vice President overseeing the NPRG’s consulting services. Over the years, Dr. Tomlinson has produced hundreds of market studies, business plans, technology evaluations, venture analyses and technical papers. Dr. Tomlinson has written and co-written several books and holds five technical patents. Prior to joining NPRG, he was founder and President of Connecticut Research, Inc., a boutique consulting firm specializing in technology analysis, business strategy and plan development and product development. Dr. Tomlinson is a Senior Life Member of the Institute of the IEEE and holds three electric engineering degrees; a PhD from Ohio State University and BS and MS degrees from Case-Western Reserve University. He also holds an MBA from RPI.
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Dr. Venu Venugopal is the VP of Solutions Marketing at CA with responsibility for leading CA’s solutions strategy and marketing efforts for the Industry Verticals, including Communications, Media and Entertainment. Previously he was a Director of Product Management for Security Management solutions at CA. Prior to joining CA in 2004 he was a Senior Manager for Product Management at Sprint-Nextel, where he was responsible for founding and directing Sprint’s IP VPN and Security Services, a portfolio of over twelve managed and unmanaged services. His tenure at Sprint also included positions as Senior Manager for Network Security Services and Principal Program Manager for Managed Network Services, with responsibility for building OSS/BSS to support a portfolio of managed services. Prior to his eight years at Sprint, he was a research faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and a Senior Software Engineer at Wipro, Bangalore, India. He holds MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering and an MBA in Marketing, and has over 25 conference presentations/publications and 2 patents to his credit.
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Eran Wagner is Vice President, Head of Product Strategy, Amdocs Products Group.  Eran Wagner is responsible for developing Amdocs’ overall product strategy, including portfolio planning, foundational products, product integration, demo capabilities, and the development of targeted solutions. He joined Amdocs in early 2004 as vice president - IPTV. His role has expanded from spearheading Amdocs’ IPTV initiatives to overseeing all Amdocs’ content products to, now, guiding the company’s overall product strategy.
Prior to Amdocs, Eran co-founded in 1997 XACCT Technologies Inc., which Amdocs acquired in 2004. He holds a Bachelors of Science degree from Tel-Aviv University and patents granted by the U.S. Patent Office, including one for a distributed network accounting and billing system and method. He is based in San Jose, California.
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Lars Wahlstrom is Group Vice President, Communications, Media, and Utilities; Oracle. Lars Wahlström joined Oracle in December 2000.  His current role involves defining the strategy and go to market approach of Oracle in the Communications, Media and Utilities segments as well as assisting the countries in implementing these strategies and approaches. Lars has spent the last 17 years in the communications and software domain.
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Neil Webb has almost 10 years experience in the IT Telecommunications industry, and over 20 years in the IT industry in general. He has be involved in many aspects of the development of the S2Net products since shortly after their inception. His experience in recent years has focused on the deployment and integration of the S2Net Keeping Promises and Inventory product suites Telco's OSS/BSS domains and systems, most recently with S2Net initiatives in North America.
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Alastair Westgarth is the Chief Operating Officer for Tango Networks. He has more than 16 years of wireless and data communications experience, serving in executive-level positions at Airspan, Inner Wireless, First Broadcasting, Navini Networks, Nortel, and Bell Mobility.  At Tango Networks, Alastair is responsible for ongoing operations management of the organization, overseeing engineering, business development, and sales and marketing.  Tango Networks integrates mobile phones into the corporate enterprise, enabling any mobile phone to become a true PBX extension on the enterprise network. The Tango Abrazo is a fixed-mobile convergence solution that meets the needs of end users, enterprises, and mobile operators. For more information, visit www.tango-networks.com.
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Tom Wiencko is a professional consultant who has worked in the telecom industry for over 20 years.  Mr. Wiencko is an expert in many areas of telecommunications technology related to systems and business processes.  As President of Wiencko & Associates, he has led projects for major carriers in a wide variety of systems areas, such as the first switch based real-time billing application, a precursor to current prepaid systems, mediation platforms, performance management, and transport management, ordering and workflow systems.  Mr. Wiencko has also personally managed large network integrations and technical consolidations as the result of industry consolidation mergers.  He can be reached at: tew@wiencko.com.
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Michal Winkler is the Senior Director of Product Marketing as Actelis Networks and has more than 15 years of Product Marketing and Management experience. Prior to joining Actelis Networks, Inc. in 2001, Mrs. Winkler was the CTO of startup Be Connected where she lead the company’s strategic planning, intellectual properties and played a key role in transforming the technology into a leading commercial product. Earlier Mrs. Winkler worked for Telrad Telecommunications as product manager for the Access Division. Prior to that she was the system engineer of the Broadband Systems Department for Telrad where she led the OEM broadband access and transport product development for Nortel Networks. Mrs. Winkler also spent five years specifying products and guiding the development of various communication projects for the Israeli Army. Mrs. Winkler holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Technion and a MBA from Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration, Tel-Aviv University.
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Tim Young is Pipeline’s Editor-in-Chief. He has been covering OSS and telecommunications issues for the last three years, and enjoys the dynamic nature of the industry. A South Carolina native, he attended Appalachian State University in North Carolina, where he received his B.A. in History. As a freelance writer, Tim has written for numerous websites and regional print publications throughout the Southeast and Midwest. Tim has been with Pipeline since the beginning of 2005, and has served as Editor-in-Chief since February of 2006. When not working with Pipeline, Tim is a part-time educator and performs improv and sketch comedy. Most recently, Tim co-wrote and performed in The Fowler Family Radio Hour, which can be seen on the e.t.c. stage of Chicago’s famed Second City Theater.
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Bohdan Zabawskyj is the Chief Technology Officer of Redknee. Bohdan is responsible for formulating the framework of Redknee's strategic efforts with particular attention to directing the evolution of the Redknee application development framework to meet the requirements of next-generation mobile networks. Prior to Redknee, Bohdan worked at Telus Mobility (Clearnet), Bell Mobility and Bell Canada as Director for Research and Development. Bohdan has a B.A.Sc. (Honours) degree from the University of Toronto, an M.Eng degree from McGill University, and has an MBA (IT option) degree at Athabasca University. He now lives in Woodbridge, Canada.
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