Telecom Executive Moves – Second Half of June

Welcome to another installment of Telco Moves!

Your biweekly guide to the notable hires, promotions and leadership changes in the global Telecom and ICT community.

Here are some of the major executive moves announcements from the second half of June 2020.

You can review the leadership announcements from the first half of June 2020 via this link. 

• T-mobile
• Juniper
• Safaricom
• NTT
• ZTE
• Syniverse
• MATRIXX Software
• Cisco
• MTN
• Liquid Telecom
• Ericsson
• Virgin Mobile
• Telia
• Nokia
• Ribbon Communications
• Telekom Slovenije
• Oracle
• Genesys
• Vodacom
• Charter Communications
• Nutanix
• Global Cloud Exchange
• F5
• NGMN 
• MongoDB

T-mobile

T‑Mobile Names Peter Osvaldik as Un‑carrier’s new Chief Financial Officer; Announces Retirement of CFO Braxton Carter

T-Mobile US announced the company has promoted Peter Osvaldik, T-Mobile’s current senior vice president, Finance and Chief Accounting Officer, to Chief Financial Officer (CFO) effective July 1, 2020.

Osvaldik will assume the CFO role as current CFO Braxton Carter plans to retire on July 1, 2020 at the conclusion of his previously announced contract extension.

Juniper

Juniper Networks Appoints New Chief Information Officer

Safaricom

Safaricom names Ilanna Darcy as interim CFO

NTT

NTT appoints Simon Walsh as CEO for the Americas

NTT Ltd. announced Simon Walsh as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for its Americas business. Walsh will report to NTT Ltd. Global CEO, Jason Goodall.

Prior to joining NTT, Walsh served as CEO for North America at Atos. He has held numerous leadership positions, including Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Virtustream, Dell Technologies’ global cloud business, where he led its global expansion, and Senior Vice President and COO for EMC across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

NTT Ltd. Philippines announces new CEO

Ireen Catane is the new CEO for NTT Ltd. in the Philippines. She assumes the leadership role with immediate effect and will report to Kim-Meng Png, ASEAN CEO for NTT Ltd. 

Prior to joining NTT Ltd., Catane held various country leadership roles in HP, Dell, IBM and most recently as Enterprise Commercial Director at Microsoft Philippines.

NTT have also announced additional changes to their executive leadership team – more information can be found HERE, HERE and HERE. 

ZTE

ZTE appoints Ni Fei as its President of Mobile Devices to strengthen resource integration for 5G opportunities

ZTE Corporation has named Ni Fei as its President of Mobile Devices. Mr. Ni is to take full charge of ZTE’s mobile devices business while at the same time he continues to act as President of Nubia Technology Co., Ltd.

Ni Fei joined ZTE in 2001, and has been engaged in ZTE’s terminal product operation since 2004. In 2012, he participated in the establishment of Nubia and became the General Manager of Nubia Smartphones. In May 2019, he acted as President of Nubia.

Syniverse

MATRIXX Software

MATRIXX Software Success Attracts Telco Veterans, Appoints Five Strategic Advisors

MATRIXX Software announced the appointment of five strategic advisors with deep experience in building high growth telecom technology companies. 

• Hassan Ahmed – Founder, Former CEO and Chairman of Affirmed Networks, recently acquired by Microsoft. Prior to Affirmed, Hassan served as Chairman and CEO of Sonus Networks (Nasdaq:SONS). Before Sonus, he was EVP and GM of the Core Switching division of Ascend Communications (Nasdaq: ASND) and VP Engineering and Chief Technology Officer of Cascade Communications (Nasdaq: CSCC). Hassan has also held key leadership positions at Motorola and Analog Devices.
• Daniel Collins – Co-Founder and CTO of Jasper Technologies and former CTO of Cisco IoT Business Unit after Cisco acquired Jasper in 2016 for $1.4B. Daniel is an experienced leader and author in the telecommunications space. Prior to Jasper, Daniel held senior positions with Alcatel, TeleworX and Ericsson and was instrumental in successfully launching new, category-defining technologies globally, including 3G and the Internet of Things.
• Heinz Herren – Former CTO, CIO and current Executive Board Member of Swisscom. Heinz has also lent his expertise to many well-known companies by participating on their Board of Directors or Investment Committees, including Cablex Ltd, Swisscom Broadcast, Park Innovaare Ltd., Swiss Innovation, tiko Energy Solutions, and Credit Suisse.
• Cliff Johnson – Former Senior Vice President of Jasper Technologies and Vice President Global IoT Service Operations at Cisco after Jasper was acquired in 2016. Prior to Jasper, Cliff was VP and Head of Customer Support Operations at Ericsson North America and also led operations for start-up Spatial Wireless acquired by Alcatel.
• Macario Namie – Currently Chief Marketing Officer at ASAPP. Previously Macario was head of Strategy for the Internet of Things business unit at Cisco and CMO and Vice President of Strategy for Jasper Technologies. A Silicon Valley veteran with significant startup experience, Macario has also held senior leadership positions at Webex, ePeople, and Lycos.

Cisco

New Cisco Security And Apps Group To Gain A Leader: Box’s Jeetu Patel

Patel, a longtime tech leader who is coming to Cisco from cloud content management and file sharing service Box, will be joining as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Security and Applications Group and will report directly to Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins. 

Patel will join Cisco’s four other engineering leaders as part of the revamp the company announced in March, including Liz Centoni, who heads Emerging Technologies and Incubation, Core Hardware Platforms, led by Eyal Dagan; Mass-Scale Infrastructure, led by Jonathan Davidson; and Enterprise Networking and Cloud, led by Todd Nightingale.

Cisco’s Chief Strategy Officer Departs

Upper management at tech giant Cisco continues to be reshaped under CEO Chuck Robbins. Anuj Kapur, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Cisco Systems, is leaving the networking company after 15 years.

MTN

Juliet Nsubuga promoted to MTN Uganda General Manager

Juliet K Nsubuga has been promoted to MTN Uganda general manager wholesale and carrier services, 16 years after joining the country’s biggest and leading telecom.

Her previous roles at MTN Uganda include senior manager sales operations, senior manager business sales and manager government sales. Nsubuga was part of the team that initiated and delivered the successful electronic airtime distribution platform. 

Senyonga transitions from banking to MTN general manager

Ibrahim Senyonga has been appointed MTN Uganda general manager enterprise business unit. 

Senyonga brings to MTN over 16 years’ experience from the banking sector where he served several roles ranging from regional manager at dfcu bank, head of retail banking and acting executive director at KCB among others. Throughout his career, Senyonga has won more than 13 outstanding performance awards.

Liquid Telecom

Ericsson

Ericsson appoints new VP to head up its operations in The Levant

Ericsson has appointed Kevin Murphy as its new vice president and head of Ericsson Levant Countries, according to a company release. Murphy will also head up Ericsson’s Global Customer Unit for Ooredoo Group.

Murphy will pick up the reigns at his new role, effective from the 1st of September 2020.

Murphy brings a host of industry experience to the role, having previously held several senior sales roles including Key Account Management assignments in Egypt, Indonesia, Oman and Malaysia. He has also served as the head of industry verticals sales support and head of the managed services practice for Ericsson in the North East Asia region.

Virgin Mobile

Virgin Mobile UAE appoints new MD

Virgin Mobile UAE has announced the appointment of Rob Beswick as the new managing director, replacing Karim Benkirane, who moves to head up a new project at Du.

Beswick has spent nine years in the region with Virgin Mobile, most recently as commercial director of the UAE business. He is credited with the success of the Virgin Mobile brand in the Middle East, firstly in Saudi Arabia and more recently with the launch of Virgin Mobile’s fully digital offering in the UAE.

Telia

Telia Company today announces several changes to the Group Executive Management team.  

• • Markus Messerer will be appointed SVP, Chief of Strategy, Innovation & Head of Global Business. Markus is today the CEO of Alltron AG, Swiss IT group Competec’s B2B business, and brings profound experience in digital transformation and ICT. Before Competec he was Head of Corporate Strategy at Swisscom. Markus is an Austrian national.

• • Rachel Samrén will be appointed SVP, Chief External Affairs, Governance & Trust Officer. Rachel is today EVP, Chief External Affairs Officer and Member of the Group Executive Team of Millicom. She joins the company with significant experience in external affairs and risk management. Prior to Millicom she served as Director, Head of Business Intelligence, at The Risk Advisory Group. Rachel is a Swedish national.

• • Dan Strömberg will step up and take over as SVP, Head of LED (Lithuania, Estonia and Denmark), while continuing also in his present role as CEO for Telia Lithuania. Dan has held various senior manager positions in Telia Company since the late 1990s.

Markus Messerer and Rachel Samrén will join Telia Company during the fourth quarter of 2020 and Dan Strömberg will start in his new role on August 1, 2020.

As a consequence of these changes, Ingrid Stenmark SVP, Head of CEO Office, Åsa Jamal SVP, Head of Group Communications and Emil Nilsson SVP, Head of LED, will leave the company. 

Nokia

Pekka Lundmark to start as President and CEO of Nokia on August 1, 2020

Pekka Lundmark will start his new role as President and Chief Executive Officer of Nokia on August 1, 2020, one month earlier than previously communicated.

Rajeev Suri will leave his current position on July 31, 2020 and continue to serve as an advisor to the Nokia Board until January 1, 2021.

The earlier start date is due to Fortum having appointed a new CEO as of July 1, 2020 and after a one-month transition period Pekka is available to take over at Nokia.

Nokia VP elected president of DIGITALEUROPE

Nokia’s VP and market unit leader for the Nordics, Baltics, and Benelux has been appointed president of European trade association DIGITALEUROPE.

Hilary Mine was elected by the general assembly to be the first female president since the organisation’s 1999 launch. Her initial term is two years and she can stand for re-election for a second term.     

Julian David, CEO of techUK was re-elected as vice-president for his second two-year term. In total, there were 12 new or re-elected executive board members and the new board will hold its first meeting in September.

Ribbon Communications

Miguel ‘Mick’ Lopez appointed as Chief Financial Officer

Ribbon Communications Inc. announced the appointment of Mick Lopez as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial officer effective Monday June 29, 2020. Lopez succeeds Daryl E. Raiford, who will be leaving the company after a short transition period.

Mr. Lopez most recently served as the CFO of Vista Outdoor Inc. (NYSE: VSTO), a leading global designer and manufacturer of outdoor sports and recreation consumer products. Prior to joining Vista Outdoor, he served as the CFO at Veritas Technologies, CFO for Harris Corporation and CFO for Aricent Group/KKR Private Equity.

Three New Appointments to Board of Directors

The three new directors, Shaul Shani, Mariano de Beer, and Tanya Tamone, joined the Ribbon Communications board of directors effective June 19, 2020. Mr. de Beer and Ms. Tamone are independent directors, and Mr. Shani is the chairman of Swarth Group, the lead investor in ECI Telecom.  

Telekom Slovenije

Tomaz Jontes joins Telekom Slovenije board

The supervisory board of Telekom Slovenije has appointed Tomaz Jontes a new member of the management board for commercial affairs. In his new role he will be responsible for B2C, B2B and marketing.

Oracle

Oracle names VP for Central America, Caribbean

Oracle announced the appointment of Leandro Ramírez as the new Vice President for Central America and the Caribbean, who will report directly to Sandra Guazzotti, Senior Vice President Multi Country Region for all Latin American countries with exception of Brazil and Mexico.

The new Vice President began working at Oracle in 1993, where he has held various consulting and management positions, including as Director of Indirect Sales, Director of Corporate Sales and Director of Sales for Government and Financial Services.

In addition, he will continue to lead the Central American team, as he has done since December 2012.

Genesys

Former Google, Microsoft Marketing Executive Joyce Kim Joins Genesys as CMO

Genesys has appointed proven technology marketing executive, Joyce Kim, to the company’s leadership team as chief marketing officer (CMO). She succeeds Merijn te Booij, who now serves as general manager (GM) for the company’s new business unit, Employee Engagement Solutions.

Kim brings more than two decades of technology sector experience to Genesys, with expertise in data-driven digital marketing and executing go-to-market strategies for software solutions leveraging cloud-based enterprise data, communications, artificial intelligence (AI), IoT and more.

Most recently, she was CMO and Chief Digital Officer for Arm. Prior to Arm, Kim led marketing for global brands such as Skype and Skype for Business at Microsoft as well as product partnerships and communications for Chromebooks and Google Hangouts at Google.

Vodacom

Charter Communications

Charter Elevates Magesh Srinivasan To Executive Vice President, Network Operations And Adam Ray To Executive Vice President, Multi-Dwelling Unit Markets

Charter Communications announced the promotions of Adam Ray into the newly created position, Executive Vice President, Multi-Dwelling Unit (MDU) Markets, and Magesh Srinivasan to Executive Vice President of Network Operations, succeeding Scott Weber, who has announced his plans to retire in 2021.

Effective July 1, both Ray and Srinivasan will report to John Bickham, Charter President and COO, and will be based out of Charter’s corporate headquarters in Stamford. 

Srinivasan served as Senior Vice President in Network Operations for the past five years, first in Core and Backbone Operations and most recently in Video Operations. Prior to that, Srinivasan served in senior engineering roles at Time Warner Cable, including as Group Vice President of Commercial Engineering and Operations, Vice President of Commercial Engineering for Time Warner Cable’s West Region, and Director in the Texas Region. 

Ray most recently served as Regional Vice President of Field Operations for the Florida Region. Prior to that he served as Group Vice President, Residential Direct Sales; Senior Director, Sales Operations in Los Angeles; and Director of Sales and Marketing during his 15 years with Charter. He joined Charter in 2005 from Comcast, where he spent five years as a sales leader in Knoxville, Tenn. 

Charter Names Steve Raymond Vice President of Accessibility

Nutanix

Former Juniper Networks Channel Leader Brings 25+ Years Experience to Nutanix

Nutanix announced that it has appointed Christian Goffi as Vice President, Americas Channel Sales, where he will lead Nutanix’s Americas Channel team. Goffi is stepping into the role previously held by Christian Alvarez, who was promoted to Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channels.

Goffi’s experience includes more than 25 years of leading high-performance teams in executive sales and channel management roles at leading technology and telecommunications companies. In his previous role as Sr. Director – Head of Channel & Distribution Sales at Juniper Networks, Goffi held responsibility for over 5,000+ reseller and distributor partners across the Americas. Prior to joining Juniper Networks, Goffi held a number of senior leadership positions at companies like Cyan Inc, Avaya, and Nortel Networks.

Global Cloud Exchange

GCX Appoints New CFO

Global Cloud Xchange (“GCX”) announced the appointment of Anja Blumert as Chief Financial Officer, effective 1 July 2020.

Ms. Blumert will oversee GCX’s global finance organization and financial activities and will be based in the company’s headquarters in London.

Ms. Blumert has 20 years of experience in finance, with a focus on TMT and emerging markets. Ms. Blumert previously served as Head of M&A and portfolio management at Millicom International Cellular SA, TMT investment professional at Warburg Pincus International LLC, and as an investment banker with UBS. Anja is currently a board member of Axian Telecom and most recently served on the board of GCX, BIMA, and Helios Towers Ltd.

F5

F5 Names Dhananjay Ganjoo as Managing Director for India and SAARC

F5 has announced the appointment of Dhananjay Ganjoo as Managing Director for India and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Dhananjay will head F5’s efforts to bring end-to-end solutions and competitive security offerings to enterprises in the India and SAARC region through the combined capabilities of F5, NGINX and Shape, and the recent launch of Silverline managed security services in India. He will succeed Edgar Dias who was recently appointed to Regional Vice President of Channel and Partnerships for Asia Pacific.

Dhananjay joined F5 in 2018 and was responsible for building the company’s Global System Integrators (GSI) business. Prior to F5, Dhananjay held leadership roles across leading enterprise and telecom organizations including, Nortel, Juniper Networks and Microsoft. He also had an entrepreneurial stint where he founded Envoy Labs, which offered consultancy services to startups and SMBs. 

NGMN

NGMN Alliance Announces: Ms. Anita Döhler as New CEO

The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance announces Ms. Anita Döhler as new CEO and Board Director. She will take over her new role from Dr. Peter Meissner, who will retire from this position on June 30, 2020.

Since its incorporation in 2006, Dr. Peter Meissner acted as founding director and CEO of the NGMN Alliance. Under his leadership, NGMN grew from a handful of operators to a group that consists of 100 operators, vendors and research institutions – plus over 20 cooperation partner organisations – and has successfully guided and shaped the evolution of 4G and 5G. Peter Meissner will remain active as Senior Advisor to the NGMN Board.

At the same time, NGMN welcomes Ms. Anita Döhler as the new CEO and Board Director. She is a long-term telecoms industry executive, with hands-on operator and vendor experience. Anita Döhler will take over from Dr. Peter Meissner on July 1st, 2020, joining the NGMN office team in Frankfurt.

MongoDB

MongoDB Appoints Mark Porter As Chief Technology Officer

MongoDB announced the appointment of Mark Porter as Chief Technology Officer, effective July 20. Porter will oversee the office of the CTO and play a key role in driving the company’s technology vision. With this appointment, Porter will step down from MongoDB’s Board of Directors.

Porter joins MongoDB from Grab, Southeast Asia’s super app that provides everyday services such as ride-hailing, food, package, grocery delivery, mobile payments and financial services to millions of people. At Grab, Porter was CTO. Prior to Grab, Porter led many Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) database efforts.Earlier in his career, Porter was CTO of a division of Newscorp, a Vice President of Engineering at Oracle Corporation and an early member of the Oracle Database Kernel group. 

Have we missed anything? Email us at info@phoenixcareer.co.uk or comment directly under this post if there is a leadership announcement we should have included in our weekly roundups.

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