Telecom Executive Moves – Week 11, 2020

Telco Moves charts the notable hires, promotions and leadership changes in the global Telecom and ICT community.

Here’s your weekly guide to the executive moves announcements for the period Monday, March 9 – Sunday, March 15, 2020, relevant to the ICT sector.

T-Mobile

T-Mobile reveals new leaders once Sprint deal closes – T-Mobile announced the new management team to oversee the combined company, with a few familiar faces from Sprint joining the New T-Mobile fray.

– Neville Ray will continue as president of Technology, reporting directly to incoming CEO Mike Sievert, and current Sprint CTO John Saw will join as the new executive vice president of Advanced and Emerging Technologies, reporting to Ray.

– T-Mobile previously confirmed that Abdul Saad was recently promoted to executive vice president and CTO, reporting to Ray.

– Also reporting to Ray is Cody Sanford, who will serve as executive vice president and chief information and product officer.

The changes will be effective as of the closing of the transaction, also known as “Day Zero,” of the New T-Mobile.

Telenor

Jon Omund Revhaug, CEO of Telenor Procurement Company, has been appointed the new CEO of Telenor Myanmar.

At the same time, Thomas Skjelbred, COO and deputy CEO of TPC, has been appointed the new CEO of TPC.

Jon Omund Revhaug has worked with Telenor for 20 years, and has held a number of different roles in the company in that time. For the last three years he has served as CEO for Telenor Procurement Company, based out of Singapore.
Thomas Skjelbred has worked in various roles in Telenor between 1999 and 2014, both in Norway in Asia. Over the last six years, he has held both CTO and CEO roles at Altibox.

Within Telenor Denmark, it was announced this week that Otto Risbakk has been appointed new CFO on January 1, 2020, and on February 1, 2020, Mikkel Kruse has been hired as new business director in Telenor Denmark.

Otto has more than 30 years of experience and began his career in the Telenor Group 12 years ago in Mergers and Acquisitions, of which he has since been named Senior Vice President.
Mikkel has a solid sales and marketing background from the IT industry and for the past 10 years has worked in management positions at Microsoft, the software company EG and DXC Technology respectively.

Microsoft

Bill Gates has stepped down from the board of Microsoft to spend more time on his philanthropic endeavors, the company announced Friday afternoon.

Though he will remain a technology advisor to CEO Satya Nadella, this move reduces his involvement with the company to the lowest level it has ever been.

Former American Express Co-Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Chenault has been nominated to the conglomerate’s board of directors, replacing Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates.

Western Digital

Western Digital announced that David Goeckeler has been appointed chief executive officer and a member of the Western Digital Board of Directors (“the Board”), effective March 9, 2020.

Mr. Goeckeler currently serves as executive vice president and general manager of Cisco’s $34 billion Networking and Security Business. Mr. Goeckeler succeeds Steve Milligan, who previously announced his intended retirement.

Ooredoo

Ooredoo Kuwait has announced the appointment of Fadi Kawar as acting CEO.

Kawar succeeds Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulla Al Thani, who had held the position of CEO for Ooredoo Kuwait since 2014 and has successfully led the company to reach key milestones and substantially increase its share of the market.

Ooredoo Qatar has announced the appointment of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulla Al Thani as deputy group CEO and acting CEO effective of Ooredoo Qatar immediately.

Al Thani succeeds Waleed Mohamed Al Sayed, who is retiring from the position of CEO held since 2015.

Flow (Cable & Wireless Communications – CWC)

Communications and Entertainment company, Flow has announced the appointment of Susanna O’Sullivan as the company’s Senior Director of Technology Operations for Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

In this new role, O’Sullivan is charged with network transformation and customer experience for both the Jamaica and Cayman markets.

Cognizant

Cognizant announced that on March 5, 2020, Archana Deskus was appointed to its board of directors as a new independent director, effective immediately.

Ms. Deskus currently serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer for Intel Corporation. Prior to Intel, she served as chief information officer for several other global companies in the technology, industrials, energy and consumer products industries, including: HP Enterprise, Baker Hughes, Ingersoll Rand, Timex Group USA and North America HVAC.

China Unicom

Li Guohua has retired as president of China Unicom Ltd. after about two years at the state-owned mobile carrier.

Li, 60, joined China Unicom in July 2018, when he was named president after his predecessor Lu Yimin was transferred to another company.

In the statement, China Unicom didn’t announce Li’s successor. That’s not unusual. China’s other major mobile carriers have also left some of their key positions vacant in recent years.

Cisco

Cisco has announced that Amy Chang, executive vice-president and general manager of Cisco’s Team Collaboration Group is taking a leave of absence.

Chang, who joined Cisco in its 2018 acquisition of collaboration software startup Accompany –  Chang was Accompany’s founder and CEO – is taking a leave of absence for an unspecified period of time.

IBM

IBM Australia has appointed Jodie Sangster as chief marketing officer.

Sangster is moving across from her role as CMO of IBM Singapore. Previously she was the chief customer officer of IBM in Sydney.

Sangster has also spent time at Amaysim and ADMA. She is replacing Amanda Johnston-Pell who is moving to India to become the vice president of IBM marketing services center Asia Pacific, China and Japan where she will oversee IBM’s marketing service centre in Bangalore, India.

FirstNet

The First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) Board announced that Edward Parkinson has been named Executive Director of the organization.

Mr. Parkinson was one of the first employees to join the FirstNet Authority in 2013, and since then he has served in a variety of leadership positions within the organization, including Executive Director of External Affairs.

Freshworks

Freshworks Inc., the customer engagement software company, announced the appointment of Prakash Ramamurthy, a veteran technology executive with extensive experience building and operating enterprise cloud services, as chief product officer.

In his role, Ramamurthy is responsible for Freshworks’ overall product vision and strategy, development and GTM efforts. He reports to Freshworks founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham.

Previously, Ramamurthy worked at Oracle as senior vice president of product development and general manager of Oracle Cloud systems management and security products.

Kymeta

Kymeta Corporation has announced the appointment of Gene Renuart, USAF (Ret), Founder & President of The Renuart Group and Matt Grob, Chief Technology Officer at XCOM Labs as senior advisors to the board.

General Renuart brings 39 years of military leadership experience and extensive expertise with the USAF. His last military assignment was as commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and commander of United States Northern Command from 2007 to 2010. Prior to that, he served as Military Assistant to two Secretaries of Defense and as Director of Strategic Plans and Policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Mr. Grob is the Chief Technology Officer for XCOM Labs. Founded in 2018 by leaders in wireless communications, XCOM Labs is a technology powerhouse dedicated to inventing transformative wireless technologies. Prior to working at XCOM Labs, Matt was Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Qualcomm.

Centili

Global digital monetization and carrier billing company Centili appointed Zoran Vasiljev as its Group CEO.

Zoran spent the last 3 years as CEO of Apigate. Earlier in his career, he led projects in the EU, MENA and APAC, holding top executive and leadership roles with Axiata Digital, StarHub, Arthur D. Little, Value Partners and Peppers & Rogers Group.

Defne

Defne announced that Veli Murat Celik has been appointed as the new CEO at Defne. Oguz Haliloglu, former CEO and co-founder of Defne, will continue to serve on the company’s Board of Directors as Chairman.

Before Defne, Veli Murat Celik worked in management and technology areas at both vendor, network operator and government institutions including Extunda, Tubitak, TT Mobile (formerly AVEA), ZTE, Huawei and Ericsson. He currently serves on the Board of HTK (Communication Technologies Cluster) of Turkey and is committed to the deployment and wide use of 5G technology in the country.

Rubrik

Rubrik announced the appointment of Dan Rogers as President.

He will lead Rubrik’s GTM Operations, driving the product, marketing, and GTM strategy. Rogers will report to Rubrik’s co-founder and CEO Bipul Sinha.

Rogers most recently served as ServiceNow’s CMO.

Global Data Systems

Global Data Systems, a leading managed service provider, announced that Mike Guidroz has joined the executive management team as Vice President of Business Development.