With more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry, Darrell leads a global vertical organization of highly skilled professionals who develop, engineer, build, sell, and support next generation software solutions and services that aim to deliver exponential value to and with Communications Service Providers and those that deliver services at the network edge. Darrell leads teams around the world focused on building comprehensive ecosystems that bring together teams, communities and technologies to drive new revenue, adopt innovative technology, and build agile, open and integrated platforms for infrastructure, data, and applications.  Before joining Red Hat in 2013, Darrell was VP and Head of Sun/Oracle’s Global OEM business. At Sun's Communications and Media Business, he drove global revenues over $4.6 billion annually with P&L responsibility for software and engineering development of Sun's Telco Platform Group that established Java ME as a leading platform for application development. Darrell won chairman’s awards within AT&T Unix Systems Labs and Sun Microsystems for excellence in business development, as well as many awards for strong sales leadership in Novell, Lucent, Sun Microsystems, and Red Hat, through demonstrable success in delivering software, hardware, and services to multinational corporations. Darrell holds a BSc in Computing Science from the University of Glasgow, and an MBA from Strathclyde University. Darrell has lived and worked in Asia, Europe, and the USA.

Chris Wright is Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Red Hat. He leads the Office of the CTO, which is responsible for incubating emerging technologies and developing forward-looking perspectives on innovations like artificial intelligence, cloud and edge computing, distributed storage, software-defined networking and network functions virtualization, containers, automation and continuous delivery, and distributed ledgers. During his 25+ years as a software engineer, Wright has worked in the telecommunications industry and beyond on high-availability and distributed systems. He also has experience in the Linux® industry on security, virtualization, and networking. Wright has been a Linux developer for more than 15 years, with most of this time spent working deep in the Linux kernel. He is passionate about open source software serving as the foundation for next-generation IT systems.

Honoré joined Red Hat as Vice President, Industry Verticals & Edge with a primary focus on Telco, Media, Entertainment and Edge.  Most recently, she was asked to lead the global TME Partner Ecosystem Success function and team.  In this role, she has global responsibility for the success of the Telecom, Media, and Entertainment ecosystem of partners including NEPs, ISVs, OEMs, Global System Integrators and Hyperscalers. Prior to Red Hat, Honoré was Vice President, Global Market & Business Development for VMware’s Telco and Edge Cloud Business unit. She also held market and business development leadership roles driving healthcare, public sector, and SLED.  Honoré is a seasoned technology executive having held senior positions in sales, business development, marketing, strategy and operations in both software and hardware companies including Cisco/NetSolve, Nortel, N.E.T. and AT&T. Throughout her career, Honoré has received numerous industry awards, including Global Business Telecom magazine’s Top 50 Women in Telecom and was named to CRN’s Women of the Channel list for 2023!  She is a strong advocate for women in technology – for which she received the PBWC (Professional Business Women of California) Industry Leader Award.  She also serves as Red Hat’s executive sponsor for GSMA’s Diversity4Tech program.

Nilay is GM/Tribe Lead for Technology Automation and Services at Spark. Nilay has been with spark for more than 10 years, comes from background in architecture in digital transformation and has been leading out in network automations last 3 years. Nilay has been leading out on Software defined Network with power of AI and Automation.

As the SVP/GM of Cisco’s Provider Mobility business, Masum Mir leads the organization’s strategic initiatives and product development, building groundbreaking 5G and Mobile IoT solutions for Communication Service Providers, Industries, and Enterprises. To date, with its transformational technology, Cisco’s Provider Mobility business has deployed its innovative solutions with the world’s largest carrier mobility networks. With more than 20 years of experience in the networking and telecommunication industries, Masum is also a sought-after speaker for industry events, where he shares his passion for connecting the Internet of Things.  Masum graduated from the Middle East Technical University (METU) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and has continued his education with the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Program.

Fran has over 30 years’ experience in the software industry and has spent the past 25 years in the telecommunications sector. He has served in executive technology and business leadership roles in several globally renowned organizations including Vodafone Group, Alcatel-Lucent and NEC. Currently, Fran leads the Core Networks (CN) business, and is responsible for developing, delivering and supporting Nokia’s end to end Core Networks portfolio. This includes Packet and Voice core elements, Subscriber Data Management, Policy and Signalling elements, across all technology generations up to an including the 5G SA Core. Prior to joining Nokia in March 2019, Fran was Group Head of Cloud & Automation at Vodafone Group where he led the team defining the strategy and architecture for Vodafone’s Network and IT cloud transformation program. During this time Fran represented Vodafone on the Board of Linux Foundation Networking. Prior to Vodafone, Fran was SVP and General Manager of the SDN/NFV business unit at NEC/Netcracker and before that spent nearly six years at Alcatel-Lucent and subsequently Nokia where he was SVP and General Manager of the Communications and Collaboration business.  Fran studied Computer Science at Technological University Dublin, and is a registered Chartered Engineer, a member of the British Computer Society and a Chartered Information Technology Practitioner.

Stephen is a general manager for IBM’s Global Telco, Media, Entertainment & Distribution verticals, where he drives multi-billion-dollar P&L, delivering technology, products and solutions to Communications Services Providers and Enterprise clients.  Prior to joining IBM, Rose spent 12 years at Nokia. Some of his previous roles included Global Head of Portfolio Management, Strategy & Innovation and Global Head of Care Services Sales, with the latter including accountability for $2 billion in annual sales. He also spent several years working with CSPs as part of Nokia’s partner consulting business, helping C-suite executives shape their technology investment, new business and transformation strategies.

Muriel Médard is the NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department at MIT, where she leads the Network Coding and Reliable Communications Group in the Research Laboratory for Electronics at MIT and Chief Scientist for Steinwurf, which she has co-founded. She obtained three Bachelors degrees, as well as her M.S. and Sc.D, all from MIT.  Muriel has supervised over 40 master students, over 20 doctoral students and over 25 postdoctoral fellows. Muriel currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and served previously as Editor in Chief of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. Muriel was elected president of the IEEE Information Theory Society in 2012, and serves on its board of governors, having previously served for eleven years. She has over sixty US and international patents awarded, the vast majority of which have been licensed or acquired.

Yesmean has over 6 years of experience in strategy consulting, including leading dozens of major strategic projects with clients globally on commercial strategy for private networks and edge computing. Her focus has been in bridging the vertical OT world with telecoms networking to translate the customer business requirements into technology solutions. In the past 3 years alone, she has led multiple extensive ‘voice of the customer’ research programmes with enterprises across multiple industries on private networks and edge on behalf of communications service providers, leading network equipment providers, hyperscale cloud providers and OEM clients. She has authored several thought leadership reports on the topic and is a regular speaker at renowned industry events. Before joining STL, she held various consulting roles at Deloitte and IBM.

Oscar Toorell, is Head of Technology at the Cloud RAN Engineering unit at Ericsson. He is responsible for the evolution of the cloud RAN ecosystem and strategic partnerships and alliances for Cloud RAN. He is also driving technology early engagements across customers and the industry at large, having led the establishment of Ericsson Cloud RAN Open Lab, for example. Oscar has been leading incubation and technology exploration in several different units across Ericsson and driving the development of 4G and 5G in different domains and use cases. Virtualization and Cloud Native RAN is the latest of these activities which lead to the creation of the completely new product development unit Cloud RAN in 2020. Over the 25+ year career with Ericsson, Oscar has held a number of leadership roles across the different Ericsson companies in Sweden and China.  Oscar earned a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Communications from Chalmers University in Sweden.

Shamik Mishra currently serves as Vice President and CTO of Connectivity at Capgemini Engineering. In addition to this, he also leads the Capgemini technology domain, “connected futures” as the CTIO. As a global lead for technology and innovation, Shamik drives the connectivity technology portfolio for 5G, virtualization, cloud native, edge computing, intelligent networks, and carrier cloud platforms.   Previously he was the Vice President for Research and Innovation and Global Chief Industry Architect for Altran’s telecommunication business before the acquisition by Capgemini in 2019.   Shamik has over twenty-one years of experience in the telecom and software industry, providing engineering R&D services, frameworks and solutions to telecom operators, network equipment providers and software firms around the world.  He has represented Capgemini Engineering at several industry forums including Linux Foundation Edge where he was a member of the technical advisory council. He has been elected the deputy chairman for GSMA’s Operator Platform Group. Shamik is a regular speaker at industry and academic conferences and is often covered by the industry media. He has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mathematics and Computing from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India.

Vinodh Raghunathan is the Director of Commercial Readiness for Infrastructure SW for Intel Network and Edge group. Vinodh and his team work cross functionally across Intel and key partners such as Red Hat to drive commercial consumption of Intel products and technologies. Vinodh has been with Intel for over 17 years and has deep experience across many several Intel Business units spanning engineering, operations, and technology enablement roles.  Vinodh has a PhD in Chemistry and Nanotechnology from University of Washington.

Vidya Ratn is a seasoned telecommunications expert with more than 16 years of experience in Telco 4G/5G technologies, Cloud Architecture, and Solution Architecture. Recognized for visionary leadership in Cloudification, Vidya Ratn has been at the forefront of innovations in automating network infrastructure. His contributions bring invaluable insights to discussions about telecommunications and cloud technology.

Antra Malhotra is a Senior Manager, Systems Engineering at Verizon. Her responsibilities include application development and software delivery for two big data platforms that provide intelligent location services, product availability and business intelligence for Verizon's Enterprise and Consumer Business groups. She has also had the opportunity to contribute and lead multiple significant programs, including system modernization, intelligent enterprise network, network virtualization and voice/VoIP transformation. Antra is an AWS Certified Solutions Architect with additional program management and delivery certifications. She is a guest faculty at Hillsborough Community College - ICCE for teaching Cloud concepts and technologies. Her area of research involves cloud technologies, application stability and big data management. Her research work on zero downtime architecture was recently published in IEEE.

Dr. Ray Mota brings a talent for complex technical and critical thinking and provides strategic direction, sharp analysis, and expert advice on networking issues, specializing in design, implementation, and troubleshooting. Prior to founding ACG Research Dr. Mota worked for Aberdeen Group, ManageAll, Micros-To-Mainframes, Advanced Technology Group, Eastman Kodak and the IRS. As a CTO, he designed, implemented and supported complex trading floor systems and large WAN Frame Relay and ATM networks. He also provided training on Sniffer, HP Advisor protocol analysis tools, and MPLS architectures. Ray has also developed cloud applications and has a software patent attributed to him. Routinely called upon to speak as a guest lecturer throughout the country, Ray is recognized as an expert in topics relating to networks, managed services, cloud computing, operational efficiency, and business modeling. He has been the keynote speaker for the top cloud, channel, Wall Street, telecom event around the world.His insightful commentaries and analyses have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Telecom Magazine, MSNBC, CNN Money, Forbes, Fortune, Businessweek, NY Times, SF Chronicle and other industry publications.

Caroline is a Research Director based in Analysys Mason’s London office. She leads the Networks research practice which focuses on the current and future architectures and economics of telecoms networks globally. She has over 20 years’ experience as an industry analyst specialising in mobile teleco ms, in particular the business models and network architecture evolution of 5G operators. She is the author of major Analysys Mason reports about, among other topics, 5G energy consumption; changing patterns in telecom operators’ operating costs, including energy; 5G cloudification. She has also worked on many research and strategic advisory projects for operators, regulators, equipment vendors and financial investors in different regions, particularly Europe, Middle East and South East Asia. These have focused on many aspects of 5G economics and architecture, including energy efficiency, use case prioritisation, cloud/network convergence and value chain disruption. She also leads Analysys Mason’s operator survey activities, and has built a CxO-level research panel of over 120 operators and network deployers worldwide. Caroline holds an MA in History from Oxford University, UK.

Viplob Syngal has over 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. He has held the position of Head of Business Development, Global 5G Centre of Excellence – NEC since April 2020. In this function, Viplob is responsible for prioritising and managing global Open RAN opportunities including leading the commercial management and negotiations of the key deals.  Prior to re-joining NEC, Viplob worked with Net Insight in the media technology segment defining their overall portfolio strategy following an acquisition that they had completed. Viplob started his career with Nortel and spent 15 years with the organisation.  Over the years, he has held leadership roles in business development, product management, commercial management, and global account management.  Viplob studied in the United Kingdom and has a degree in Electronics Engineering as well as an MBA.

Sadayuki Abeta is global head of open RAN solutions and OREX evangelist in NTT DOCOMO, focused on creating a global open RAN ecosystem and shaping it to meet customer and service provider needs. Since joining NTT DOCOMO, INC in 1997, he has been working for research, standardization and development of the UMTS/W-CDMA, HPSA, LTE, LTE-Advanced and 5G. From 2005 to 2009, he was a vice chairman of 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 and rapporteur of LTE and LTE-Advanced in 3GPP TSG RAN WG1. From 2018-2022, he was a General Manager of the Radio Access Network Development Department, which is responsible for development of LTE, 5G, X-haul and satellite communications. He received the Ph.D. degrees in communication engineering from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan in 1997.

Geetha Ram is the Global Head of Telco Compute at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). She is responsible for telco infrastructure strategy and roadmap, NEP (Network Equipment Provider) partnerships, operator solutioning and deployments (trials to commercial ramp-ups) of their 4G, 5G (Core and RAN) and cable networks. Geetha has over 30 years of telecommunications expertise with 4 US patents, fifth patent on its way. Prior to HPE, Geetha led large global R&D teams for Wireless Terminal Business Unit at Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) and wireless and switching telecommunication products at Nortel NetworksTM for 23 years, managing hundreds of hardware and software engineers spanning over a dozen countries. Geetha brings the experience of introducing innovative products to market, with inventive business models, which has resulted in proven system solutions that generated over $200M in revenues within the first 18 months and over $1B in 3 years. Geetha holds a master’s degree in Systems and Computer Engineering from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She has won several awards for leadership vision and people development.

Arturo leads the 5G Innovation and Technology Lab, formerly AT&T Foundry, in which he manages and supervises innovation activities related to the 5th generation of mobile communications, thus creating solutions for emerging markets, including IoT, software development and technology tests.  Prior to this position, Arturo was the Technology Lab Senior Manager at AT&T Mexico, where he was responsible for its deployment and location platforms tests, as well as the implementation of cloud for IoT. He also collaborated for Nextel de Mexico and Nextel International Holdings (NII) as Senior Manager of Nextel’s Technology Lab. Hewas also in charge of Field Operations Support Coordination.  Arturo has over 20 years of experience in the industry, leading divisions such as Cellular Implementation and worked in Operations and Maintenance Management in Erisson Mexico. Arturo has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering for Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and has postgraduate’s degree in many innovative areas such as: Computer Center Administration and Finance for Information Technology, both in Universidad Iberoamericana and another in Business Innovation for Anahuac University and Video gaming Programming in Artek Institute. 

Edward Luna is a Distinguished Architect at Verizon. His responsibilities include 5G and edge technical direction for JGTMs with SIs. He has over 25 years of experience in cloud computing, automation, DevOps, 5G, private wireless networks and edge computing. His expertise includes infrastructure, providing architectural solutions and technical guidance across the enterprise. He has patents revolving around network slicing and other emerging technologies.

Arda Akman has more than 25 years of research and development experience in telecommunications, especially in wireless networks. In his current position as Senior Director of Software Engineering in Juniper Networks, he is leading the architecture, product management and standardization activities of 5G products with focus on O-RAN RIC, use cases (r/xApps), network slicing and RAN intelligence. Prior to his current position, Arda was the Director of Software Development, Wireless Division of Argela/Netsia where he led the architecture and development of 4G and 5G RIC, RAN Slicing, the development of 4G macro base station radio resource management layer, SON and FCAPS components. Prior to Argela/Netsia, he held various technical managerial positions including Turk Telekom R&D where he led multi-national EU research projects and telecom solutions, in Ixia leading the physical layer team and the development of wireless network test equipment for GSM, UMTS and LTE technologies, including a 4G multi-UE simulator, and Nortel Networks focusing on carrier grade products for fixed and mobile telecommunication technologies.  He is involved in standardization activities and is a very active member of O-RAN, leading Juniper delegation, chairing O-RAN WG1 Use Case Task Group, chairing WG1 Slicing Task Group and editor of several technical specifications. He received his BSc and MSc in Electronics Engineering (EE) from METU, Ankara, Turkey in 1994 and 1997 respectively. He has authored various articles and more than 30 patent applications.

Ryan Ziegler is the Director - Technology (Telco Cloud, DevOps, Analytics) at SaskTel accountable for Wireless Core, Telco Cloud, Automation, and Analytics. Ryan has been working at SaskTel for over 17 years and has held a number of Engineering positions within SaskTel's Technology Division. Ryan is currently focused on transformational technology related to cloud, 5G, and cognitive networks. Ryan is a Professional Engineer and a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan. Prior to joining SaskTel, Ryan completed degrees in Engineering Physics and Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan. Ryan is passionate about innovation, developing community, and helping enable the people of Saskatchewan through telecommunications.

Brandon Larson is the Senior Vice President of Mavenir’s Cloud Platform and AI Business Unit.   He also oversees Mavenir’s IMS Core and Messaging businesses.   He joined Mavenir from Tango Networks, where he served as their Chief Strategy Officer. Brandon has diverse experience having held roles in sales, marketing, product line management, and program management in his previous companies, Nokia and Ciena.  He also served as a Nuclear Engineering officer in the United States Navy.

Vishal Sharma is a Solution Architect in Technology Automation & Services at Spark New Zealand.  Vishal is responsible for Core Network applications automation and Private Networks.

Dr. Min Xie is a Senior Research Scientist at Telenor Research and Innovation. She is working on next generation network technologies in Beyond 5G and 6G. Her current work includes NFV, SDN, network slicing, orchestration, AI-driven network and service automation, intent-based management, and QoE. She is leading iCORA, a large-scale experimentation platform with 5G and Beyond 5G technologies, built to support vertical stakeholders and EU funded projects.

Co-founder and CTO at CAST AI. Former VP of Security Products OCI at Oracle, Leon’s professional experience spans tech companies such as IBM, Truition, and HostedPCI. He was also a Founder and CTO at Zenedge, an enterprise cloud WAF security solution, acquired by Oracle in 2018. With 20+ years of experience in product management, software design, development, and production deployment, Leon’s expertise includes cloud computing, web application architecture and security, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and e-commerce.

Ilker Bulucu is leading the Broadband & Cloud Services organization at Turkcell with more than 20 years of experience in various roles from planning and investment, to the operation of Telco Cloud, Fixed/Mobile Packet Core, IP Core, DC, Transport Backhaul and FTTx Access networks. Ilker is currently leading the Telco Cloud Transformation program within Turkcell, focusing on the migration of all core domains from legacy to virtual platforms (uNFVI) and the deployment of a common platform for automation/orchestration of services (MANO & SA). This program has won several awards on a global scale and has become a proven best practice for the market at the field level.

Gisbert has built his experience in the application domain, in delivery roles such as project- and program manager, but mostly in agile delivery in roles such as (Chief) Product Owner and Release Train Engineer. He earned his stripes building high-profile solutions at ING Netherlands, The Dutch Social Insurance Bank, and the London Stock Exchange Group. Now he is responsible for the implementation of the platform team based on Red Hat’s OpenShift supporting the 5G voice and data offering of VodafoneZiggo going forward.

With more than 15 years of experience in the Telecommunications industry as an enterprise and solutions architect in IT and communication networks, Luis is currently acting as head of Cloud & Infrastructure within the Global technology team at Telefónica Group.  In his role, he is in charge of defining the infrastructure for hosting IT and network workloads for Telefonica teams worldwide, making use of virtualization technology in the most efficient way.

Roger Shutte is a seasoned IT professional with over 25 years of experience, currently serving as the General Manager Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering for MTN Nigeria. In this role, he is at the forefront of leading a transformative journey in cloud technology for the organisation. With an extensive background in IT Operations, Service Delivery, and IT Infrastructure, Roger is leveraging his expertise to drive cloud transformation, harnessing the power of leading cloud platforms to propel MTN Nigeria into the future of technology. His track record of success and visionary leadership make him a key driver of innovation in the company's cloud strategy.

Bruno Dias is the Product Owner for Multi-access Edge Computing Architecture Development in Bell's Enterprise Architecture group. With 20 years of experience in the telco industry, Bruno applies creative thinking to lead architects and partners to design solutions for Bell that advance how Canadians connect with each other and the world. In addition to his role as a product owner, Bruno leads programs in the Enterprise Architecture Cloud domain to help modernize Bell's private cloud and accelerate public cloud adoption.

Jerome has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry serving as a cloud architect for Bell Canada.  Previously, Jerome served in various technical roles at xwave, Bell and Microcell.   Jerome received his Computer Science degree from the Institut Universitaire de Technologie de Paris and a Master's degree in Computer Science from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers.

Rittwik is currently a Telco analytics and automation principal network engineer at Google. He was previously the chief architect of RAN intelligence at VMware and a Director/MTS of inventive science at AT&T Shannon Research Labs. He is an industry expert with over 25 years of experience in numerous wireless technologies and standards. His interests span architecting the disaggregated RAN intelligent controllers in O-RAN, service composition of VNFs using TOSCA, model driven control loop and automation in ONAP, networked video streaming and cellular networks and systems. He is currently the co-chair of the requirements group in Open RAN Software Community (OSC) and was also the chair of WG5 in FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) in 2021. He earned a Ph.D. in Telecommunications Engineering from the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia in 2000.

Jason Wong is the Group Owner of Core Infrastructure and Services at Telstra Limited. As part of his role, Jason is accountable for the strategic development and operations of the critical applications and capabilities that directly impact the modernisation of the Telco Cloud into a Cloud native environment for core services, SIM-based technologies, rating, and charging platforms in the BSS stack.  With more than 20 years of experience in the Technology industry and in his previous roles as a CTO in a startup, Jason is truly passionate about technology innovation and encompasses agility and resilience that is contributing to Telstra’s future direction and success.

In his role of Chief Architect for Telco Partner Solutions, Fatih has been involved over several years in Kubernetes and OpenStack communities, influencing development and ecosystem cultivation, including for workloads specific to telecom, media, and entertainment needs. Prior to joining Red Hat, Fatih held roles at Google, Verizon Wireless, Canonical Ubuntu, and Ericsson. He holds an MSc degree in information technology and a BSc degree in electronics engineering.

Rimma Iontel is a Chief Architect in Red Hat's Telecommunications, Media and Entertainment (TME) Technology, Strategy and Execution office.  She is responsible for supporting Red Hat’s global ecosystem of customers and partners in the Telecommunications industry and also represents TME in the CTO Customer-led Open Innovation organization.  Since joining Red Hat in 2014, she’s been assisting customers and partners in their network transformation journey, helping them leverage Red Hat open source solutions to build future-proof telecommunication networks capable of providing modern advanced services to the consumers in an efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective way.  Rimma has over twenty years of experience working in the telecommunications industry. Prior to joining Red Hat, she spent fourteen years at Verizon working on Next Generation Networks initiatives and contributing to the first steps of the company’s transition from legacy networks to the software defined cloud infrastructure.

Rob Wilmoth is Chief Architect for the Red Hat North America Service provider team. He works closely with customers and partners advising and assisting with challenges ranging from regulatory compliance and general IT, to changing the way that they view their business problems in the network and content delivery spaces. He has been with Red Hat since 2007 in various Solutions Architecture roles supporting Red Hat’s most strategic customers. 

Narendra N. Narang is a Global Senior Principal Architect for Red Hat within its Telco, Media, and Entertainment (TME) vertical. Before, he served as Chief Technologist who supported Verizon through its multi-year efforts to architect and implement its 4G LTE and 5G Core and radio access networks. He has over 25 years of experience in various technology roles that span the Financial Services and Telecommunications domains. He started his career with Wall Street banks, followed by an 11-year career at Bloomberg L.P., where he held several leadership positions to innovate architectures encompassing real-time and high-frequency trading systems, financial technical analysis, content delivery, and data analytics. His background and deep knowledge of enterprise systems and infrastructure, hybrid cloud architectures, emerging technologies, financial operations, AI, and in-memory data analytics platforms, coupled with his abilities to aggregate key learnings, are helping mission owners to adapt and realize their aspirations for cloud-native architectures, digital transformation, automation, security, sustainability, FinOps and building a diverse and commercial portfolio of value-added services at the network edge. Narendra resides in New Jersey and holds a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Engineering and a Masters degree in Finance.

Ian acts as a global strategic advisor for Red Hat, engaging their global industry community of customers and partners, focused on accelerating the delivery of innovative applications and services built across distributed edge clouds. Working at many network and systems companies, Ian has also held the title of chief communications design engineer for the deployment of many global operator and enterprise systems (e.g. Petronas Towers, DISA, Bank of Canada, CSIS, Verizon, SBC, including the global Canadian embassy system in 100+ countries around the world).  Ian grew up in Owen Sound, just a few hours north of Toronto in Canada, and now resides in the beautiful pacific northwest. Ian is a distinguished Diamond member of the IBM Industry Academy for Telecommunications, holds a B.A.Sc (Honours) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario.

Rob McManus is a Principal Product Marketing Manager at Red Hat. McManus is an adept member of complex matrix-style teams tasked to define and position telecommunication service provider and partner solutions with a focus on network transformation that includes 5G, vRAN and the evolution to cloud-native network functions (CNFs).

Michael Tadault is Chief Technologist Telco APAC in Red Hat’s Telco, Media & Entertainment (TME) segment. He helps telco service providers become more agile, innovative and efficient by adopting technologies like cloud native development, containers, virtualization and the open hybrid cloud, as well as changing their processes and culture to make the best use of these technologies. Before joining Red Hat Michael spent more than 20 years in the telco industry holding key positions in project management, product management, system integration, presales, and solution architecture across numerous technical domains like fixed/mobile access, transport, core, and OSS/BSS. While working for Alcatel-Lucent he joined the internal startup that pioneered the telco cloud which eventually became known as Network Function Virtualization (NFV). He contributed to the adoption of telco cloud by several leading service providers. Prior to joining Red Hat, Michael worked for Netcracker, a leading OSS/BSS provider, where he focused on NFV, end-to- end orchestration, and digital transformation. Michael holds Masters of Engineering degrees from École Polytechnique and Télécom Paris.

Michael has extensive experience providing wireless and wireline solutions in multiple markets, including Telco, Private Enterprise, Public organizations and agencies, and solutions for consumers.  His career includes several technology and management roles within renowned corporations and institutions. including Red Hat. Bell Labs, AT&T Labs, MITRE Labs, and Verizon Wireless. In addition to his experience as a technology leader and innovator in Telco and Private Enterprise markets, Michael has broad experience providing advanced solutions for government markets, including developing unique cloud computing and wireless networking solutions for several federal government agencies, including FAA, DoD, DoJ, FBI, NASA, NOAA, and others.   Of particular note is Michael's work with the OpenRAN concept, having been on the ground floor in the development of the O-RAN Alliance, where AT&T was one of the originating entities.  Michael was a key player in the development of the industry's first O-RAN Near-Real Time RIC on a cloud platform, including several xApps on the Near-Real Time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC). In his current role as Senior Solutions Architect at Red Hat, Michael maintains current expertise in several disciplines, and of particular note is his significant background in 5G Network Slicing, O-RAN RIC use case development, and smart edge solutions for wireless networks.  One of Michael's key innovations while at Red Hat is the use of O-RAN technology to develop certified, multi-partner "reference blueprints" that can be accessed from a "blueprint catalog/store" as needed by Telco, Private 5G/FutureG, and government entities.  This  concept of a reference blueprint catalog, similar to an "App Store", is unique in the industry as it leverages OpenRAN concepts to enable new revenue and cost-cutting opportunities for wireless network owners.

Mr Ignacio Gonzalez is responsible for the Telco Mobile Networks Business Development in EMEA at Red Hat, supporting the adoption of Open Source Technology at Service Providers, Network Equipment Providers, System Integrators and ISVs, with a specific focus on the development of NFV within Mobile Networks like Open RAN, Cloud RAN, 5GC and Private Networks. Mr Gonzalez has been with Red Hat for over 4 years in his current role. Prior to Red Hat, he was working for Vodafone for 16 years in various technical and management roles at Group y Local market levels. The last one was as Head of Technology in Vodafone Partner Markets, leading the Technology function in the Middle East, CIS, and Latin America markets.

Chris is part of Red Hat's global telecommunications ecosystems team. He brings together partners with communications services providers to generate new revenue streams using an open platform approach. These include edge computing and private mobile networks where he brings over 10 year’s experience in edge computing, having contributed to the formation of ETSI MEC. Chris has deep OSS/BSS expertise, working with Red Hat’s key partners in this area to build future target architectures that clients can deploy. Chris brings a blend of business development skills with a technical background, being a Distinguished Architect with the Open Group.  He holds a BA(Hons) in Accounting and a MSc in Information Security.

Kashif has over 20 years of experience in the networking industry, has almost entirely been focused on the architecture and design of large-scale telecommunication networks for some of the biggest Internet and mobile service providers in the world. Over the past several years, Kashif has worked directly with mobile network operators and service providers to modernize their existing mobile backhaul networks to support future 5G services. Kashif has been a speaker at Cisco Live!, Society of Cable and Telecommunication Engineers (SCTE), and National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). Kashif holds a Master of Engineering in Internetworking, contributed to multiple O-RAN specifications, and is a co-author of an upcoming book titled “A Network Architect’s Guide to 5G” (ISBN: 978-0137376841 )