SReXperts speakers

Simon Muyal

CTO

France-IX

Julien Corsini

à Monaco Telecom

Angel Campos

Vodafone

Jean Paul Dekker

à NL-IX

Steve Aubrey

Product Line Manager

NOKIA

Stephen has worked in the telecommunications industry for over 29 years within the area of Network & Service Management and Mobile Data Analytics. 

Currently global Product Manager for the Network Services Platform (NSP) focused on configuration management across network and services. Stephen holds a honors bachelors degree in computer engineering from Cardiff University.

Andres Belloni

Senior Director PLM Network Automation

NOKIA

Andres Belloni leads IP Management and Platform Product Management for Nokia NSP. In this role Andres is responsible for defining and managing the lifecycle of the NSP software foundation and applications that allow service providers to automate the operation of their IP & Optical networks. Mr. Belloni has an extensive career in telecommunications specializing in network and service management for TDM, ATM, IP and Optical networks. He has been responsible for product design, product strategy and product line management of Element, Network and Service Management Systems in Newbridge Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia. Mr. Belloni holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University Of Buenos Aires, Argentina and an Executive MBA from Queens University in Canada.

Bashar Bou-Diab

IP Consulting  Engineering Manager

NOKIA

Bashar leads the IP-Networks Consulting Engineering team in the Middle-East. He has more than 20 years of experience in ICT within research, product development, and technical consulting roles.  Bashar has authored numerous papers and more than fifteen innovative patents in the field of telecommunications.  Bashar holds Master’s degree in Telecommunication Innovation Management from Canada.

James Cumming

Senior Product Line Manager

SROS Routing

Platform and Programmability

NOKIA

James Cumming is the Product Line Manager for the Nokia SR OS router software with a specific focus on Network Programmability (NETCONF/YANG/GRPC/MD-CLI) within Nokia’s IP and Optical Networks Division.  He has an extensive background in the Internet Service Provider industry beginning in 1997.  He has worked as the lead Network Architect in several global service providers leading the efforts in network integration, product and service development as well as end-to-end network architecture across all technologies.  He has a particular passion for the virtualization and programmability areas as his background combines networking, systems, programming and operations which all collide in this exciting period for the industry.  He holds a B.Sc. Hons. degree in Computer Science from the University of Kent.  James is based in London, England.

Walter De Smedt

IP Consulting Engineer

NOKIA

Walter is a consulting engineer for Nokia’s datacenter network portfolio in the EMEA region. He has more than 20 years of experience in telco networking both in pre-sales at Nokia and at various CSP’s as a network and systems architect. He is based in Antwerp, Belgium. 

Bruno De Troch

Head of PLM IP Routing and Automation 

EMEA

NOKIA

Bruno has over 20 years of experience in the telecom industry and joined the Alcatel-Lucent (now Nokia) Product Line Management team in EMEA in April 2014. His focus is on Service Provider core, edge and aggregation networks and solutions. Prior to his current role he was a Technical Lead at Juniper Networks for 14 years, providing guidance to carriers and large enterprises on how to deploy and optimize their IP/MPLS and Carrier Ethernet networks. He holds an MSc in Telecommunications from the Military Academy in Brussels and made it to Captain in charge of the Belgian Armed Forces country-wide data network before leaving and joining BT Belgium as a Design Engineer. He is based in Antwerp, Belgium.

Philippe Dellaert

Product Line Manager

NOKIA

Philippe Dellaert is a Product Manager for the Nokia Fabric Services System and has been involved in data center network  management in different roles for over 15 years. Originally starting his debut in Product Management in Belgium where he was responsible for the integration of the Nuage Networks cloud automation into different cloud management systems, he quickly joined the Product Management team in the San Francisco Bay Area and continued to chase his data center automation interest by joining the Nokia Fabric Services System team where he took on a similar responsibility. 

Daniel Derksen

Regional Product Line Manager

Nuage

NOKIA

At Nokia, Daniel Derksen is responsible for regional product line management of the Nuage SDN solution (SD-WAN/SD Data Center) and the recently introduced SR Linux Data Center fabric solution. He has over 20 years of experience in the IP industry covering SDN, Telco-Cloud, IP/MPLS routing, aggregation/backhaul and business & residential services. Daniel holds a bachelor degree in computer science.

Pierre El-Haddad

Product Manager

NOKIA

Pierre El-Haddad is a senior product line manager for IP routing hardware. He currently manages several product portfolios aimed at mobile anyhaul, datacenters, wholesale transport, TEPS, and more. Pierre has 23 years of experience in product development, network architecture and product management for IP/Ethernet and legacy technologies. He holds a bachelors degree in electrical engineering and a masters in business administration. He is based in Ottawa, Canada.

Rafa De Fermin

Senior Vice President IP/Optical Networks

EMEA Regional Business Center

NOKIA

Rafael de Fermín joined Alcatel in 1993. Since then, he has been involved in several responsibilities in the company, while living in the UK, the US, Belgium and Spain. In August 2013, he was appointed to lead the IP Routing and Transport Division in EMEA, and as such is in charge of all Alcatel-Lucent’s IP and Optics business in the region. Prior to this position, Rafael led the Global Customer Delivery and Presales teams for the same regional scope. Before that, Rafael spent five years working for the Access Business Division in Alcatel, in charge of the Regional Support Centres for different geographies (including Europe, Middle East, Africa, India and Latin America). He held pre- and post-sales responsibilities for the Division in those geographies. His earlier jobs with Alcatel include General Management of the Fixed Networks Division for Iberia, and several positions in R&D and PLM, within the Access Products Division.

Gilles Geerts

Networking Engineer

NOKIA

Gilles Geerts is Consulting Engineer in the Network Solutions and Consulting team at Nokia, EMEA region. In this role, he provides design guidelines based upon best practices and customer requirements with a special focus on Carrier Wi-Fi, IP/MPLS architectures and next-gen Business Services. For this, he interworks with Nokia technical sales as well as technical experts in leading EMEA service providers.  Currently based in Antwerp, Belgium, Gilles has more than 17 years of experience working on Enterprise and Provider IP/MPLS networks throughout the world. He has been part of the Alcatel-Lucent¹s IP Division for the last 13 years in a consulting and new product introduction role. Prior to that, he held positions as QA/integration engineer for an Alcatel IP Core router project.  He holds Alcatel-Lucent SRA (#28) certificate and has a master degree in electro-mechanics.

Federico Guillen

President, Network Infrastructure

NOKIA

As President of Network Infrastructure at Nokia – a group that combines Nokia’s IP Networks, Optical Networks, Fixed Networks and Alcatel Submarine Networks businesses – Federico is responsible for a wide range of critical networks for customers in both the communication service provider (CSP) and webscale segments globally. Before taking on his current appointment, Federico was President of Customer Operations for Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia Pacific. Immediately following the merger between Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent in 2016, he became President of Nokia’s Fixed Networks business group, having previously been President of Alcatel-Lucent Spain and head of the Telefónica account team and, until 2009, Vice President of Sales for Vertical Market Sales in Western Europe.  Earlier roles included leading the Regional Support Center within Alcatel-Lucent’s Fixed Access Division for the Europe and South region (Southern Europe, India, Caribbean & Latin America, Middle East & Africa) and Chief Senior Officer of Alcatel Mexico, a role he held concurrently with that of Global Account Manager for Telmex, basing himself in Mexico City.  Federico holds a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications engineering and a master’s degree in switching and communication architectures from the Polytechnic University of Madrid in Spain. He was also awarded a master’s degree in international management from Emlyon Business School in France and Alcatel.

Wim Henderickx

Head of Technology & Architecture

NOKIA

Wim Henderickx is Head of Technology & Architecture in the Network Infrastructure Group, based in Belgium. Wim provides senior level consulting on advanced IP solutions such as Cloud Networking (SDN/NFV), Triple Play, network routing, mobile and the enterprise to service providers throughout EMEA. He is also actively engaged in assessing and defining future technologies that will help shape communications networks and services of tomorrow. He has over 20 years’ experience in the communications and networking industry, and is a regular speaker at technical conferences all over the world. He is active in IETF, BBF and Openstack.  Wim holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Data Communications and a Masters degree in Economy and is a Bellabs Fellow.

Rudy Hoebeke

Vice President, Product Management – Service Routers

NOKIA

Rudy Hoebeke is Vice President of Product Management for Nokia’s IP Service Routing  portfolio. He has over 15 years of experience in the communications and networking industry, in the areas of engineering, network design, technology & product strategy and product management. Formerly, Rudy was Vice President of Product Management for IP Service Routing and Mobile Packet Core in Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Division. He holds a MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Brussels (VUB) and a Masters in Business Administration from the Vlerick Leuven-Gent Business School.

Jakab

Director, Product Management, IP Routing

NOKIA

A 22 year employee of Nokia, Jeff is the Hardware PLM director within the IP business unit. Jeff has extensive experience across a number of roles within Nokia ranging from engineering, support, marketing and PLM. Jeff has a focus on strategic responsibilities in the product portfolio as well as ownership of hardware technical marketing. He holds a B.Sc in electrical engineering from the University of Calgary, Canada and an MBA from the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Johann Kellerman

IP Product Line Manager

EMEA

NOKIA

Johann is a Product Line Manager in the Europe and MEA team, with a focus on routing protocols and SDN across the Nokia IP/MPLS portfolio, Nokia SROS, and on the Network Services Platform (NSP).  Johann joined Alcatel-Lucent as Consulting Engineer in 2014 after several years in South Africa’s incumbent service provider and at a startup fibre infrastructure company, where they enabled international service providers to own national fibre and deploy their own equipment in record breaking time. Johann holds a Doctorate in Engineering from the University of Johannesburg, where his research focussed on optical sensing at the Centre of Optical Communications & Sensors.
 

Vach Kompella

Vice President and General Manager

IP Networks Division

NOKIA

Vach is VP and GM of the IP Networks Division (IPN) in the Network  Infrastructure Business Group at Nokia. IPN consists of 6 business units:  Service Router, Network Automation, Data Center, Nuage Networks, Packet Core and Deepfield. He started with Timetra Networks in 2001, leading the development of MPLS and related technologies, and arrived at Nokia through a series of M&A activity. In 2008, he started the Mobile Gateways program in the IP Division, and was Vice President of Engineering for the Mobile Packet Core. Vach has been a speaker at many conferences, and a regular contributor to standards in the IETF. He was co-chair of the l2vpn Working Group at 

the IETF for five years. Vach was awarded a Bell Labs Fellowship in 2009 for his contributions to MPLS and VPLS. Prior to Nokia, Vach held positions at IBM, working in network security and IP protocols. Vach holds a PhD in CS from the University of California, San Diego, and obtained his BTech in CS from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Ken Kutzler

Vice President and General Manager of Hardware Routing

IP/Optical Networks Business Group

NOKIA

Ken joined Alcatel-Lucent in 2003 through the acquisition of privately held TiMetra Networks, where he was co-founder. TiMetra was a venture-backed Silicon Valley start-up focused on service routers for IP/MPLS networks. Since the acquisition, Ken and his team have steadily grown Nokia’s IP strategy and hardware portfolio. The business has gained market share consistently for a decade, attaining the #2 position in service provider IP/MPLS routing and selling into 700+ customers including the world’s top 60 service providers. Ken is a recognized industry leader who enjoys being at the forefront of IP network evolution and portfolio development. He holds a Master’s Degree of Science in Telecommunications from the University of Colorado.

Craig Labovitz

Deepfield CTO

NOKIA

Craig Labovitz is Nokia CTO for the Deepfield business line.  Previously, Labovitz was Co-Founder and CEO of Deepfield. Labovitz has developed the core technology, key patents, architecture and commercial strategy behind more than $1 billion in sales of large enterprise and telecom security products. His technology is deployed in more than 700 Internet Service Providers, cable operators, content providers, and mission-critical networks around the globe.  Dr. Labovitz is an expert on Internet infrastructure and cloud evolution. In the 1990s, his seminal Internet research developed the foundation for Arbor Networks technology and served as a catalyst for significant changes in commercial Internet routing software implementations throughout the world. His work was recently recognized with the prestigious ACM SIGCOMM Test of Time Award in 2008.  In addition to his extensive commercial product and research background, Dr. Labovitz has over a decade of operational network engineering experience, including NSFNet backbone engineering, Sprint's first Internet email infrastructure, design of the Department of Defense research network, and the first commercial aviation Internet service. Dr. Labovitz is an active participant in the global network engineering community, including service on the program committee and as the Chair of North American Network Operators Group (NANOG).  Labovitz is the author of more than a dozen peer-reviewed networking research papers, journal articles and patents. His is a frequent guest on national television and radio news programs and his research is widely cited in national media articles and academic publications. Dr. Labovitz received his PhD and MSE from the University of Michigan.

Nardus Le Roux

IP Consulting System Engineer

NOKIA

At Nokia, Nardus is an IP & SDN Consulting System Engineer focused on the African market, with more than 25 years of experience in the Data communications market. Nardus focus on solving real world problems for fixed and mobile Service Providers as well as Enterprise customers including utility providers by matching network design and strategy of Nokia IP & SDN portfolio to address customer needs.

Karyn Lennon

Senior Director

IP/Optical Networks Learning Services

NOKIA

Karyn Lennon leads the Learning Services function for Nokia’s IP/Optical Networks Business Group.  In her role, Karyn is responsible for setting the strategic direction and development of Nokia’s Optical educational services which includes the Nokia Optical Networks Certification Program.  In addition to the Optical program, Karyn directs both Nokia’s flagship IP/MPLS certification program, the Service Routing Certification (SRC) Program which has over 14,000 individuals participating globally and the Nuage Networks Virtuoso Certification Program (NN-VCP). Prior to her role in Learning Services, Karyn held various PLM and Marketing positions at Newbridge Networks and Alcatel-Lucent. Karyn received her Bachelor of Commerce from  McGill University and holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Ottawa.

Benoit Leridon

IPR Business Development Manager

NOKIA

Benoit Leridon is a regional IPR Business Development Manager at Nokia, responsible for Transport, Energy and public sector in EMEA.  In his role he is deeply involved in customer projects in the pre-sales phase, to understand customer applications and requirements in order to define the proper solution for the evolution of their network infrastructures.  Benoit has 25 years of telecom pre-sales background covering enterprise and carrier markets for data, and voice solutions, and has joined Alcatel-Lucent in 2010 after holding different pre-sales management positions in companies such as Wellfleet, Bay Networks and Nortel.

Suresh Leroy

Regional Product Line Manager

BNG/residential services

EMEA

NOKIA

Suresh Leroy is the EMEA Regional Product Line Manager for BNG and the residential services within Nokia’s IP and Optical Networks Division.  He joined Alcatel in 1998 as mobile research engineer and has now almost 20 years of experience in telecommunications. He joined Nokia IP division in 2017.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and Master degree in software engineering at Brussels university.  Suresh is based in Antwerp, Belgium.

Jose Ignacio (Nacho)

Product Line Manager

NOKIA

Jose Ignacio (Nacho for short) has been working in the networking industry for the last 17 years. From Integrators, to ISPs and lately vendors, his focus has been mostly Service Provider networks, working over the entire spectrum, from operations to design and engineering projects. With a personal interest on analytics and data science, he decided to take the train of Nokia Deepfield two years ago, where he has been developing his career on big data applied to Internet and Subscriber analytics and DDoS protection. He is passionate about cycling, going to the movies and astronomy and he never says no to a fresh beer on a terrace in his beloved Madrid.

Paul Meyers

Senior Product Manager, EMEA

NOKIA

Paul Meyers is Senior Product Manager within Nokia's (and previously Alcatel and Alcatel-Lucent's) IP Division since 2005. Before joining this team, he was active within Alcatel for several years (starting from 1994) as Supply Chain project engineer looking into advanced planning systems and reverse logistics and from 2000 on as Marketing Manager and Business Consultant for data products (ATM & IP).  Paul holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louvain (KUL) and a Masters degree in Economics.

Sasa Nijemcevic

Vice President and General Manager

Network Automation Business Unit

NOKIA

Sasa Nijemcevic is Vice President and General Manager of the Network Automation Business Unit at Nokia. He leads the company’s Carrier SDN portfolio and Network and Service Automation efforts for the ION BG.  Sasa’s passion is building great software products. He started early writing computer games as a kid and continued into adulthood building network management and control applications. Whether it’s AI/ML or network automation, Sasa cares about the application of new technologies in solving real problems in the industry.

Jorge Rabadan

Senior Product Line Manager

NOKIA

Jorge Rabadan is a product line manager responsible for the development of EVPN and Data Center Gateway technologies in Nokia’s SROS. Jorge has more than 20 years in the telecom industry (working for different networking vendors), being part of Nokia’s IP Division for more than 12 years and is an active member in the IETF community, contributing and authoring more than 30 drafts and RFCs. When he is not working he enjoys traveling, reading a good book or working out.

Aleksandar Sarenac

Solution Line Manager

NOKIA

Aleksandar is a solution line manager for NOKIA ION Virtual Networks Orchestration. In his current role responsible for the solution life cycle management through all the phases of development and Started fALU career in 2006 in 5620SAM R&D.  Holds MSc Degree in Telecommunication.

Dom Schaeffer

Director IP Consulting Engineering EMEA

NOKIA

Dominique has over 20 years of experience in the telecom industry and joined the IP Consulting Engineering team in 2008. He’s responsible for the introduction, design and engineering of advanced IP solutions for major EMEA operators and enterprise on the full Nokia IP portfolio. Recently he took the role of Director of the Consulting Engineering team. Before joining the team, he had different roles including support, professional services and CTO office. Dominique holds a Master in Computer Science and a Master of Business Administration from La Sorbonne in Paris.

Marc Schoolaert

Senior Consulting Engineer

Deepfield Business Line, EMEA

NOKIA

Marc has over 25 years of experience within the networking and communications industry, in engineering, auditing, supporting and selling IP/data networks and DPI/Application Assurance solutions for Network Operators and businesses around the world. He joined Nokia in 2008 working in different roles as Consulting engineer and Regional PLM for the 7750 Service Routers and Application Assurance Solution and as IT- Architect involved with planning and designing the integration of the Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia WAN after the merger of both companies before joining the Deepfield Business Line as SE/Consulting engineer 3 years ago, to help customers across Europe to get the maximum value out of the Deepfield Solution.

Moataz Soliman

Product Line Manager

NOKIA

Product Line Manager on the Network Service Platform (NSP) at Nokia in Ottawa. In my current role, I’m responsible for NSP APIs and integration interfaces. I’m also managing NSP Connected Partner Program for certification and interoperability between NSP and the various partner OSS applications.

Before joining the PLM team, I led product development of NSP Analytics, which is a big data and reporting solution, from initial concept to release.  I hold a Bachelor degree in Software Engineering from Carleton University and a Masters of Engineering Management degree from University of Ottawa.

Piotr Stpiczynski

Senior Product Line Manager

Professional Service

NOKIA

Piotr Stpiczynski is a Senior Product Line Manager responsible for IP Transformation in ION business group. In his 15 plus years of experience in network transformation and software development he helped many companies to achieve their business objectives when executed transformation programs. Extensively experienced in product, programs and delivery teams management as well in business development and consulting.

Yves Thibeault

Senior Product Line Manager

NOKIA

Yves Thibeault is a Senior Product Line Manager on the Network Services Platform (NSP) of Nokia in Ottawa and is specifically responsible for Network and Service Assurance applications. Before joining Nokia & Alcatel-Lucent, Yves was a senior R&D manager at Nakina Systems for 8 years responsible for a multi-vendor network management system and various OSS applications. Yves has over 28 years of multi-disciplinary telecommunication experience in Software Research and Development and Product Management in various network domains including voice switching, ATM, Frame Relay, Optical/SONET/SDH transport and carrier Ethernet at Nortel Networks, AcceLight Networks, JDS Uniphase, Nakina Systems and now Alcatel-Lucent.

Roland Thienpont

IP Product Marketing

NOKIA 

Mike Thompson

Global Network Automation Practice Leader

NOKIA

Mike Thompson leads Nokia’s global network automation practice focusing on Nokia’s Network Services Platform (NSP) and SDN to help service providers and large enterprise customers improve operational efficiency, productivity, lower MTTR, reduce churn, and accelerate revenue streams. Prior to Nokia, Mike was a leader at Charter Communications in Operations and Engineering. He has held leadership positions at Nokia, Charter, Cisco, BearingPoint, and Verizon. Mike has extensive experience in large scale software, network automation, routing, and optical. Mike has held leadership roles in Engineering, Software Development, Operations, Architecture, Sales, Consulting, and Product Management teams and as a Business Unit General Manager. He has a Master of Science in Information Management and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Nicolas Tikhomiroff

Europe IP Division Business Development, Enterprises

NOKIA

Nicolas Tikhomiroff is part of the Transport, Energy and Public Sector business development team for Nokia’s IP Division in Europe. In this position he is helping customers to evolve their critical telecom infrastructure to IP based multiservice, reliable, flexible and future proof networks relying on IP/MPLS and LTE packet core technologies. He has more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications networking industry, holding network engineering, product management and presales positions at Global One, Nortel Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia.

Bruce Wallis

Senior Director Produce Line Manager

NOKIA

Bruce Wallis leads SR Linux and Fabric Services System product management within Network Infrastructure division. Originally from New Zealand, now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, he cut his networking teeth on supporting Internet Service Providers in New Zealand and in the wider APAC region. Before taking the leap into product management, his role within the NI Consulting and Solutions Engineering team supporting PoC and demos on yet-unreleased NI products allowed him to build an extensive skill set in virtualization, all things Linux, and general system and solution design. Starting in the industry in 2008 at the age of 17, he now has 14 years’ experience across a wide array of roles.