Wavelengths 2024 Speakers
Americas
September 16-18
Wavelengths Americas 24
US, Las Vegas, Caesars Palace
Guest speakers
Daniel Schatte
Vice President of Core & Backbone Operations
Charter Communications
Daniel Schatte is the Vice President of Core & Backbone Operations at Charter Communications. With over 17 years at the company, he is responsible for overseeing the IP Routing , Optical Transport and Automation teams. His leadership has been pivotal in network planning, design, and the management of large-scale core and metro networks. Daniel has held several leadership roles, including Senior Director and Principal Network Engineer, contributing to the growth of Charter’s infrastructure.
Vice President of Core & Backbone Operations
Charter Communications
Sterling Perrin
Senior Principal Analyst
Heavy Reading
Sterling has more than 20 years of experience in telecommunications as an industry analyst and journalist. His coverage area at Heavy Reading is optical networking, including packet-optical transport and 5G transport.
Senior Principal Analyst
Heavy Reading
James Knights
Principal Architect, Global Network & Edge Center of Excellence
Kyndryl
James has over 40 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. He has been a CCIE (#2990) for 25 years. Along the way, he has also held certifications in Network Security and Wireless Design. He’s led support and engineering teams at Bell and at IBM GTS. He designed and built critical infrastructure and services for many Provincial Governments and Canada’s major corporations. James has led projects in Data Centre design, Smart Connected Buildings, Sports Venues, Hospital Systems integration, Manufacturing, Software Defined Networking, and Carrier Network expansion. He is an Open Group Certified Distinguished Architect, and currently a Director and Principal Architect within the Global Network & Edge Center of Excellence, providing technical leadership and vision to customers worldwide.
Principal Architect, Global Network & Edge Center of Excellence
Kyndryl
Nokia speakers
Heidi Adams
Head of IP Networks Marketing
Nokia
As the head of IP Networks marketing at Nokia, Heidi leads a global team focused on promoting Nokia’s IP solutions. With over 20 years in the telecommunications industry in roles spanning R&D, product management, technical marketing and as an industry analyst, she enjoys casting a spotlight on technology evolution and innovation and making it more accessible and compelling to a broader audience. Heidi has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s University (Kingston) and an MBA from the University of Ottawa.
Head of IP Networks Marketing
Nokia
Matt Arnoldus
Leader - Optical Pre-sales Regional Business Center
Nokia
Matt Arnoldus leads Nokia’s North American Optical Business Center. Matt has been the leader for two years and with Nokia for three, joining in 2020 from Cisco. Matt is a veteran of the Service Provider market, leading sales team for 30+ year in NAM and globally. Matt’s team leads the presales and engineering for the US and Canada including design, product alignment and commercial solutions
Leader - Optical Pre-sales Regional Business Center
Nokia
Carlos Barroso
LAT IP Business Center Leader
Nokia
Carlos “Cadu” Barroso leads the Nokia IP Business in LAT. He has more than 20 years of experience in telco networking in pre-sales and business development at Nokia and at various CSP’s as a network engineer and consultant expert while living in Brazil, Mexico and USA. Cadu has been part of Nokia’s IP journey in LAT from its start as a customer and later joining Nokia, and with his team is passionate to live many more new chapters in it.
LAT IP Business Center Leader
Nokia
Marco Belotti
Optical Certification Program - Trainer
Nokia
Marco Belotti is a Training and Certification Professional and he deals with the “Optical Networks Certification” Program. Prior to joining the Learning Services, he played as Project Manager and TEC engineer, with focus on Optical products (1830 PSS, 1350 OMS, 1850 TSS, etc.). He handled introduction, management and configuration of optic/electric transmission systems in major customers’ networks, becoming a world traveler by joining more than 60 projects in about 25 countries worldwide during his 10-year experience in Nokia.
Optical Certification Program - Trainer
Nokia
Steve Cotter
Deepfield Principal Consulting Engineer
Nokia
After 6 years in the US Air Force building deploying and maintaining tactical computer and telephony networks, Steve joined Cabletron Systems in 1995 where he worked with exciting technologies like Thick-NET vampire taps, Token Ring, FDDI, IBM hermaphroditic connectors, AppleTalk, SecureFast, Cell Matrix Backplanes and more. When Cabletron divested into four companies, Steve became part of Riverstone Networks focusing on highly scalable IP/MPLS networks for large enterprise, and service provider customers. In 2006 Lucent Technologies acquired Riverstone and later merged with Alcatel to become Alcatel-Lucent. Ten years later Alcatel-Lucent was acquired by Nokia. The primary result of all these mergers and acquisitions is an extensive business card collection spanning 27 years. Steve has an extensive background in design, deployment, and optimization of IP/MPLS networks, VoIP, SD-WAN, and Network Analytics. Steve’s likes include 3AM network redesigns, 2000 question RFP’s and long walks through airport terminals. Holding more different positions than he can count, Steve continues working with customers around the globe, from Teir-1 Telcos and MSO’s to small enterprise customers, destroying multiple laptops and cellphones along the way. Steve holds a degree in Applied Electrical Systems from the Community College of the Air Force. When not on plane to see a customer, Steve is based in the east coast of Massachusetts where he keeps busy collecting after use, every cellphone made by Nokia and Blackberry.
Deepfield Principal Consulting Engineer
Nokia
James Cumming
Senior Product Line Manager, SROS and SR Linux Platform, Programmability and Virtualization
Nokia
James Cumming is the Product Line Manager for the Nokia SR OS and SR Linux router software with a specific focus on Network Programmability (NETCONF/YANG/gRPC/MD-CLI/Python) and Virtualization within Nokia’s Network Infrastructure Division. He has an extensive background in the Internet Service Provider industry over the last 25+ years. He has worked as a lead Network Architect in several global service providers leading the efforts in network architecture, deployment, integration as well as product and service development 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.
Senior Product Line Manager, SROS and SR Linux Platform, Programmability and Virtualization
Nokia
Pino Dicorato
Optical Networks Product Marketing
Nokia
Pino leads technical sales enablement for Nokia’s Network Infrastructure optical network automation environment portfolio, which is paving the path to transition, scale, simplify and digitize the future for the optical transport industry. With over 20 years of experience in the telecom industry, his roles have ranged from business development and consulting within various industry markets to R&D roles in photonic hardware development, ASIC/FPGA design, and software automation for high-scale manufacturing. Away from work, Pino enjoys high-intensity interval training, playing soccer, biking and traveling worldwide with his beautiful family.
Optical Networks Product Marketing
Nokia
James Doucette
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
James Doucette is Product Line Manager for WaveSuite Service Enablement software applications at Nokia. Prior to joining Nokia in 2017, he lead the software Systems Engineering team and was the lead Agile Product Owner for BluePlanet software at Ciena. Over the course of his career, he has specialized in launching new software initiatives that simplify network operations and control of Optical and Packet networks. He has held a variety of roles spanning Product Management, Systems Architecture and Research & Development. His has extensive experience in working with lead customers and development teams to launch new software applications with specialization in the areas of SDN control, network and service management, and Layer 2 metro ethernet networks. James holds a degree in Systems and Computer Engineering from Carleton University in Ottawa Canada.
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Pedja Dragovic
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Pedja has spent 17 years in the telecom industry with various roles ranging from network architect to systems engineering. His current role is Product Line Manager for Multi-service Transport platform, 1830PSS. He holds a Bachelor and Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Belgrade in Serbia. His career interests include: advancing technical and operational knowledge in transport network evolution, how emerging technology in optical and electronics domains enables network transformation, network functions virtualization, software aspects of transport networks evolution and extending expertise into other communication technologies that complement optical transport.
Product Line Manager, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Kevin Drury
Head of Optical Networks Marketing
Nokia
Kevin Drury received his undergraduate degree in Electronical Engineering from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada where he specialized in telecommunications. Further in his academic career, he completed a Master’s in Business Administration. Kevin is the Strategic Initiatives PLM Leader for the Optical Networks business division at Nokia. Previously he has held several leadership roles at Alcatel-Lucent, including the Deployment and Professional Services leader for the Optical Networks business unit and the Optical Products and Solutions Marketing leader in the IP Routing & Transport Division. He has over 25 years’ experience in the Telecommunications industry with particular expertise in the areas of fiber optic transmission, wavelength division multiplexing, OTN switching, narrowband and broadband access, carrier voice and applications, and LAN/WAN networking. He has presented or co-authored papers for numerous industry events including WDM & Next Generation Optical Networking, ITPX/NCUG, ITU Telecom, Supercomm, OFC, NFOEC, Terabit Optical & Transport SDN and the Big Telecom Event.
Head of Optical Networks Marketing
Nokia
Pavlo Duma
Product Manager, Datacenter Interconnect Transponders & Optical Transmission Platforms
Nokia
Pavlo has 25 years of professional experience in telecommunications industry. He contributed to development of optical DWDM products and network management software in various R&D and product management roles. As a Product Manager of 1830 PSI Datacenter Interconnect products family, Pavlo is responsible for market strategy, feature content and lifecycle management of both transponder and photonic line DCI platforms. Pavlo has degrees in Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering.
Product Manager, Datacenter Interconnect Transponders & Optical Transmission Platforms
Nokia
Ed Englehart
Vice President of Engineering and Head of Subsystems Product Unit, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Ed Englehart leads two roles in the Nokia Optical Business unit. The first is leading the worldwide R&D for the 1830 portfolio of products. The second is leading the R&D and PLM for the Optic’s Subsystem team, this team is taking some of the key innovations from the Optics R&D teams to new application spaces and markets. In his 31 years of experience he has worked in key areas of Optics, Enterprise, and Access with a focus on service provider and enterprise customer solutions. He was part of the original development team that introduced the 1830 to the market and has held leadership positions in Product Line management and throughout R&D to evolve and expand this product to where it has become. Ed holds a Masters of Engineering from Columbia University.
Vice President of Engineering and Head of Subsystems Product Unit, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Bassam El-Zakhem
Senior Vice President, Network Infrastructure Americas
Nokia
Bassam El-Zakhem was appointed Senior Vice-President of Network Infrastructure Americas on April 1st, 2022. As such he is responsible for managing the Network Infrastructure business, operations and growth in the Americas market. Bassam has 30 years of progressive experience within the Telecommunications industry. He started his career with AT&T in the Middle East before moving with Lucent Technologies where he progressed through a series of positions in Operations, Services, Program Mangement, Sales Engineering and Business Development. Bassam holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Saint Joseph – Beirut Lebanon. Bassam is married and has 3 daughters, he enjoys traveling with family in his free time.
Senior Vice President, Network Infrastructure Americas
Nokia
Jose Gallardo
IP MPLS SME, NI Learning Services
Nokia
Jose Gallardo is a courseware developer with the Network Infrastructure Learning Services team. He has been with Nokia since 2010 and works in the Service Routing Certification (SRC) program. He holds a Ph.D. degree from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C
IP MPLS SME, NI Learning Services
Nokia
Thomas Henderiks
IP Consulting System Engineer
Nokia
Thomas is one of the consulting engineers for Nokia's IP portfolio covering EMEA, specializing in network automation. He interacts with customers and colleagues alike to come up with solutions to streamline processes. Thomas has an overall fondness for automating tasks backed up by a master's degree in Computer Science specialized in computer networking.
IP Consulting System Engineer
Nokia
Alastair Johnson
Deepfield Pre-sales Technical Lead
Nokia
Alastair Johnson (AJ) is the North American lead for Nokia Deepfield pre-sales, based in Sunnyvale, California. AJ’s focus is working directly with customers to introduce, explain, and expand technology based on Deepfield – solving customer problems through new, innovative technologies. AJ has been with Nokia for 15+ years in a variety of roles.
Deepfield Pre-sales Technical Lead
Nokia
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.
Vice President and General Manager, IP Networks Division
Nokia
Karyn Lennon
NI Learning Services Leader
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.
NI Learning Services Leader
Nokia
Mike Mangino
Sales Enablement NAM RBC Leader
Nokia
Mike Mangino is the Sales Enablement Leader for the NAM RBC. Mike has over 25 years of experience in networking. He started at Nokia as a consulting engineer with Alcatel-Lucent in 2008 supporting a wide range of customers in adopting technology to solve their business problems. Today his focus is on technology education for both our customers and Nokia internal towards the goal of enabling sales.
Sales Enablement NAM RBC Leader
Nokia
Giovanni Manto
Strategy & Advanced Technology Leader, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Giovanni has global product management responsibilities for Nokia’s Optical portfolio, covering all aspects of product management and future portfolio strategies. Giovanni has over 25+ years of industry experience and has held several senior management positions at LG, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nortel Networks. During his tenure at LG, Giovanni was the general manager of the Fiber access business unit with responsibility for the productization and commercialization of an innovative optical technology for the fiber access portfolio serving a diverse global customer base. Giovanni holds a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from Concordia University in Montréal, Canada and is based in Ottawa, Canada.
Strategy & Advanced Technology Leader, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Alejandro Aguado Martin
NSP IP Management Product Line Manager
Nokia
Alejandro is a Global Product Manager for Nokia’s NSP, specializing in network automation and programmability. With around ten years of experience in research and engineering for IP and optical networking, Alejandro has a strong focus on management architectures, open APIs and standardization. He holds bachelor's degrees in Software Engineering and Mathematics, as well as a PhD in Computer Science, with a specialization in quantum security integration into telecommunications networks.
NSP IP Management Product Line Manager
Nokia
Craig Patten
Deepfield Principal Consulting Engineer
Nokia
Craig Patten, holds a Masters in Data Sciences and is a Principal Consulting Engineer for Nokia. Prior to joining Nokia in 2020, Craig has worked for Internet Service Providers in Network Engineering and Architecture roles, as well as network equipment vendors ViaSat and Terayon. Throughout his 25+ years in Telecommunications he has shown a passion for Data analytics and turning data into information.
Deepfield Principal Consulting Engineer
Nokia
Narendra Rath
Senior Director, ON Network Automation
Nokia
Sven Wisotzky is a senior network management and automation consultant working for more than 20 years in the communications and networking industry. He joined Alcatel’s IP Division in 2004, working in the areas of product support, training, integration, technical sales, network and solution design and consultancy. Since 2017 he is part of the NSP platform product management team, driving model-driven, multi-vendor nodal mediation using NETCONF/YANG and gRPC, automation frameworks and telemetry. He is based in the metropolitan area of Frankfurt/Main, Germany.Professional Journey ( 25+ Years ) - Learned to speak to a group of people, as a Faculty Member, @TULEC, Berhampur, Built Professional Foundation as an Engineer @DSQ Software Limited, Chennai. Built leadership skills and software architecture skills @Cisco Systems, US, UK, India. Learned to manage large scale global team @Nokia delivering multiple products. Current Role - Senior Director , NMS R&D Head, Global Leader, Nokia. Manages a team of 300 people worldwide to deliver high quality software to manage service provider networks. Building software solutions for next generation networks.
Senior Director, ON Network Automation
Nokia
Juan Rodriguez
Senior Director
Nokia
Juan is Sr. Director leading the IP Network Consulting Engineering supporting Multi-System Operators (MSOs) and US Major Service Providers accounts in Nokia’s IP & Optics Networks (ION). Juan has been with Nokia since 2008 in various technical positions throughout Latin America and North America and is currently based in Orlando, Florida. Juan holds a degree in Telecommunications and Telematics Engineering from PUCMM in the Dominican Republic.
Senior Director
Nokia
Leonardo Serodio
Principal Consulting Engineer - Deepfield
Nokia
Leonardo Serodio is a Consulting Engineer in the Deepfield division of Nokia, where he is responsible for designing and testing traffic analytics and DDoS security solutions for Service Providers and large Enterprises using the Deepfield product line. Leonardo has extensive experience in the ISP and Carrier space, having worked for over 20 years with large Operators in the Americas and Europe. Prior to Deepfield, he worked in Nokia/ALU as a Consulting Engineer for the SR router product line. Prior to joining Nokia/ALU, Leonardo worked at Arbor Networks as a Corporate Systems Engineer for the Peakflow product line.
Principal Consulting Engineer - Deepfield
Nokia
Leslie Shannon
Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting
Nokia
Leslie Shannon is the Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting for Nokia. A Silicon Valley-based futurist, she focuses on identifying connectivity-related tech disruptions and opportunities, including developments in robotics, drones, visual analytics, cloud gaming, generative AI, and especially augmented and virtual reality. Leslie is the author of the book Interconnected Realities, a look at the current and future development of XR and spatial computing, and, with Catherine D. Henry, Virtual Natives, an examination of how Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s use of digital technologies is revolutionizing how humans relate to both computers and each other.
Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting
Nokia
Mijail Szczerban Gonzalez
Product Line Manager
Nokia
Mijail Szczerban earned his industrial PhD in Optical Networking in 2021 from Nokia Bell Labs France and Université Paris-Cergy. He holds an MSc in Optical Networks and Photonic Systems from Université Paris-Saclay and Télécom SudParis (2017). After his masters, he joined Telefónica Venezuela as Transport Network Engineering Lead. Following his PhD, Mijail gained an MSc in business from HEC Paris, launched a consultancy firm, and advised CSPs in South America and the Caribbean. In 2022, he returned to Nokia Bell Labs in New Jersey as a Member of Technical Staff, focusing on space-division multiplexing and fiber sensing. He developed techno-economic tools for evaluating future network architectures. As of April 2024, he is the Strategy Product Line Manager at Nokia Optical Networks Business Group, based in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
Product Line Manager
Nokia
Hans Thienpondt
Technology and Architecture Consulting Engineer
Nokia
Hans is a Technology and Architecture Consulting Engineer at Nokia based in Antwerp, Belgium. He is focusing on the automation aspects of networking and assessing future technologies. Hans has close to 20 years of experience in the industry and prior to Nokia, worked in several network or systems engineering positions at companies operating at Web- or Service Provider scale.
Technology and Architecture Consulting Engineer
Nokia
Kevin Todts
NPI & Network Design Engineer
Nokia
Kevin Todts has been a dedicated member of the Nokia team for five years, working as part of the cNPI team based in Antwerp. Specializing in data center networking, Kevin is heavily involved in engaging with customers, conducting demos, and managing Proofs of Concept (PoCs).
NPI & Network Design Engineer
Nokia
Howard Wang
Subsystems Business Development, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Howard Wang is part of Nokia’s Optical Subsystems Group, where he is responsible for product ownership and applications engineering of Nokia's Silicon photonic optical front-end portfolio. Howard joined Nokia via the acquisition of Elenion in 2020. Prior to Nokia, Howard was part of the Network Architecture and Engineering team at Bank of America responsible for the redesign and build-out of the bank’s nationwide coherent metro DWDM network. Howard earned his BS, MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, where he focused on photonic-network and switch architectures for High Performance Computing and data center applications, and has more than 40 publications in scientific journals and conferences proceedings.
Subsystems Business Development, Optical Networks Division
Nokia
Sven Wisotzky
Senior Network Management and Automation Consultant
Nokia
Sven Wisotzky is a senior network management and automation consultant working for more than 20 years in the communications and networking industry. He joined Alcatel’s IP Division in 2004, working in the areas of product support, training, integration, technical sales, network and solution design and consultancy. Since 2017 he is part of the NSP platform product management team, driving model-driven, multi-vendor nodal mediation using NETCONF/YANG and gRPC, automation frameworks and telemetry. He is based in the metropolitan area of Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
Senior Network Management and Automation Consultant
Nokia
Contact us
Event management
Karen Whitaker
M: +49 171 305 1967
E: karen.whitaker@nokia.com
Hotel reservation
Michael Avery
E: nokia@conferencecontacts.co.uk
Registration
Antony Waite
E: nokia@conferencecontacts.co.uk