Wimmy Hong,
Regional Technical Manager,
Axiom Systems Ltd, Singapore

Wimmy Hong is a Regional Technical Manager at Axiom Systems Ltd based in Singapore. Currently, he is responsible for providing technical sales and solution architecting services for Telco organizations in South-east Asia.

Wimmy has travelled extensively in Asia and has rich experience in the Telco OSS/BSS industry. He has a strong background in Network and Service Management on many IP and broadband technologies, but his main area of interest is in service fulfilment for next generation IP and broadband networks. Before joining Axiom Systems, Wimmy also had many years of successful pre-sales and post-sales experience delivering software solutions to large Asian Telco customers while working for Dorado Software, Siemens and Lucent Technologies.

Wimmy holds a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering (Honours) from the National University of Singapore.

Andrew Batten,
Head, Next Generation Technology Practice,
BT Telconsult, Singapore

Head of Next Generation Technology Practice in BT Telconsult, Andrew Batten has 23 years’ telecommunications experience and holds a BSc, MSc and MBA. Prior to moving to Southeast Asia in 1999, Andrew spent over 10 years in various product development roles including two years as programme director, achieving product launches of one per month and introducing BT’s first IP-based management product. Since 1999, Andrew has acted as managing consultant with various carriers in the region, advising on technology architecture, mergers and acquisitions, and general telecommunications consulting.

Wudy Wu,
Researcher, Network Operation Support Tech. Lab Chunghwa Telecom Lab, Taiwan

Wudy joined Chunghwa Telecom (Telecom Laboratory) in 2000. He worked in the areas of Network Operation Technology Lab and leaded OSS service configuration and activation OSS team. In 2006 and 2007, he represented for CHT to lead international collaborative catalyst projects in TMF (TeleManagement Forum) and sponsor to TMF working groups (mTOP and TIP-TMF Interface Program).  Currently, he manages NGN OSS service provisioning team, where his expertise is to deliver new generation and transforming OSS architecture related to NGN services for the future of CHT.

Anthony Peter Kalcina,
Founder & Executive Director,
Clarity International Ltd, Australia

Tony Kalcina is the Founder and Executive Director of Clarity International responsible for Product Strategy and Management.

Tony has worked in the Telecom Industry for over 25 years. He spent 10 years within the Australian Telecom incumbent OTC (known as Telstra). There he worked across OTC’s R&D, Engineering, Operations and IT Divisions, participating in to a number of International Satellite R&D Projects and OSS Inter-Carrier consortiums. In 1986 he created and led the internal NMS Development and Support team within OTC, which developed regulatory driven customer centric Telecom OSS applications, winning the 1991 Oracle Asia Pacific Application of the year award.

In 1993 Tony was one of the initial executives hired by Malaysia’s Time Telekom, he lead its IT Division. In 1995 he was appointed CEO of  Time Quantum, a Malaysian Renong IT company focused at delivering OSS/BSS solutions to Time and beyond.

Tony was appointed CEO of Clarity in 1997, and in  2000 Tony Kalcina floated Clarity in the Australia Stock Market, making it one of Bloomberg’s top 10 International floats of the year.  In 2001 Clarity was Australia’s second fastest growing company in Australia. In 2002 Tony led the merger of Clarity with a larger publicly listed company, joining its Board. Over the past few years Tony has contributed to the expansion of Clarity within Asia, Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Tony Kalcina has a B.Sc. (Hons) Computer Science & Physics and B.E. (Electrical Engineering), University of Sydney Australia.

Raghu Prasad
Chief Technology Officer, Comverse, Singapore

As Asia Pacific CTO, Raghu Prasad analyzes key industry trends and customer requirements and helps to direct these regional needs into COMVERSE current and future solutions. His role requires him to work closely with Comverse’s leading customers in Asia Pacific and ensure that operators work closely as long-term business partners with Comverse. For more than a decade, Raghu has worked closely in numerous Information Technology organizations across a variety of industries, including acting as a deployment consultant for Enterprise Resource Planning solutions and Operational Support Systems. In addition to the billing and customer care industry Raghu also has extensive experience in technical consulting for network management and telecommunications solutions.

Since 1998 Raghu has served in numerous capacities supporting the diverse array of customers in the APAC region who have deployed the COMVERSE Kenan suite of billing and customer care solutions. Subsequent to Lucent’s acquisition of Kenan Systems in 1999, Raghu assumed responsibility for technical consulting operations of both the billing and network management software solutions offered by Lucent under the banner of Software Products Group.
 
Raghu’s early career experience includes deployment consultancy on operational support systems for the insurance industry and technical consultancy on ERP solutions for the manufacturing industry.
 
Raghu holds a graduate degree in electronics and communications engineering and an MBA from a leading business school in India.

Manoj Menon
Partner & Asia Pacific Managing Director,
Frost & Sullivan, Singapore

Manoj Menon directly manages Frost & Sullivan’s business in Asia Pacific.

Manoj started at Frost & Sullivan in December 1996 as one of the pioneers when the company was just beginning its trajectory into Asia. He has, since then, successfully grown the company’s presence and business in Asia Pacific by manifold. Manoj continues to drive Frost & Sullivan’s expansion in the region, yielding the highest yearon-year growth to the group’s global business.

Throughout his tenure at Frost & Sullivan, Manoj has consulted on multiple strategic and syndicated projects for leading multinational companies, regulators and government bodies, providing growth

workshops and client counsels, among others. He is today one of the region’s most sought-after speakers and thought leaders, wherein his expert opinions have been heard at seminars and industry conferences globally. Manoj is also frequently featured in leading media, namely CNN, Bloomberg, Channel News Asia, CNBC, BBC, Singapore Business Times and Straits Times, and Malaysian Business.

He earned his Bachelor of Engineering at Mumbai University, and MBA at the ICFAI Business School in India. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Stephen Hateley,
Senior Product Marketing Manager,
InfoVista, UK

Stephen Hateley is a senior product marketing manager at InfoVista focused on service provider markets. Steve has a strong track record in product and consultative marketing built over the past ten years with Newbridge Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and InfoVista.  He was responsible for assisting EMEA communication service providers best harness Alcatel technologies for new product introduction and to influence stronger service differentiation – largely bought about through strategic NSM and OSS planning. 

Steve has a strong background in Network & Service Management on many technologies from ATM and frame relay to IP and Carrier Ethernet solutions and is a strong advocate of using software as a means to improve the service delivery experience.

John Vernagus,
Product Consultant,
Macquarie Telecom, Singapore

John T. Vernagus is a seasoned senior executive distinguished by his leadership skills, operational experience, and business savvy.  Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for excellence, he has served in diverse B-to-B/B-to-C marketing, sales, and operating-unit leadership roles across environments ranging from start-up to mainstream settings. Trained and extensively practiced as a marketer, he is recognized as having a core expertise in launching emerging technology solutions, be they hardware, software, or service focused, and scaling their commercial appeal on a global basis.  With in-depth industry knowledge that broadly spans the networking and communication services worlds, he has helped multiple companies in the sector achieve breakthrough competitive success.

From 2007 to present, he has been serving in a CMO capacity for Macquarie Telecom’s Singapore Headquartered International Group.  His responsibilities encompass market planning, product management, strategic analysis and channel support. In addition to his marketing role, John has also served in an interim Group Executive role overseeing the International Operations organization during the company’s recent period of accelerated pan-region expansion.

Prior to his current position, Vernagus served in various executive leadership positions at AT&T from 2001-2006 that encompassed marketing, branding, and channel functions, and helped guide the firm’s transformation to a “next-generation” communications company. Responsibilities included oversight for global identity, product marketing, promotional initiatives, sales programs, corporate communications, and the company’s web presence. After the acquisition of the company by SBC, Vernagus’ team helped re-launch the new corporate brand and, ultimately, transition the business to its new owners.

Before joining AT&T, Vernagus was the America’s Regional President and General Manager for Concert Communications, Inc., an early-stage venture that offered IP networking services/systems.  Immediately preceding that, he was a Regional President and General Manager for the SBC Wireless family of companies.  In both of these roles, he energized and aligned evolving sales, marketing,  and operational teams while delivering double-digit growth in support of $1 billion operating targets.  Prior to these assignments, he served in a CMO role for Pacific Bell Mobile services, overseeing marketing, product management, and business development as the carrier was building and launching its franchise.

Looking back to the start of his career, Vernagus’ path to executive-level leadership began when he was recruited off the college campus for GTE Corporation’s “Leader Development” program.  On a fast track, he rapidly advanced through a series of sales, marketing, and product management assignments.  Via a business merger, Vernagus then became part of the newly forming Sprint Corporation, and was chosen to lead one of their regional sales/service organizations, a position in which numerous individual and team achievement awards were ultimately earned. Based upon that success, promotions to the senior corporate staff ensued and breakthroughs in database marketing, alternate channel partnerships, and territory planning programs were subsequently achieved.

In 1995, Vernagus left Sprint to join Pacific Bell and become a member of the Consumer Services leadership team as the head of market planning and business development.  In that role, he helped direct the company’s entry into the newly emerging broadband, long distance, and wireless marketplace, as well as serving as the executive responsible for independent lines of business associated with credit and pre-paid card services.  From there, the 1997 merger of SBC and Pacific Bell resulted in his progression ultimately to the aforementioned role as a regional president within the expanded SBC Wireless executive team.

As an engaged business leader, Vernagus has also stewarded multiple efforts in support of the United Way and Ronald McDonald House Charities.  Additionally, he has appeared in both print and broadcast media advocating charitable, business, and industry-related points of view. Vernagus has also been an active member of both the CMO Council and Marketing Leadership Council.

Dr. Sakari Palko,
Head of OBS Product Management, Asia Pacific, Nokia Siemens Networks, Singapore

Dr. Sakari Palko holds the position of Head of OBS Product Management, Asia Pacific, at Nokia Siemens Networks and is responsible for all Nokia Siemens Networks OSS and BSS production for customer needs and business development in the Asia Pacific region. Dr. Palko joined Nokia in 2000, and has been working in senior roles in strategy and business development in networks, multimedia and platforms. He has an established track record of 16 years in the IT and telecom businesses, as well as Internet domain business ventures. His particular field interest is in telecom industry transformation service quality and customer experience-driven operations. He holds a doctorate in Computer Technology from the Helsinki University of Technology in Electrical and Telecommunications Engineering.

Joe Hogan,
CTO & Founder, Openet, Ireland

Joe Hogan is a CTO, board member and founder of Openet. The principal architect of the Openet FusionWorks platform, he has more than 20 years of software engineering experience. He represents the company in the IETF, 3GPP, IPDR.org, and GBA forums and frequently speaks at and chairs conferences throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. Joe was a senior architect with Sun Microsystems's European kernel development center before leaving to found Openet.

David Sharpley,
Vice President, Product Marketing and Channels,
Oracle Communications, USA

David L. Sharpley, Vice President, Marketing and Alliances, Oracle Communications, is responsible for Oracle Communications’ go to market strategy for its OSS/BSS software application suite enabling next-generation mobile, broadband and IP services. In this capacity, David leads a knowledgeable worldwide team responsible for global marketing, product marketing and alliance and channel partners. Before joining Oracle, David was the Executive Vice-President of Marketing & Product Management for MetaSolv Software, Inc., where he led the company’s strategic product direction and was responsible for establishing the company’s leadership positions in OSS and was the firm’s leading market-facing executive. Prior to MetaSolv, David led the product and engineering units of Nortel Network's OSS and Clarify CRM business units serving telecommunications operators worldwide. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree from Carleton University, and an International MBA from the University of Ottawa.

Vivek Srivastava is Director, Solutions and Strategy, Oracle Communications Business Unit, APAC and Japan at Oracle Corporation. He is responsible for influencing many of our marketing efforts in the region such as go-to-market strategies and communications, building and maintaining relationships with analysts and key customer executives, envisioning solutioning strategies, competitive intelligence and lastly driving sales enablement oriented initiatives on a continuous basis both internally and externally with strategic customers and partners.
Prior to his tenure at Oracle, Vivek held Sales and Consulting positions with leading system integrators such as Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and HCL Hewlett Packard, led the Sales Consulting group for Kenan assets for Comverse in Asia Pacific and was responsible for managing the deployment of BSS and OSS systems at Idea Cellular.
Vivek holds Bachelors in Engineering from Regional Engineering College (REC) Allahabad, and an Executive MBA from Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur.

Silke Weber,
Head, Regional Operations,
Asia Pacific, Orange Business Services, Singapore

Silke Weber leads Orange Business Services (previously known as Equant) Regional Operations in the Asia Pacific region covering South East Asia and India, Australasia, Greater China, Japan and Korea.

With 16 years international experience spanning various aspects of the IT and Telecommunications industry, Silkes objective is to lead a team which excels in providing end to end services throughout the overall customer post sales life cycle.

Silke brings her experience and knowledge from previous roles within Orange Business Services such as Head of Customer Service Management, where she strove to achieve Customer Satisfaction targets through resource management and optimisation and service productisation while maintaining revenue responsibility on both a global and regional level. Other previous roles were Head of Customer Advocacy Asia Pacific where her objective was on the design and implementation of Customer loyalty and satisfaction strategies and also Head of Sales were she secured long term business contracts with multinational companies such as Exxon Mobil, Agilent and Nokia.

Silke was previously Global Account Manager with DeTeSystems (a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG) and also an Account Director with Deutsche Telekom Asia when she relocated to Singapore to develop sales strategies and sell global solutions for German MNC’s in Singapore and South East Asia.

Silke holds a Master of Business/Diploma des Grandes Ecoles and Vordiplom in Business Studies.

Rajeev Singhal,
Head OSS, Reliance Communications Limited, India

Rajeev  Singhal  heads  the  design  and  development  of OSS applications  portfolio  spanning Global, Enterprise, Broadband and 2G Wireless Services  at  Reliance Communications which is one of the worlds largest and fastest growing telecommunications service provider.                              
                                                                       
Rajeev has been instrumental in setting up the key systems, processes and integrations across CRM, Billing, GIS and a host of network elements in voice and next generation data networks.                                  
                                                                      
He has extensively traveled across the globe and has rich experience with leading mobile operators in Europe and North America.                      
                                                                        
Rajeev holds a B. Engg (hons) in Electronics and Telecommunications from Allahabad University and  a  MBA  in  Business Management from N.M.I.M.S Mumbai.        

A passionate sports lover, he begins his day with a round tennis with his son and jogging. 

Karl Whitelock,
Senior Consulting Analyst,
OSS BSS Global Competitive Strategies (OSSCS),
Stratecast a division of Frost & Sullivan, USA

Mr. Whitelock has managed executive-level relationships with a variety of communications industry companies including service providers, independent software vendors (ISVs), network equipment manufacturers, computing infrastructure suppliers and solution integrators.  Numerous companies have sought his insight and perspectives as an industry consultant concerning the operations challenges that service providers are facing and for help in redefining the product or marketing strategies OSS/BSS suppliers need as the industry moves toward customer-centric business management.

Mr. Whitelock has worked at a large local exchange carrier, global business consulting firm, network management software developer, and a large test and measurement supplier in addition to his experiences as an industry analyst for OSS/BSS operations.  Mr. Whitelock’s first-hand business analysis and real-time operations experience includes business strategy consulting, product marketing direction, systems requirements analysis, and solution software definition. 
One of the original founders of Stratecast Partners – a division of Frost & Sullivan focused on the business strategies of the communications industry, Mr. Whitelock established the OSS/BSS Competitive Strategies practice.  He has regularly addressed industry conferences sponsored by Frost & Sullivan, TeleStrategies, TeleManagement Forum and IEC on a variety of operations-related issues. 

Mr. Whitelock has produced regular assessments of the market trends and issues within the communications industry with a slant on how these trends affect the process and systems (OSS/BSS) challenges all communications providers are facing today.  He has authored over 100 publications addressing the business strategies of specific communications software companies and industry-level problems relating to the OSS/BSS software market.

Susan McNeice,
Program Manager,
OSS BSS Global Competitive Strategies (OSSCS),
Stratecast a division of Frost & Sullivan, USA

Sudeesh Yezhuvath,
Chief Operating Officer,
Subex Limited, India

Sudeesh Yezhuvath heads the overall operations of Subex, excluding the legal and financial functions. He heads all the three Business Units of the company – RMS (Revenue Maximization Solutions), FAS (Fulfillment and Assurance) and BT (British Telecom). He has been associated with Subex since 1993 and has been instrumental in building the software business of Subex. He has been closely involved in the company’s M&A activities, including the integration process post acquisitions.
Sudeesh has over 14 years of experience in the telecom field and has presented various papers on telecom and business operations in different parts of the world.
Sudeesh holds a B. Tech degree in Instrumentation and Control. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Subex.

Jaideep Potdar,
Head, OSS Unit,
Tech Mahindra, India

Krishna Kumar,
Principal Consultant, Global BSS SI & Consulting,
Tech Mahindra, India

Joseph Waring,
Group Editor, Telecom Asia, Hong Kong

Joseph Waring is the group editor for Questex Asia’s telecom titles, which include Telecom Asia, Wireless Asia, TelecomsEurope and America’s Network.  He also is responsible for online development for three telecom websites and the group’s custom publishing projects, covering e-newsletters and micro-websites for clients across the telecom space. 
 
Since joining Telecom Asia as editor in January 2004, he has spearheaded the group’s e-newsletter initiative into niche markets, such as mobile broadband, satellite and test & measurement. He has also forged content-sharing agreements with more than 10 top-tier research and consulting firms across the region and expanded the publication’s network of writers into a number of new markets.
 
Joseph has a journalism degree and more than 14 years’ experience as an editor in Asia for business publications and websites, with experience at a web startup in 2000, Research & Development Magazine, Global Sources and the Bangkok Post., where he started his career as a copy editor.

Dr. Pawel Grochowicz,
General Manager, Retail Transformation, Telecom New Zealand

Pawel has two areas of core accountability: design and build of Telecom’s next generation mass market business, and strategy and transformation of the current Retail division in transition to the next generation. His role reports to CEO retail and  spans all aspects of the business, from technology capability to marketing communications. Pawel sits on the Plenary Forum of the Fixed-Mobile Convergence Alliance and is a prolific international speaker on evolution of telecommunications services and markets.
Previously, Pawel was in charge of Strategy across the fixed line, mobile and ISP divisions of Telecom. The converged Strategy was formed when the clear requirement for closer alignment between the then separate business units became apparent. The success of the group was evident in Telecom’s choice to change the organising model from product to a customer segment line-of-business focus.
Pawel joined Telecom after several years with McKinsey & Company, where he led major transformation efforts focused on value chain restructuring, revenue enhancement and organisation design, working with top management of some of the largest companies in the Asia Pacific. His work at McKinsey covered several sectors including telecommunications, financial services and retail.
Pawel holds a doctorate in Measurement Science from London where he subsequently worked with Birkbeck College, University College and Imperial College.

Indra Utoyo,
IT Director/CIO, TELKOM Indonesia

Duby Yoely,
Vice President, Marketing and Solution Engineering, TTI Telecom, Israel

Mark Saloyedoff,
Director, Professional Services and Solutions Engineering, Asia Pacific,
Verizon Business, Singapore

David Moss,
Project Director, Vodafone Pacific, New Zealand