Forum Voices
catalyzing the future

The Marconi Society is pleased to announce the following speakers and contributors who will share their expertise and perspectives during the Institute Forums.

Fiona Alexander
Co-Founder
Salt Point Strategies

Fiona

Tina Austin
Co-Founder AI initiatives Taskforce for Instructors
UCLA

Tina Austin is a biomedical research and AI ethics faculty member who helps universities and organizations adopt artificial intelligence thoughtfully and responsibly. She has taught at UCLA, USC, CSU, and Caltech in subjects ranging from regenerative medicine to communication and now leads graduate courses on critical thinking with AI and computational biology with AI ethics.

Tina launched a systemwide initiative across the University of California to help instructors share effective strategies for integrating AI into teaching and research. Since then, she has supported nearly a thousand faculty in applying her UnBlooms Framework—a reimagining of Bloom’s Taxonomy that fosters critical thinking and reflection in AI-enhanced learning.

She serves on multiple advisory boards, including the California and Los Angeles AI Taskforces, and advises universities and government partners on safe, ethical AI adoption. Recognized globally as a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert and one of ASU+GSV’s Leading Women in AI, Tina continues to champion balanced, evidence-based approaches to AI in education and policy.

Arogyaswami Paulraj
Professor Emeritus
Stanford University
Akram Atallah
Chief Executive Officer
Identity Digital

Arkam is a senior executive with more than 25 years of technology management experience. His role includes directing all aspects of company/division activities including strategic planning, revenue and net income growth strategies, product development, project management, engineering, marketing and sales, operations, Intellectual Property and legal issues.

Previously, Akram served as ICANN’s Chief Operating Officer. His diversified technology experience runs the gamut from engineering to operations to product development and marketing. Arkam makes it his mission to drive positive change and growth by utilizing best-in-class techniques.

Victor Bahl
Technical Fellow - Research
Microsoft Azure

Victor Bahl is a technical fellow in Microsoft Corporation. He serves on the senior Leadership team reporting to the President of Microsoft Research.  Previously, he was the founding director of the networking research group. He recently served as the CTO in the Strategic Missions and Technologies division.  He has advised Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Satya Nadella and their senior leadership teams on technical strategy and long-term vision related to networked systems. For close to twenty-nine years, he has led groups that have executed on Microsoft Vision through research, new product incubations, industry partnerships, and associate policy engagement with governments and research institutions around the world.  He is the original co-inventor of edge computing and the architect of the strategy that led to the creation of Microsoft’s Azure for Operators business. His technical contribution and advocacy of dynamic spectrum access led to the United States FCC opening 180 MHz of spectrum for opportunistic unlicensed use. Dr. Bahl has delivered numerous foundational technologies to Azure, XBOX and Windows. He has published over 140 papers with over 81,000 citations, he is the author/co-author of over 200 U.S. patents, and for unique research has received four lifetime achievement awards from ACM and IEEE along with numerous other awards including those from the U.S. Government. He has given close to six dozen keynote talks and two commencement speeches at a major U.S. University He has served on the advisory councils of some the top U.S. Universities including MIT, UCSD, WUSTL, UMD, and Duke. Dr. Bahl is the founder of ACM SIGMOBILE, MobiSys, GetMobile and several other conferences and workshops. He is a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, AAAS, and is a member of the NAE and WSAS.

He has contributed to the areas of AI Systems, 5G/6G, edge and cloud infrastructure and computing, high-speed broadband access, networked systems, live video analytics, mobile computing, and wireless networking and systems.

Mihai Banu
VP of Strategic Technology Partnership, Industry and Academy
JMA Wireless

Dr. Banu received a PhD degree in EE from Columbia University in 1984. He was with Bell Labs (Lucent Tech.) in Murray Hill, NJ from 1980 to 2001 as Intern, PhD grant recipient, MTS, Dpt. Head and R&D Director. From 2001 to 2004 he served as R&D Director at Agere Systems, a Lucent spinoff. His Bell Labs/Agere contributions include seminal research in analog/RF ICs and leading R&D work in IC Technology and RF Systems for wireless. In 2005 Dr. Banu founded MHI Consulting LLC and did engineering services and NSF-funded research on low-cost coherent arrays. He also founded Blue Danube Systems Inc., a Sequoia Cap funded startup, which successfully developed Ma-MIMO radio products. After NEC acquired Blue Danube in 2022, Dr. Banu became CTO of NEC Advanced Networks. In 2024, he joined JMA Wireless as VP of Strategic Technology Partnership, Industry and Academy.

Nishant Batra
Chief Strategy & Technology Officer
Nokia

Nishant is a global leader with broad experience in strategy and technology development and portfolio management, as well as in having significant profit and loss responsibilities across the telecom and enterprise sectors. He has been intimately involved in bringing cutting-edge products to market across industry domains and has a deep understanding of the silicon, software and system requirements necessary for innovation.

At Nokia, Nishant is the Chief Strategy and Technology Officer (CSTO) with responsibility for corporate strategy, technology architecture and pioneering research at Nokia Bell Labs; Nokia’s information technology (IT) infrastructure and digitalization initiatives; centralized security domains; and Nokia’s venture capital activities.

Kevin R. Bolen
Principal, Advisory - Head of AI Transformation, Strategy and Investments
KPMG LLP

Kevin

Maarten Botterman
Director, BOD
GNKS Consult BV/ICANN

Maarten

Daniejela Cabric
Professor
UCLA

Daniejela

Vint Cerf
VP, Chief Internet Evangelist
Google
Annie Cheng
VP of Engineering
Waymo

Annie Cheng is a VP of Engineering at Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company with a mission to be the world’s most trusted driver. Prior to joining Waymo, Annie served as VP of Engineering at Nauto, an AI startup dedicated to enabling safer fleets and ensuring safer roads for everyone. Before Nauto, she was VP of engineering at Yahoo, where she oversaw the multi-billion-dollar Web Search and Search Advertising business. Annie holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and a Master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

Girish Chandran
Corporate CTO and SVP Engineering
Viasat, Inc.

Girish Chandran serves as Corporate Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President Engineering at Viasat, Inc. In this role he oversees the evolution of Viasat’s global network, which is responsible for connecting millions of personal and mobile devices per year—on the ground, in the air, and at sea. He also leads the company’s central engineering group.

He has extensive experience in building products and networks on multiple continents and leading change in engineering organizations. Girish and his team focus on how next-generation communications infrastructure, especially software-based technologies, will continue to be an integral part of the digital ecosystem connecting people, places and things.

Girish has held a number of engineering roles at Viasat since joining the company in October 2007, from Principal Engineer and Chief Technology Officer — Commercial Networks to his current position, which he assumed in January 2025.

Prior to joining Viasat, Girish held several senior level engineering roles at various companies including Vice President of Engineering at Newtec America Inc., a satellite communications equipment provider, and Vice President of Systems Engineering at Tiernan Communications Inc. (acquired by Radyne Comstream Inc.), a provider of video compression and transmission solutions.

Girish earned a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego, and a Master’s of Science degree in Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science.

John Cioffi
Chief Executive Officer
ASSIA, Inc.
Andrew Clegg
CTO
Valo Analytica

Andrew

Jeff Collins
Global Director for Trust and Safety
AWS

Jeff Collins is a multi-dimensional leader with experience across the public, private, and social sectors. As Head for Global Trust and Safety at AWS,  Jeff leads teams developing product features, policies, and partnerships that help build a world where people can safely discover, create, and connect. Previously, Jeff was the Global Head of Trust and Safety at TikTok. He has also served as Vice President at the teen-focused app After School; White House National Security Council Director in the Obama Administration; U.S. Diplomat focused on human rights issues in Cuba, Iraq, Turkey, Bolivia, and Venezuela; Senior Counsel for Global Policy at Chevron; founder of the civic-tech organization Forum280; an international lawyer; and a federal appellate and district court law clerk. Jeff is a graduate of Stanford University and Northwestern School of Law, enjoys exploring the San Francisco Bay Area outdoors with his 9 and 11 year-old sons, and thrives on collaborating to create meaningful solutions that make the world a better place.

Daniel Cooley
CTO
Silicon Labs

Daniel

Charles Cooper
Associate Administrator, Office of Spectrum Management
NTIA

Cooper leads the agency’s work on national and international spectrum policy issues and oversees spectrum management efforts for federal agencies. 

 

Previously, he was the Enforcement Bureau Field Director at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) where he managed the nationwide enforcement of spectrum interference affecting public safety communications, FCC licensees and Federal agencies. Prior to serving as Field Director, Cooper was District Director of the FCC’s Los Angeles Field Office. He is a licensed Professional Engineer and received his undergraduate electrical bachelor science degree from Mississippi State University.

Martin Cooper
Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
John Crain
CTO
ICANN

John is responsible for leading ICANN organization (org)’s efforts to improve knowledge about the identifiers ICANN helps coordinate and disseminate this information to the Internet community. He is also responsible for oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions.

A member of the org executive team, John works with staff and the community to enable and enhance capabilities that improve the overall security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet’s identifier systems and associated infrastructures. He also represents ICANN in operational and technical dialogues and forums to ensure the community’s engagement with these programs.

Prior to his time at ICANN org, John worked as part of the executive management team at RIPE NCC in Amsterdam. RIPE NCC is the regional Internet registry (RIR) that provides Internet resource allocations for Europe and surrounding areas. John has been directly involved in the administration of Internet identifiers since his start at RIPE NCC in 1995 and has worked in all areas of Internet Protocol (IP) address administration. John also has extensive experience in Domain Name System (DNS) administration and managing Internet infrastructure services. Before becoming involved in Internet administration, John worked as a design engineer in composite materials research and development. In that role, John was also responsible for local area networking of computer aided design systems and for writing and developing custom software applications.

David B. Cross
CISO
Atlassian

David

Mischa Dohler
VP, Emerging Technologies
Ericsson

Mischa

Magnus Egerstedt
Dean of Engineering
University of California, Irvine
Giulia Fortunato
President
Fondazione Guglielmo Marconi

Giulia

Sheryl Genco
Vice President Advanced Technology Group
Ericsson

Sheryl

Andrea Goldsmith
President
Stony Brook University
Charla Griffy-Brown
Director General, Dean, and Professor of Global Digital Transformation
Thunderbird School of Global Management

Charla Griffy-Brown serves as director general, dean, and professor of global digital transformation at Thunderbird School of Global Management. An accomplished professor, board member, and consultant, Griffy-Brown’s experience spans over 25 years across multiple continents at some of the world’s most impactful and influential companies and organizations. She brings a deep global perspective to the school, as well as a dedicated commitment to global engagement and interdisciplinary development. Through Griffy-Brown’s leadership, Thunderbird is poised to utilize innovation at scale, leverage faculty research, and embrace new opportunities and technology to enable the changemakers of tomorrow.

Bob Harward
Executive Vice President for International Business and Strategy
Shield AI

Bob Harward is Executive Vice President for International Business and Strategy at Shield AI, where he is responsible for expanding the company’s international business operations and strategy on every continent. Before joining Shield AI, he was a chief executive at Lockheed Martin for eight years and a Vice Admiral (SEAL) in the United States Navy, with his last assignment as Deputy Commander, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM). He has been recognized by Forbes as one of the fifty (#10) most influential CEOs in the Middle East.

Gillian R. Hayes
Vice Provost
UCI

Gillian R. Hayes is Vice Provost for Academic Personnel at the University of California, Irvine. She is also Chancellor’s Professor and the Robert A. and Barbara L. Kleist Professor of Informatics in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, with joint appointments in Computer Science, Education, and Pediatrics. Her research spans human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, assistive and educational technologies, and health informatics. She designs, develops, deploys, and evaluates technologies that empower individuals and communities to use data responsibly and ethically in support of real human needs.

A Jacobs Foundation Senior Research Fellow alumna, Distinguished Member of the ACM, and Senior Member of the IEEE, Hayes earned her Ph.D. from the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech and her B.S. from Vanderbilt University. She is also co-Principal Investigator of the CERES global research network, where she leads efforts to study public perceptions of AI in education and develops novel technologies to support youth, with the goal of rolling out technologies that are scientifically grounded and safe for children alongside policies that support innovation.

Beyond academia, Hayes has served as CEO of a technology-first global supply chain procurement company, bringing practical leadership experience at the intersection of technology and business to her academic and policy work. This unique combination of executive experience, interdisciplinary scholarship, and leadership informs her vision for AI as a tool to enhance human flourishing while addressing the ethical, social, and regulatory challenges of its deployment.

Syed Jafar
Professor
UCI
Syed A. Jafar received his B. Tech. from IIT Delhi, India, in 1997, M.S. from Caltech, USA, in 1999, and Ph.D. from Stanford, USA, in 2003, all in Electrical Engineering. His industry experience includes positions at Lucent Bell Labs and Qualcomm. He is a Chancellor’s Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Henry Samueli Endowed Chair of Engineering at the University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA USA. His research interests include multiuser information theory, wireless communications and network coding. Dr. Jafar is a recipient of the New York Academy of Sciences Blavatnik National Laureate in Physical Sciences and Engineering, the NSF CAREER Award, the ONR Young Investigator Award, the UCI Academic Senate Distinguished Mid-Career Faculty Award for Research, the School of Engineering Mid-Career Excellence in Research Award and the School of Engineering Maseeh Outstanding Research Award. His co-authored papers have received the IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award, IEEE Communication Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award, IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper Award, IEEE Communications Society Heinrich Hertz Award, IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award, IEEE Information Theory Society Jack Wolf ISIT Best Student Paper Award, and three IEEE GLOBECOM Best Paper Awards. Dr. Jafar received the UC Irvine EECS Professor of the Year award six times, in 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2017 from the Engineering Students Council, a School of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award in 2012, and a Senior Career Innovation in Teaching Award in 2018. He was a University of Canterbury Erskine Fellow in 2010, an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer for 2013-2014, and an IEEE Information Theory Society Distinguished Lecturer for 2019-2020. Dr. Jafar was recognized as a Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher and included by Sciencewatch among The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. He served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications 2004-2009, for IEEE Communications Letters 2008-2009 and for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 2009-2012. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.
John Janowiak
President and CEO
Marconi Society

John

Joseph Kakande
Network Engineer
Meta
Leonard Kleinrock
Professor of Computer Science
UCLA
Ed Knapp
CTO
American Tower

Ed Knapp is responsible for leading the company’s global innovation program, technology investments and strategy.

Prior to joining American Tower in 2017, as Senior Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm, Ed Knapp was responsible for their New Jersey Corporate Research Center from which he managed a diverse engineering team with researchers and product engineering staff across India, Israel and the US. Mr. Knapp has more than 38 years of communications technology experience with over 30 years invested in the development of the global wireless industry from 1G to 5G, including CxO leadership roles in 3 start-ups.

Victor Kuarsingh
Vice President
Capital One
Victor Kuarsingh is a leading industry professional who drives the evolution of network, software, policy, and standards for the internet. He serves as a Board Trustee for the Internet Society and Foundation, where he helps champion the mission of a free and accessible internet for everyone. Victor is currently the Managing Vice President of Global Connectivity at Capital One. Before this, he was the Vice President of Network Engineering and Operations at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, where he helped develop their data center networking, global backbone, and edge service infrastructure. With over 25 years of experience, Victor has built a wide range of network infrastructures, including those for service providers, cloud environments, and video distribution systems. He is also a notable contributor to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), having worked on IPv6 and co-chaired the Link State Vector Routing (LSVR) working group.
Nick Laneman
Professor of Electrical Engineering
University of Notre Dame

Dr. Nick Laneman’s research and teaching interests center on wireless communications system engineering, including fundamental limits and tradeoffs from information theory; practical algorithms from coding and signal processing and prototyping; as well as experimental validation with software-defined radios.

His group collaborates with other faculty in the Wireless Institute as well as many industry partners. He is the director of SpectrumX, the first NSF Spectrum Initiative Innovation Center.

Matti Latva-aho
Professor of Communications Engineering
Oulo University, Finland

Matti Latva-aho (IEEE Fellow) received the M.Sc., Lic.Tech. and Dr. Tech (Hons.) degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Oulu, Finland in 1992, 1996 and 1998, respectively. From 1992 to 1993, he was a Research Engineer at Nokia Mobile Phones, Oulu, Finland, after which he joined the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC) at the University of Oulu. Prof. Latva-aho was Director of CWC during the years 1998-2006 and Head of the Department for Communication Engineering until August 2014. Currently, he is a Professor at the University of Oulu on wireless communications and Director for the National 6G Flagship Programme. He is also a Global Fellow at Tokyo University. Prof. Latva-aho has published over 500 conference or journal papers in the field of wireless communications. He received the Nokia Foundation Award in 2015 for his achievements in mobile communications research.

Hagay Lupesko
SVP, AI Cloud
Cerebras Systems

Hagay Lupesko has been appointed as SVP of AI Cloud and Inference at Cerebras. Lupesko brings more than two decades of industry experience in software engineering and machine learning. Prior to joining Cerebras, Lupesko was the VP of engineering at MosaicML (acquired by Databricks), Director of Engineering at Meta AI, and an engineering leader at AWS AI. Lupesko holds a Computer Science MSc from Tel Aviv University. In this new role, Lupesko will accelerate the development of Cerebras’ AI Inference and Cloud platform and offerings.

Durga Malladi
SVP & GM, Technology Planning & Edge Solutions
Qualcomm

Durga

Nick McKeown
Senior Fellow
Intel
2025 Marconi Prize Recipient
Teresa H. Meng
Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emerita
Stanford University
Ram Mohan
Chief Strategy Officer
Identity Digital

Ram

Dr. Anton Monk
SVP Strategy
Cohere Technologies

Dr. Monk is Senior Vice President of Strategy at Cohere Technologies, driving technology strategy and industry, government and academic outreach and partnerships, and co-authored the first paper on OTFS. Previously, Dr. Monk was VP and CTO of Wireless Initiatives at Viasat, a global satellite operator, where he drove cellular, fixed wireless and direct-to-cell initiatives, working at the intersection of technology, spectrum policy, and business partnerships. 

He was a co-founder and held the roles of VP and CTO of Entropic Communications, a formerly publicly traded semiconductor company that invented the MoCA home networking solution used by Pay TV service providers for multi-room DVR throughout the U.S. Dr. Monk holds more than 35 granted patents and over 2,600 citations. 

Nancy Morgan
Strategic Advisor
The Cantellus Group

Nancy Morgan is a national security leader who bridges the Intelligence Community, defense and private sectors to drive data and AI innovation. As the former US Intelligence Community Chief Data Officer and a CIA executive with 36+ years of leadership experience, she spearheaded groundbreaking data and IT initiatives and public-private partnerships that reshaped how America’s intelligence agencies harness information for national security.

Now CEO of Ellis Morgan Enterprises and Strategic Advisor to The Cantellus Group, she shapes corporate transformations in data and AI strategy, organizational readiness, governance and modernization across national security and commercial sectors. Her proven track record includes building new organizations from the ground up and executing enterprise-wide data and technology initiatives.

Nancy’s expertise spans Fortune 500 enterprises to cutting-edge startups, serving on advisory councils/boards for SambaNova Systems, T-Mobile Public Sector, Elastic Public Sector, data2 and Kibu, Inc. and Academy Securities’ Geopolitical Intelligence Group, helping innovative organizations navigate the complex intersection of data, AI, cyber and national security.

Recognized among dataIQ’s 100 Most Influential People in Data 2024 and as a World Leaders in Data & AI Ambassador, she is a sought-after speaker. She is a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute’s Cyber and Tech Center.

Daddy Mukadi
Chief Regulatory Officer Africa
Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) B.V.

Daddy

Udayan Mukherjee
Senior Fellow
Intel

Udayan Mukherjee is the Intel Senior Fellow and Chief Architect of Intel’s Network & communications Products.  Udayan architected the industry’s first fully virtualized 5G infrastructure Software on open architecture through FlexRAN & FlexCore, which are being deployed worldwide. He also leads the worldwide team driving Intel’s NextG network technology & 3GPP/ORAN standards development. Udayan is also responsible for developing Silicon enhancements for networking and is currently working on developing network AI architecture including domain specific LLM & RAG pipeline trained with network and enterprise data for deployment/automation as well as troubleshooting/root cause analysis.

Michael Munsey
Vice President of Semiconductor Industry
Siemens Digital Industries Software

With over 30 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, Michael Munsey leverages his extensive background in global business development, strategy, sales, and marketing to drive semiconductor technology advancements at Siemens. Before joining Siemens, he held leadership positions at several prominent companies, including Perforce where he was Senior Vice President of Marketing and Strategy and oversaw the acquisition and integration of Methodics, Dassault Systèmes where he was Vice President of the High Tech Industry and built their Semiconductor Industry, and Cadence Design Systems where he oversaw their functional verification program and introduced the Incisive verification platform. Munsey began his career in semiconductor design at IBM after obtaining degrees from Tufts University. He is actively involved in several industry groups focused on setting standards and shaping the direction of the semiconductor sector. Additionally, he is an active member and volunteer of Tau Beta Pi.

Alissa Park
Dean
UCLA Samueli School of Engineering
Greg Pelton
Chief Technology Officer
Iridium Communications Inc.

Greg Pelton is the Chief Technology Officer at Iridium Communications Inc., the only satellite communications company that offers truly global voice and data coverage. In this role, he drives innovation and oversees the technical aspects of Iridium’s products and services, while managing the day-to-day activities of the company’s systems teams. This includes technical roadmaps and strategy, system architecture and design, engineering design and process, performance and analysis, new service development programs and system integration, verification, and validation.

 

Pelton joined Iridium from a venture-backed AI company develop Large Language Models for enterprise applications, where he served as Chief Development Officer. Roles prior to that include Avaya, where he managed a $400M portfolio of voice and video collaboration products, CTO of Polycom, and he led Cisco’s corporate Technology Center incubating new technology growth areas including satellite networking.

Scott Penberthy
Senior Director, Applied AI Office of CTO
Google

Scott

Radia Perlman
Fellow
Dell Technologies
Radia Perlman stumbled into the field of computer networks at the ideal time; the dawn of the Internet. She designed how to make network routing scalable, self-stabilizing, and easily managed. She also designed the spanning tree algorithm, which enabled Ethernet to evolve from a single shared link to a network that could support many links and hundreds of thousands of computers, and is actually how modern Ethernet works. She wrote the textbook Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols , and cowrote the textbook Network Security: Private Communication in a Public World. She has received numerous awards including induction into the Inventor Hall of Fame, induction into the Internet Hall of Fame, lifetime achievement awards from ACM’s SIGCOMM and Usenix, election to National Academy of Engineering, election into the Washington State Academy of Science, and an honorary doctorate from KTH. She has a PhD in computer science from MIT.
Caleb Queern
Managing Director
KPMG

Caleb is a Managing Director in KPMG’s Cyber practice and is based in Austin. He has more than 20 years of technology and information security experience. Prior to joining KPMG, Caleb served as the Chief Scientist for a cyber security services firm based in Northern Virginia.

His focus is reducing risk and improving performance so organizations can meet business goals and enable growth. While focused on the global automotive sector since 2020, Caleb has lead engagements in technology companies, pharmaceutical companies, and higher education. His specialties include secure DevOps and application security, security operations, and operational excellence, with a recent focus on post-disaster resilience.

Dennis Roberson
President and CEO
Roberson and Associates

Dennis

Henry Samueli
Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chairman of the Board
Broadcom
Karen Silverman
CEO & Founder
The Cantellus Group

Karen is a leading global expert in practical governance strategies for AI and other frontier technologies. As the CEO and Founder of The Cantellus Group, she advises Fortune 50 companies, startups, consortia, and the public sector on how to manage cutting-edge technologies in a rapidly changing policy environment. Her expertise is informed by more than 20 years of practice and management leadership at Latham & Watkins, LLP where she advised global businesses in complex antitrust matters, M&A, governance, ESG, and crisis management.

Karen serves on the ABA Task Force on the Law and Artificial Intelligence, was a World Economic Forum Global Innovator and a member of their Experts Network and an SME to the Business Roundtable. She sits on the Fast Company Impact Council and serves on the board of AIEDU and Not For Sale and sits on the Advisory Board of Legal Momentum. She is a frequent speaker and author on technology and corporate governance issues.

Jeff Simmons
Energy Advisor

Jeff Simmons is a senior executive for the Toshiba Americas Group. Jeff serves as Toshiba America Energy System Corp.’s senior vice president and general manager of its nuclear and new technology business units, its marketing team, and head of the Toshiba Americas Group business development task force. Jeff is also chairman of the boards of Toshiba’s US and Canadian installation and maintenance services companies, TurbinePROs, LLC and TurbinePROs R.E. Services, Ltd., respectively.

Prior to his work at Toshiba, Jeff held executive roles in trading, project development and corporate development at TXU and its successor companies, and project engineering, construction management, power trading and structured transaction origination roles at PG&E National Energy Group and Commonwealth Edison Company (now Exelon and Constellation).

A leader in infrastructure project facilitation, Jeff and his teams have developed more than 10 GW of power projects and originated dozens of capital-intensive commercial and industrial projects. All together these include over $13 billion in realized equipment sales, power origination, trading, and corporate development transactions. Additionally, Jeff has held key roles in realizing more than $5 billion in equity and asset mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures.

Jeff holds a BS in civil engineering from Southern Illinois University, an MBA from Southern Methodist University, is a graduate of the executive leadership program at the University of Texas at Dallas and holds a certificate of corporate governance from The Wharton School. He is a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honorary Society, the American Nuclear Society, and the Particle Therapy Co-Operation Group of North America.

Mike Smith
Principal
Utility 2030 Leadership Collaborative
Mike Smith, Principal, Utility 2030 Leadership Collaborative In his 35-year career in the utility ‘smart grid’/IT/automation, information services and media business, Mike has been at the forefront of utility technology developments as the industry has undergone sweeping changes. Experiences include leadership roles at SAS Institute, the Utility Analytics Institute, and Energy Central. and is currently Principal Consultant at KLN Group, a consultancy that he leads, and the Utility 2030 Leadership Collaborative. He has been involved as a solutions leader, analyst, writer, and conference organizer covering the intersection of utilities, technology, and business. Mike is a graduate of San Jose State University (BA, Economics), William Jessup University (MA, Christian Leadership), and is a veteran of the US Army (Captain, Infantry).
Rob Soni
VP of RAN Technology
AT&T
Rob leads the RAN Technology team within AT&T’s Network CTO organization, where he is responsible for the architecture and technical roadmaps of all RAN hardware and software, including baseband units, radios, antennas, and related components. Under his leadership, the team drives technical network management strategy and certification for mobility RAN and Core, overseeing the development and certification of RAN hardware, software, and features. Rob’s team plays a critical role in shaping AT&T’s RAN, Core, and service strategies while actively contributing to global standards and the broader telecommunications industry. They also manage the monetization and protection of AT&T’s Intellectual Property and Brand through licensing and sales. Rob currently serves as chairman of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and as chair of the Full Member Group of the ATIS Next G Alliance. Prior to joining AT&T, he led RAN architecture at VMware, overseeing their cloud platform infrastructure technology, including product definition and portfolio strategy. Rob also held technical roles with Nokia Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, and Lucent driving architecture, innovation and technology strategy for their entire wireless portfolio with a more recent particular focus on cloud RAN and 5G. Through his many key roles on the product side driving cellular infrastructure, Rob has driven large teams and small teams to provide innovative solutions that have reached significant market penetration across 3G, 4G, and 5G networks in several large wireless operators around the world. He has supported and developed technologies that significantly improved performance, increased resiliency, significantly decreased power consumption and reduced total cost of ownership. Rob holds a doctorate and master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s in science in electrical engineering (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Cincinnati.
Dr. Mallik Tatipamula
CTO
Ericsson
Dr. Mallik Tatipamula is CTO at Ericsson, Silicon Valley, with a distinguished 35-year career spanning Nortel, Motorola, Cisco, Juniper, F5 Networks, and Ericsson. He has made fundamental contributions at the intersection of communications and networking, shaping the evolution of telecom networks from 2G to 5G and beyond. His work has driven four major architectural shifts: (1) integrating IP into mobile systems to enable the mobile Internet; (2) scaling the Internet backbone through IP-over-DWDM; (3) pioneering software-defined 5G for Industry 4.0; and (4) shaping the emerging global framework for 6G. Mallik has played a pivotal role in advancing collaboration across industry, academia, and government, aligning research, standards, policy, and funding roadmaps, and fostering international cooperation on 6G innovation and policy. A passionate advocate for workforce development and digital inclusion, he has mentored more than 100 students and delivered over 500 keynotes and guest lectures worldwide. He has served on advisory boards of deep-tech companies such as Pensando (acquired by AMD for $1.9B), the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), and the Commonwealth Nations, among others. He has held visiting professorships at King’s College London, the University of Glasgow, and the University of Edinburgh, strengthening ties between research and practice. He has co-authored two books, published over 100 papers and patents, and been elected to five national academies, including as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). His global honors include three honorary doctorates, the IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Industry Leader Award, Silicon Valley Business Journal CTO of the Year, and induction into the IPv6 Hall of Fame, among others.
Yago Tenorio
SVP and CTO
Verizon

Tenorio brings more than 25 years of technical expertise in the wireless industry to lead the next chapter of Verizon technology innovation.Tenorio spent his 25-year career at Vodafone building high-performance teams and is recognized for his expertise in architecting Vodafone’s Open RAN, Cloud Networking and Network APIs. He and his team oversaw all Network technology related decisions and defined the company’s technology roadmap across mobile and fixed networks. Previously, he served as CTO for Vodafone Ireland and Chief Network Officer in the UK, successfully leading Vodafone’s network coverage for the 2012 London Olympics.

For his contributions to the industry, Tenorio was just elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK, one of the most prestigious industry honors across all fields of engineering that very few professionals achieve in their technical careers.

Peter Vetter
President of Bell Labs Core Research
Nokia

Peter Vetter is President of Bell Labs Core Research and Bell Labs Fellow at Nokia.  He leads an eminent global research organization with the mission to create game changing innovations that define the future of networks and insure portfolio leadership for Nokia’s core business.  He is also Honorary Professor at KULeuven and IEEE Fellow.

 

During an international career of thirty years in research leadership mostly in fixed and mobile networks, he and his teams have realized several world-first system demonstrations and successfully transferred industry leading concepts to the business groups. He was also co-founder of an internal venture that produced the first FTTH product in Alcatel. 

 

He received the degree of Physics Engineer from Gent University (Belgium) in 1986 and a PhD with Prof. H. Pauwels in 1991.  After a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. T. Uchida at Tohoku University (Japan), he joined the research center of Alcatel (now Nokia) in Antwerp in 1993.  Since 2009, he has worked at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and has been on the senior leadership team of Bell Labs since 2013. He has authored over a hundred international papers and presented keynotes and tutorials at major technical industry events.  

Paul Vixie
VP & Distinguished Engineer
Amazon Security

Paul Vixie is a VP and Distinguished Engineer who joined AWS Security after a 29-year career as the founder and CEO of five startup companies covering the fields of DNS, anti-spam, Internet exchange, Internet carriage and hosting, and Internet security. Vixie earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Keio University in 2011 and was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2014. He is also known as an author of open-source software including Cron. As a  VP and Distinguished Engineer at AWS, Paul uses his leadership and technical expertise to provide guidance and collaboration on the development and implementation of advanced security strategies, risk management, and helping customers be secure in the cloud.

William Webb
Author, Consultant, and Former CTO
Access Partnership

William

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