Conference Programme

Roy Chua is Founder and Principal at AvidThink, an independent research and advisory service formed in 2018 out of SDxCentral's research group. Prior to co-founding SDxCentral and running its research and product teams, Roy was a management consultant working with both Fortune 500 and startup technology companies on go-to-market and product consulting.   As an early proponent of the software-defined infrastructure movement, Roy is a frequent speaker at technology events in the telco and cloud space and a regular contributor to leading online publications. A graduate of UC Berkeley's electrical engineering and computer science program and MIT's Sloan School of Business, Roy has 20+ years of experience in telco and enterprise cloud computing, networking and security, including founding several Silicon Valley startups.

As Mplify Alliance Chief Product Officer, Daniel is responsible for the development and implementation of a range of strategic MEF programs that are central to MEF’s transformation to an agile-process oriented standards development organization defining, implementing and certifying MEF 3.0 services. These innovative programs – including SD-WAN definition and certification, MEF 3.0 Products, MEF 3.0 Proofs of Concept and the MEF Developer Community – enable MEF’s 200+ member companies to accelerate the transformation of their networks and operations to offer and deliver MEF 3.0 services. In addition, Daniel is responsible for MEF membership in the EMEA region, developing relationships and facilitating engagement of member companies in every aspect of MEF activities.   Daniel has been involved in the networking industry for over 25 years holding a variety of positions in RAD Data Communications, as well as co-founding Resolute Networks where he held executive positions. Representing Resolute in the MEF, Daniel served for 3 years as MEF Global Marketing Co-Chair and was elected three times to the MEF Board of Directors. Since 2010, Daniel has been a senior member of the MEF staff.

Michael is Investment Advisor at Heartcore Capital, backing very early-stage, sector-defining quantum companies. IHeleverages his technical expertise and strategic market understanding to establish relationships with committed founders building the future of quantum computing, sensing, and communications.   CEO of MBQ, providing independent strategic advisory services to international organizations and technology sector clients on global projects.   Previously VP of Business Intelligence at Global Quantum Intelligence, where he advised on quantum strategy and investments worldwide.

Amir Zmora is CEO & Co-founder of flexiWAN, the world’s first Open Source SD-WAN & SASE.   Before starting flexiWAN, Amir was CEO & Co-founder of SwitchRTC, a Real-time, interactive WebRTC based video CDN and B2B/B2C collaboration solution acquired by YouNow. Among his previous positions, Amir was VP Products & Marketing for the Technology Business Unit of RADVISION, an Avaya company.

Monika is a Senior Consultant in Packet Network Engineering with over two decades of comprehensive experience in service provider industry. A seasoned professional, she offers technical leadership and strategic expertise, to define target network architecture, technical requirements and high-level network design. A strategic thinker with an aptitude of leading Engineering teams throughout the lifecycle of product development and new technology introduction, she ensures seamless introduction of innovative capabilities in a complex multi-vendor environment.   She currently spearheads the technical strategy and solution development for SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) and SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), leveraging evolving and disruptive technologies to shape the future of networking.   As Colt Ambassador, Monika liaises with senior management and executive leadership to drive business strategy and cultural framework acting as a conduit across the workforce and management to ensure that business objectives and strategic levers are clearly communicated, understood and delivered across the organization.   She is passionate about inclusion & diversity and collaborating with other women leaders to create a positive impact. She possesses exceptional communication, presentation & mentoring skills with distinguished abilities to inspire and motivate teams. She loves to share her insights, experience and expertise with others and often represents Colt on external forums and conferences.   She has worked in various roles including Product development, Network strategy and architecture, Network engineering, designing, Prototype/POC testing and network operation. Specialties: Data network designing, routing & switching, SD-WAN & SASE/SSE

Sunil is a tech executive and founder with over 25 years of experience in cloud networking and telecom. At Mplify, Sunil leads the Enterprise Program, guiding its strategic direction to enhance Mplify’s influence in network, cloud and security ecosystems. He spearheads initiatives to engage the enterprise sector, foster industry collaboration, and elevate Mplify’s thought leadership.  Previously, he founded and led Nuage Networks, scaling it to over $100 million in revenue in five years. Sunil held senior roles at Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia, driving growth and product innovation in global markets. Earlier, Sunil played a pivotal role in defining the IP/MPLS service router market as a founding member at TiMetra Networks, co-authoring the VPLS standard, and later at Alcatel-Lucent, where he led disruptive product strategies against industry incumbents.  Sunil advises startups and growth-stage companies on SaaS, SDN, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and go-to-market strategies, helping them scale and achieve product differentiation.

Sylvain Quartier has an extensive experience in products, marketing, and corporate strategy within the telecom industry.   Before joining Ekinops, Sylvain held the position of Senior Vice President of Products Strategy at InfoVista and was part of the Executive Team. Over his 15-year tenure at InfoVista, Sylvain established and led the Product Management and Marketing organization, contributing significantly to the company's transformation from a startup to a global leader with a presence in 150 countries. This journey involved navigating through five acquisitions and two leveraged buyouts.  v Prior to his role at InfoVista, Sylvainco-founded Clariteam in 1999, which was a pioneering SaaS solution for Network and Applications Performance Management. He initiated his career at Arche Groupe Siemens as a telecom engineer and holds an engineering degree from EFREI, Paris Panthéon – Assas University.

Gail is Executive Director and founder of Cavell Group BV, who advise service providers, platform vendors and investors on topics related to Cloud Networking and Cyber Security , and provide engineering services to help large enterprises successfully migrate to new technologies. Gail has served as a Non-Executive Director on both Nasdaq and Euronext listed companies.  She has deep experience in scaling technology related companies multinationally and guiding them to successful exits, bringing particular insight on governing cybersecurity risk and digital transformation.

Jin Minwei joined Huawei in 2004, from 2006 to 2016, he was responsible for designing high-level solutions for routers in global carrier networks, from 2017 to 2019, he worked in Huawei Europe Research Center, responsible for solution innovation for European carrier transformation, during this period, he experienced the whole process of global carrier network migration from traditional networks to future networks. He also led the design of the CloudMetro solution and introduced new technologies such as segment routing and telemetry into operators' metro and 5G bearer networks.  Since 2019, he has been responsible for researching next-generation technologies and designing product solutions for Huawei routers.

Michael is Vice President and CTO of the Cisco Networking Group leading technical direction, architectural transition, solution architecture and roadmap planning for Cisco’s SP networking portfolio. He drives Cisco’s leadership position in core, edge, aggregation and access routing, mobility, cable, optics and optical networking and automation software solutions in collaboration with partners, customers, internal cross-functional leaders and the industry in reinventing the mass-scale networks of the future.   Prior to rejoining Cisco in February 2018, Michael was co-founder and CTO of Skyport Systems, developing cloud managed, on premise, virtualized compute platforms with security, ease of use, and always-on analytics built in. Before Skyport, Michael served as engineering CTO at Juniper Networks, leading new architectures, embedded software evolution and silicon roadmap development across the router, switch and Wi-Fi portfolios.   Michael has held many senior technical leadership roles at both Cisco and Juniper and was a key contributor to many successful product lines and technology including C7200, C12000, M40, T640, JUNOS, ASR1K and IOS-XE. Michael holds CS and Math degrees from Trinity College, Dublin, is a named inventor on many networking related patents, is a frequent speaker at industry events, and often shares his thoughts through Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.

Kireeti Kompella started off in the Routing area in 1998 working in Traffic Engineering. He moved on to MPLS and MPLS applications (VPNs, VPWS/VPLS, Entropy Labels, GMPLS, Seamless MPLS and more TE as a sample). In 2015, he introduced the notion of Self-Driving Networks, a vision of networks that run themselves – provisioning, optimizing, reacting to changing network conditions, and maintaining a high level of service both within the network as well as for its customers. He presently works on "Services as Code" – a fully customizable platform for service orchestration.  Kireeti has been at Juniper for nearly 28 years (with a short break at Contrail Systems) and has held multiple positions there. He is currently SVP and Chief Engineer of the WAN BU.  He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, as well as Master's and Bachelor's degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Ricardo Queirós is Head of Product Line Transport at Ericsson, responsible for the global portfolio spanning Routers, Fronthaul, Microwave and Transport Automation.  He has over 20 years of experience in telecommunications across pre sales, product and portfolio management, with previous leadership roles in Services and 4G/5G product management, including RAN architecture, automation and product security.   Ricardo holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering (telecommunications) from the University of Coimbra and an Executive MBA from ICADE Business School.

Mr. Wim Henderickx is the CTO of the IP Division at Nokia, based in Belgium. He is active across various domains, including service providers, enterprise networks, and hyperscalers.   With over 30 years of experience in the communications and networking industry, Mr. Henderickx is a frequent speaker at technical conferences worldwide. He is actively involved in standards development organizations and contributes to multiple open-source projects.   He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering (Data Communications) and a Master’s degree in Economics. Mr. Henderickx is also a Bell Labs Fellow.

Michel is a Product Line Manager at the Network Infrastructure business group for the EMEA region and is based in the Netherlands. He is leading the Datacenter product management team, in addition his other focus is programmability and virtualization within the 7x50 product line and Nokia SR OS router software.  He has over 25 years of experience in the networking industry with roles varying from network engineer to designer/architect.

Rajat Setia is a Solutions Architect at Juniper Networks, working across the Service Provider and Cloud verticals, with current focus on designing network for AI-DC and WAN.  He has over 23 years of experience in the networking industry, having held diverse roles spanning QA, Operations, Consulting, and System Engineering.

Guillaume has more than 25 years of experience in WDM Product Development and Operations in the Telecommunication Industry. Guillaume relocated to the USA, joining the s Ekinops office in North America to manage and develop Ekinops activity in this region.   Prior to joining EKINOPS in 2010, he has worked as a WDM System Design Manager for Alcatel-Lucent and CORVIS-Algety (Telecom), as a Telecommunication Project Manager within the SANEF company (French motorway operating company) and has also spent several years working as a Pre-sales & Sales engineer for Tibco telecom (a French company specialized in Telecom Network Operations).

Over 20 years experience in network engineering, with 8 years in QA and software automation and 14 years in technical marketing and architecture.   Award-winning technical speaker at international industry conferences, including NANOG and MPLS-SDN World Congress. Charter member of CiscoLive's Distinguished Speaker Hall of Fame Elite. Specialties: network programmability, telemetry, automation, APIs, SDKs, IOS XR, NETCONF, YANG, routing, switching, security, QA, test automation, public speaking Current certifications include: CCIE (Routing and Switching) #16318, CCNP, CCSP Inventor, U.S. Patent No. 9,258,212 "Supporting Arbitrary Routing Criteria in Software Defined Networks" Inventor, U.S. Patent No. 7,065,197 "Status Messaging Using Associated Phone Tags"

Experienced data networks and IP/MPLS expert with extensive technical skills. Working also with cloud providers on SDN technologies (Telco Cloud, SD-WAN, data center solutions) Management and business administration experience. Specialties: IP/MPLS technologies, SDN/NFV. Alcatel-Lucent Expert on 7750, 7210, 7705 products, Nuage Networks VSP solution. Architecture definition. Influence customers at technical level. Technical management. JNCIE #183.

Jiri is a Principal Engineer at Cisco with 15+ years experience and deep technical expertise driving new architecture and innovations in networking through career path from post-sales, to sales, to technical marketing. His main focus is architecture and innovation in AI front- and back-end networks, open networking with SONiC, as well as continuous focus on BGP based Overlay Services solution (IP, Ethernet) such as EVPN and programmable transport based on IP (SRv6, VXLAN) or MPLS.  Jiri is an advisor and architect for large scale end-to-end Service Provider, Data Center, and Cloud networks globally. Jiri is regularly recognized as a top speaker at technical conferences.

Shai is a Director of Product Marketing at DriveNets. His domain of expertise is AI networking and service provider/carrier solutions, where he leads positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategies.  Before joining DriveNets, Shai led product marketing for Radware’s Network Security group, supporting carriers with their cybersecurity needs. He also held technical marketing roles at Orange, Sony, and several startups, gaining broad experience across the telecom and networking space. Shai holds a B.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering from Ariel University.

Rafael Francis has over 25 years of experience in networking & telecommunications and is currently a Sr. Director of Product Management at Ciena where he leads a team responsible for next-generation routing platforms & strategy. Prior to joining Ciena he was the VP of Product Management for Cyan Inc. where he was responsible for Cyan’s Z-Series packet-optical portfolio and Blue Planet SDN software including its initial launch.  Prior to joining Cyan, he also held product management leadership positions at ECI Telecom, Laurel Networks, and FORE Systems. His knowledge and contributions in next-generation networking and its business applications have also been demonstrated through various conference speaking engagements and articles.  Rafael has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Mehdi Abdelouahab is a Senior Product Manager in the Data Center Networks Business Unit at HPE Juniper Networking where he focuses on the Apstra portfolio. He initially joined Apstra during its startup phase as the founding solution architect for the EMEA region, later transitioning to Product Management following Juniper's acquisition of the company in 2021.  His current responsibilities center on three key product areas: Telemetry & Analytics, Reference Design, and Developer Experience. Before his tenure at Juniper-Apstra, Mehdi built his expertise through various Systems Engineering and Solution Architect positions at Brocade and major service providers including NTT and Level 3 Communications.  Mehdi graduated from University of Versailles Saint Quentin with a Master of Systems & Network Engineering degree.

Carsten Rossenhövel is Managing Director and Co-Founder of EANTC AG (European Advanced Networking Test Center). Based in Berlin, Germany, EANTC is a test lab specializing in telecommunication technologies and offers vendor-neutral network testing services for manufacturers, service providers, and enterprise customers.   In this role, Carsten has over 20 years of experience in telecommunication networks testing and is responsible for EANTC's business development and marketing. His technical areas of expertise include Network Functions Virtualization and transport network solutions.

Carsten Rossenhövel is Managing Director and Co-Founder of EANTC AG (European Advanced Networking Test Center). Based in Berlin, Germany, EANTC is a test lab specializing in telecommunication technologies and offers vendor-neutral network testing services for manufacturers, service providers, and enterprise customers.   In this role, Carsten has over 20 years of experience in telecommunication networks testing and is responsible for EANTC's business development and marketing. His technical areas of expertise include Network Functions Virtualization and transport network solutions.

Siegfried is a Consulting Engineer in the Network Solutions and Consulting team of the Nokia IP division with 20+ years of IP/MPLS networking experience at mayor ISPs over the world. Providing design guidelines based upon best practices and customer requirements. In last years special focus on L2 services, EVPN, DC Interconnect and Fabrics, Speaker at SReXperts, MPLS WC and other events.

Zhang Yabo is a Senior Architect of Huawei Data Communication Product Line, with 15 years of industrial innovation experience, focusing on introducing new technologies and concepts into IP products & solutions.

As a Technical Marketing Engineer for the Nexus 9000 Series Switches at Cisco, my core focus is on the intricate network requirements of modern AI/ML workloads. I design, test, and validate high-performance fabrics designed to maximize GPU efficiency and minimize job completion times. I specialize in demonstrating the tangible benefits of our technology—from showcasing lossless RoCEv2 transport, congestion management mechanisms such as dynamic load balancing mechanisms and granular telemetry to authoring deep-dive white papers on the same.  This hands-on engagement allows me to provide critical, data-driven feedback to our engineering teams, influencing the product roadmap for AI networking.

Nilesh Simaria is a Principal Engineer at Juniper Networks with over 18 years of expertise in Junos manageability systems. Since joining Juniper in 2007, Nilesh has led innovation across the entire management plane ecosystem, specializing in both on-box and off-box solutions including CLI/Netconf interfaces, advanced telemetry systems, Commit Time Optimization, configuration databases, and routing directory architecture.  His current focus centers on integration of Large Language Models with Junos devices, spearheading the development of Junos MCP server that's transforming how network engineers interact with Juniper infrastructure.

Jari Augustin is a sales, marketing, product & business management professional with nearly 30 years of experience in several leadership positions in the telecom industry.  As the head of Transport Automation, Jari has specialized in SDN, automation, network management, and service assurance solutions for transport networks. Additionally, Jari has extensive experience in the transport network market, including IP/MPLS solutions for fronthaul, backhaul and IP aggregation applications.   Jari holds a Master of Science degree in the field of Communication Systems and International Marketing & Corporate Strategy from Helsinki University of Technology, Finland (now part of Aalto University).

Mehmet Durmus has been serving as the Associate Director of Turkcell IP/MPLS Core and Data Center Networks since 2023. In this role, He is responsible for the Strategic Investment Planning and Network Design of Turkcell's IP Backbone, Backhaul, and Data Center Networks, ensuring they are optimized for performance, scalability, and future technologies.

Qin Wu currently serves on the IAB and is one of the organizers of the NEMOPS workshop. He has many years’ experience working in the IETF contributing to the development of YANG models and to the refinement of YANG.  He currently focuses on driving digital twin networking and Network and Application collaboration and chairs SCONE Working group in IETF WIT area. In addition, he also helps form IVY, GREEN, NMOPS WGs,etc in IETF OPS area and has chaired several IETF working groups intended to support the aims and ambitions of network operators, and is a member of the IETF’s Operations Directorate.

Massi is a business and technical leader with over 20 years of experience in consultative sales, specializing in IP/MPLS, Optical technologies, and Network Architectures.   Currently managing IP and Optical product sales in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, Massi excels in serving Tier 1 operators and diverse industry verticals.   With a distinguished career at Ericsson, including roles in R&D, Strategy, Product Management, and Sales Support, Massi combines strategic vision with technical expertise to deliver tailored solutions that drive growth and innovation in dynamic markets.

Kashif Islam is a Principal Telecommunication Architect in Red Hat’s consulting organization and help service providers transform their existing mobile infrastructure into next-generation cloud-native 5G networks   Kashif is a 20+ year veteran in the IT industry and has architected several complex, large-scale networks for some of the biggest wireline and mobile service providers across the world. He is also an O-RAN alliance contributor and co-authored O-RAN xHaul Packet Switched Architectures and Solutions specification. Kashif has also co-authored a book titled "A Network Architect's Guide to 5G”, which is the first book to cover mobile core, RAN, and transport technology fundamentals and network design details.   Kashif is Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) and a double CCIE (#14300) in Data Centers and Routing/Switching Technologies. He holds a Bachelor degree from Sir Syed University (Pakistan), as well as a Master of Engineering in Internetworking degree from Dalhousie University, Canada.

Amir Zmora is CEO & Co-founder of flexiWAN, the world’s first Open Source SD-WAN & SASE.   Before starting flexiWAN, Amir was CEO & Co-founder of SwitchRTC, a Real-time, interactive WebRTC based video CDN and B2B/B2C collaboration solution acquired by YouNow. Among his previous positions, Amir was VP Products & Marketing for the Technology Business Unit of RADVISION, an Avaya company.

Roy Chua is Founder and Principal at AvidThink, an independent research and advisory service formed in 2018 out of SDxCentral's research group. Prior to co-founding SDxCentral and running its research and product teams, Roy was a management consultant working with both Fortune 500 and startup technology companies on go-to-market and product consulting.   As an early proponent of the software-defined infrastructure movement, Roy is a frequent speaker at technology events in the telco and cloud space and a regular contributor to leading online publications. A graduate of UC Berkeley's electrical engineering and computer science program and MIT's Sloan School of Business, Roy has 20+ years of experience in telco and enterprise cloud computing, networking and security, including founding several Silicon Valley startups.

Eduard Metz is a Network Architect at KPN, responsible for the architecture of KPN's packet network infrastructure. Eduard has been working on packet network architectures since 1996, most of this time with KPN. Currently, he is working on a large network transformation within KPN

Dr. Xipeng Xiao has been with Huawei Datacom since 2006. He is currently head of European Datacom SID, and previously, Chief Engineer of the Network Solution Sales. In these roles, he works extensively with European operators.  Prior to Huawei, he was Director of Product Management at Riverstone Networks (now part of Nokia) and Redback Networks (part of Ericsson) in Santa Clara USA. He was Senior Manager at Global Crossing where he deployed and managed the MPLS network. Dr. Xiao is author of 4 RFCs and 1 book.   Dr. Xiao is co-chair of IETF v6ops (IPv6 Operations) WG. He also serves as steering committee member of the MPLS World Congress.

Juan Rodriguez is a senior technology leader at Nokia, where he leads IP Consulting Engineering for the North America Service Provider market. He works closely with operators on large-scale IP network architecture, focusing on metro and edge evolution, automation, and secure next-generation designs. With deep expertise in IP routing, IP-optical integration, and metro aggregation networks, Juan helps CSPs build scalable, resilient, and secure infrastructures for the future edge.

30 years of experience in networking. Last 10 years acts as Technical Marketing Engineer in Service Providers business Unit in Cisco, fully focused on SRv6. Involved in more than 50 SRv6 designs from addressing plan to services and deployment. Contributed to SRv6 standards, actively participating to IETF and 3GPP. Hold several SRv6 related patents. Regularly participates in many SRv6 interoperability testing with many different vendors.

Krzysztof Grzegorz Szarkowicz (CCIE SP #14550 Emeritus and JNCIE SP #400 Emeritus) is Solution Architect and Principal Technical Marketing Engineer with over 25 years experience in designing service provider, as well as large enterprise networks. Krzysztof currently works for Routing Infrastructure Solutions business unit looking primarily for large metro-aggregation and mobile transport designs, including IP/MPLS transport, SR-MPLS/SRv6, L2/L3 (EVPN) services, as well as timing and synchronization.   Krzysztof is the co-author of the O'Reilly book "MPLS in the SDN Era", with in depth discussion of MPLS transport and services technology, backed by interoperable Cisco + Juniper network design examples. Krzysztof is as well co-authoring Juniper Day One book “Configuring Segment Routing with Junos”. Krzysztof authored as well series of SRv6 blogs at https://community.juniper.net/home/techpost.   Krzysztof has been presenting at many industry events, like for example NANOG, PLNOG, RIPE NCC meetings, MPLS, SDN and AI Net World Congress just to mention few.   Since many years, Krzysztof is the leader of Juniper efforts at EANTC yearly interoperability testing events, ensuring Juniper successes, and showing Juniper technology leadership. Further, Krzysztof is leading the transport network slicing activities within Juniper AWAN product management team.   Krzysztof is also key person in Open RAN Alliance, as editor of O-RAN WG9 (transport working group) packet switched transport architecture document, and co-authoring many others. Further, Krzysztof is an active participant at IETF editing, authoring or contributing to many drafts (for example, draft-srld-teas-5g-slicing).   Prior to joining Juniper Networks, Krzysztof gained experience at Hewlett-Packard, Telia, Ericsson and Cisco.

Zhang Ka is an SRv6 Protocol Technology Senior Expert and has 18+ years research and development work in MPLS and SRv6 at Huawei.  She has designed and developed the IPv6 Enhance technology such as SRv6 Policy, SRv6 Compression, Network Slicing etc, mainly dedicated in IPv6 Enhanced innovations, and has contributed serval IETF drafts.

Federico is a Principal Network Engineer at Dish Wireless / Boost and a CCIE holder with over 15 years of experience in the Service Provider and Cloud sectors.   His main focus is on next-generation network architecture, specifically the design and implementation of MPLS, SRv6, BGP, and large-scale AWS networking.

Rafael Francis has over 25 years of experience in networking & telecommunications and is currently a Sr. Director of Product Management at Ciena where he leads a team responsible for next-generation routing platforms & strategy. Prior to joining Ciena he was the VP of Product Management for Cyan Inc. where he was responsible for Cyan’s Z-Series packet-optical portfolio and Blue Planet SDN software including its initial launch.  Prior to joining Cyan, he also held product management leadership positions at ECI Telecom, Laurel Networks, and FORE Systems. His knowledge and contributions in next-generation networking and its business applications have also been demonstrated through various conference speaking engagements and articles.  Rafael has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

With over twenty-seven years’ experience in the telecommunications industry, Richard leads the introduction of new architectures, features and products to network operators across the IP, Optical, Microwave and SDN Transport domains.  Richard joined Ericsson through the acquisition of Marconi and has worked with technologies ranging from SDH to SRv6 across myriad networks at various stages of their evolution.  He is a chartered engineer and holds an MSci in Mathematics and Computer Science from Imperial College, London.

Bruno has over 30 years of experience in the telecom industry and joined Nokia (then Alcatel-Lucent) in April 2014. routers,  He’s heading the EMEA Product Line Management team for Nokia’s IP Routing and Network Automation portfolio, including the 7950 XRS, 7750 SR, 7250 IXR, 7220 IXR, 7210 SAS and 7705 SAR families of the Network Services Platform (NSP), the Fabric Services Platform (FSS) and the Deepfield solutions. This industry-leading portfolio provides service providers and large enterprises with a Smart Network Fabric spanning from access to core.   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.

Robert brings over two decades of experience in networking technologies across a broad range of solution domains. His work has spanned broadband access, converged IP edge, and datacenter networking, where he has consistently driven architectural innovation and advanced the evolution of networking platforms.  Today, Robert focuses on transport network solutions for evolving RAN architectures, helping enable scalable, high-performance networks for the 5G era and beyond.

As senior director SDN architect PLM, Reza is tasked with shaping and implementing Ciena’s vision for IP and Optical applications within a multi-vendor, multi-layer converged network, specifically the Ciena Coherent Routing vision. He is responsible to take the convergence vision to the next level by delivering an industry first true multi-layer IP over Optical transport solution.   Reza is also leading AIOps efforts, utilizing AI/Gen-AI technologies and advanced algorithms to implement streamline operations and improve delivering impactful solutions powered by artificial intelligence for assurance, optimization and automation of multi-layer IP over DWDM networks.   Reza brings over two decades of experience in the telecommunications industry in IP/MPLS/SDN/Optical product management, software engineering, and R&D. He is active at IETF and has co-authored several standard documents for IETF and BBF.  Reza earned his Ph.D. in Control and Robotics from Concordia University in Canada

Roland Thienpont has over 35 years of experience within the networking and data communications industry, in the areas of software engineering, technology and product strategy and product management.   For the last 20 years he has the role of IP product management/marketing for Alcatel's (now Nokia) IP/MPLS 7x50 Service Router and Ethernet Services Switch products for Europe, Middle East and Africa. I focus on the end to end data networking, with special interest in automation, security and network virtualisation.   He joined Alcatel in 1986 to take R&D and product management responsibilities in the area of signaling protocols (ISDN, analogue lines and trunk signaling) for Alcatel's voice switch S1240.   He has a MSc. in Electronic Engineering with a specialization in Telecommunications from the University of Antwerp and an Alcatel International Master in Management.

Dr. Thomas King has been Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at DE-CIX since 2018, and a Member of the DE-CIX Group AG Board since 2022. Before this, King was Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at DE-CIX, starting in 2016. He has been instrumental in his role at keeping DE-CIX at the forefront of technological development of Internet Exchanges, establishing DE-CIX as a neutral Cloud Exchange, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of high-bandwidth access technology and security solutions for IX platforms, and trailblazing the automation of IX services with the implementation of patch robots, the development of the DE-CIX API, and overseeing the DE-CIX self-service customer portal. Thomas King has also overseen the technical implementation of the international expansion in markets spanning from North America to Europe, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia and most recently Africa.   He started his career as a member of the technical staff at DE-CIX in 2008. In 2010, Thomas King joined 1&1 Internet AG as a Product Manager responsible for mobile applications and mail. In 2011, he founded the startup company audriga, for automatically migrating email accounts from one hosting provider to another. Dr. King re-joined DE-CIX as Head of Research & Development in 2014.   Thomas King received an M.Sc. degree in Computer Science and Business Administration from the University of Mannheim, Germany, in 2004, and a Ph.D. degree at the chair of Computer Networks from the University of Mannheim in 2008.

Krishnan Thirukonda is a Principal Engineer with Cisco Systems currently focusing on Large Scale network automation and analytics technologies.  Krishnan has extensive background in network automation, and is a networking veteran with previous experience in routing, mpls and IPv6 technologies as well as Cisco data center and virtualization solutions.

Julian Lucek is a Sr Distinguished Systems Engineer at Juniper Networks, where he has been working with many operators on the design and evolution of their networks. Before joining Juniper Networks, he worked at BT. He has a PhD in ultrahigh-speed optical transmission and processing from Cambridge University.  He also has a Master's/Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cambridge University. He is the holder of several patents in the area of communications technology.  He is co-author of the book "MPLS-Enabled Applications: Emerging Developments and New Technologies", by Ina Minei and Julian Lucek.

Jari Augustin is a sales, marketing, product & business management professional with nearly 30 years of experience in several leadership positions in the telecom industry.  As the head of Transport Automation, Jari has specialized in SDN, automation, network management, and service assurance solutions for transport networks. Additionally, Jari has extensive experience in the transport network market, including IP/MPLS solutions for fronthaul, backhaul and IP aggregation applications.   Jari holds a Master of Science degree in the field of Communication Systems and International Marketing & Corporate Strategy from Helsinki University of Technology, Finland (now part of Aalto University).

Bill Kaufmann has been working with global Communication Service Providers for over 20 years as a Product Management Director for IP/MPLS routing hardware, SDN orchestration platforms, and network analytics and assurance systems.  He currently leads product management for Agentic Assurance Solutions at the Blue Planet division of Ciena.

Dhruv Dhody is an Internet standardization specialist at Huawei India with over 2 decades of experience in technologies including Path Computation Element (PCE), Segment Routing, Network Slicing, and SDN.  An active IETF participant since 2010, Dhruv works extensively on path computation, traffic engineering, SR over IPv6, and SDN within the routing area. They serve on the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), where they also lead outreach, and co-chair the SRv6 Operations and PCE working groups. Dhruv is equally committed to expanding IETF engagement across the Asia–Pacific region and among underrepresented communities, advancing diversity and inclusion in Internet standards development.

Director of Transport Network leading Plan & design of IP, MW and DWDM networks. Been with du for more than 18 years. Started as an Engineer in fixed network, moved across the organization into Data-center, OSS and then Transport. Lead the first Call center Digitization project in du. Ambassador of infra transformation and network autonomous.

Anton Elita is a Technical Solution Architect at Juniper Networks, specializing in automation and routing, with over 20 years of experience in the networking industry.   Before joining Juniper Networks in 2013, Anton held senior network engineer roles at various internet service providers. His extensive hands-on experience continues to play a crucial role in his current work as a solutionarchitect, where he collaborates with major service providers across the EMEA region. He is a holder of JNCIE-SP certification.

Daniele Ceccarelli has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, with a strong focus on network automation. He is recognized as one of the early pioneers of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and has played a key role in shaping the evolution of programmable and automated networks.  For more than 15 years, Daniele has been actively involved in the IETF, contributing to and leading the standardization of protocols and architectures, and chairing several working groups across both the routing and the management & operations domains.  He is currently a Product Manager for the Cisco Crosswork Automation Suite, where his work focuses on AI-driven networking products and standards, with particular emphasis on TMF Autonomous Networks.

In his current role, Jérôme drives DDoS security research & competence development at Nokia, as part of its Deepfield portfolio of network security & analytics.   Based out of Paris, he joined the company’s Mobile Networks organization in 2005 in Malaysia; and he since covered a variety of sales & pre-sales responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific region, before returning to Europe in 2023.   Jérôme graduated with a Master’s degree from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées in Lyon, France.

Li Zhi is the chief solution Architect of Huawei Router domain, with 15 years of experience in router product and architecture design.

Mehmet Durmus has been serving as the Associate Director of Turkcell IP/MPLS Core and Data Center Networks since 2023. In this role, He is responsible for the Strategic Investment Planning and Network Design of Turkcell's IP Backbone, Backhaul, and Data Center Networks, ensuring they are optimized for performance, scalability, and future technologies.

Xu Xiaodong joined Huawei in 2004, who has been involved in router hardware board development, hardware system, and architecture design. Since 2021, he has been responsible for the green energy-saving work of data communication products, developing a systematic and multi-dimensional collaborative energy-saving solution at the network level, device level, and chip level.