Mike is a Research Director with GlobalData’s Global IT Technology and Software group covering the enterprise networking market including campus LAN and WLAN, data center networking, SDN, and SD-WAN, and other networking technologies.   Prior to GlobalData, Mike was with TechWeb for over 15 years finishing as Editor of Networking Computing. He has extensive experience evaluating enterprise remote access, security, and network infrastructure products. He previously was Lead Analyst with InformationWeek Analytics, Senior Technology Editor with Network Computing and Executive Editor for Secure Enterprise.   He has served as track chair for Interop’s Data Center and Storage tracks and has spoken at several conferences including SDN World Congress, Interop, MISTI, the Internet Security Conference, as well as to local groups. He also teaches a network security graduate course at Syracuse University.

Jonathan Forest, 

Mr. Forest is the Vice President of Enterprise Products and Markets at InfoVista where he is responsible for the company’s overall SD WAN product strategy. He has 20 years of experience in the telecommunications/networking industry.   Before InfoVista, Mr. Forest has spent time at Hughes Network Systems, Accel Networks, Arbros Networks, and MCI Communications (now owned by Verizon Communications). He has held both technical and business roles throughout his career.   He has a B.S. degree in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA from the University of Maryland.

Jessie Liu,

Ms. Jessie Liu leads SDN & Network OSS Marketing Execution, responsible for Huawei’s global SDN marketing strategy and sales.   Jessie has over 12 years of experience in the telecom industry and is specialized in operation process, SDN/NFV/Cloud, OSS/NMS architecture and solutions across all network technologies such as optical, access, and IP networks, as well as switches, etc.

Derek has more than 20 years of technology product marketing, product management and business development experience with a focus on high-performance enterprise and service provider networking systems. He is Vice President of Product Marketing at Silver Peak where he leads product positioning and messaging for service provider and enterprise SD-WAN and WAN Optimization solution offerings.   Prior to Silver Peak, Derek was vice president of product line management at Extreme Networks where he led the team responsible for product strategy and the roadmap for the company’s wireless and wired enterprise and data center networking products, SDN platforms and network management and security solutions. Before joining Extreme, Derek was vice president of product management for SS8 Networks, a supplier of communications security analytics solutions. Prior to SS8, he served as vice president of Marketing for ConSentry Networks where he drove all aspects of product strategy and marketing for policy-based LAN switches and appliances. At Woven Systems as vice president of marketing, he launched the company out of stealth mode along with its first product, a 144-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet Fabric data center switch targeted to cloud providers and large enterprises.   Previously, Derek was senior director of product management at Brocade Communications, where he defined and launched several fibre channel product lines including Brocade’s first SAN director. Prior to Brocade, he was senior group manager of product management for ATM and Frame Relay product lines at Stratacom and Cisco Systems.   Derek holds a BSEE from Stanford University and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

As director in the MEF's Office of the CTO, 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. These innovative programs - including the MEF Software Developer Community, MEFnet global implementation platform, and MEF Reference Implementations - enable MEF's 210+ member companies to implement draft and published service orchestration and definitions work in code, and to make available standardized open APIs that accelerate the availability of highly agile, assured and orchestrated services for today's hyper-connected world.   Daniel has been involved in the networking industry for 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.

Dave Chen is a Product Marketing Manager at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, a leading provider of next-generation network solutions for the digital enterprise.  He specializes in helping customers solve mobility challenges with their branch and traditional infrastructure, especially as it relates to #GenMobile, a type of tech-savvy employees who rely on their mobile devices for work and personal use.   Dave has held a variety of positions encompassing product, sales, and enablement at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Hewlett-Packard Inc., and Aruba Networks. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Political Science.

Simon Kissel, born 1977, is the founder, CEO, and head development of Viprinet Europe GmbH, a german company which has been manufacturing innovative network components since 2006.  He is the inventor of a patented SDWAN bonding technology which really aggregates bandwidths of different wide area network connections. Computer nerd, inventor, leading figure, and executive – Simon Kissel unites several extraordinary gifts and qualities. As self-educated person, he started programming at the age of 10; at the age of 17, he dropped out of school, and opened a computer shop. He soon became known through the international community of computer artists, and organized the world's biggest festival of computer art, the Breakpoint, for 8 years. Simon Kissel is known as strong character, able to put up a fight, and bound to put people's backs up due to his analytical and critical reasoning combined with open, direct communication.

Arturo Sordo is a Principal Systems Engineer for the Ixia business unit within Keysight Technologies. With over 16 years of worldwide experience building test and visibility solutions around customer needs, Arturo is the main point of contact within the European organization for service providers and enterprises in the move towards virtualization.

Dave Chopra,

Dave Chopra is an infrastructure technology leader, with progressive experience in strategic planning, business development, organizational development and program management.   Dave brings decades of deep expertise in global IT Services Architecture, IT Service Management, IT Governance, Transformation and Compliance to his leadership role at Wipro.   Dave has successfully built, managed, and led global teams at Wipro, working closely with clients to help them envision and articulate their long-term technology objectives and business benefits, and to align IT priorities with company objectives that prioritize the business.

Joel Christner,

Joel is the Senior Director of Marketing at San Jose-based CloudGenix, a recognized global leader in software-defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN).  Joel has 20 years of experience spanning enterprise technologies including networking, data center, application delivery, cloud computing, and security. A published author with three books and open source contributor, Joel is regarded as an expert in application delivery, application software architecture, and network architectures and technologies to support successful application deployment at scale.  Prior to CloudGenix, Joel held technical leadership positions at Cisco Systems and multiple technology startups. Joel holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from Columbia University in the City of New York.

Hein Pattyn,

Hein Pattyn is responsible for further expansion of sales & channel footprint in the region. Prior to joining Aryaka, Hein spent 7 years with InfoVista (ex Ipanema Technologies), where he was responsible for BeNeLux and Nordics. From a greenfield situation, he brought Ipanema product line to a well established brand into the Application Assurance market.   Before InfoVista, Hein spent 4 years with T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom’s corporate customer arm, where he was responsible for business development in BeLux. Hein is based out of Belgium and focusses on on-boarding new partners, as well as evangelizing the Aryaka SD WAN vision with end-customers.

AFTERNOON CHAIRMAN

Amir Zmora is CEO & Co-founder of SwitchRTC, a Real-time, interactive WebRTC based video CDN and B2B/B2C collaboration solution. Amir has been working for more than 15 years in the telecommunications industry with strong focus on VoIP and WebRTC.   For the last several years Amir is consulting companies in the fields of WebRTC and SD-WAN. Among his previous positions, Amir was VP Products & Marketing for the Technology Business Unit of RADVISION, an Avaya company, where he led the BU turnaround from low level SDKs to client solutions and complimentary products.   Amir is the author of TheNewDialTone and co-founder of WebRTCStandards.info and WebRTCIndex.

Yishay directs Cato Networks’ worldwide marketing. Yishay was previously the Vice President, Marketing for Trusteer, a financial fraud and advanced malware protection company, acquired by IBM in 2013. Prior to Trusteer, Yishay was Director, Product Marketing at Imperva.   Yishay has over 20 years of experience in marketing and product management for enterprise software solutions in the areas of security, fraud prevention, storage and mobile computing.

Todd brings thirty years of technology executive experience to Cradlepoint where he is responsible for overseeing the company’s strategy, M&A activities and strategic partnerships.   Prior to Cradlepoint, he was CMO at Pertino (acquired by Cradlepoint in 2015), a pioneer in software-defined cloud networking. Previous roles include COO at Red Lambda, CEO at Gearworks (acquired), VP of Worldwide Marketing at Packeteer (IPO, acquired), and VP of Marketing at Sync Research (IPO, acquired).   Earlier in his career, Todd held engineering, product management and regional sales roles at AT&T and Siemens Communications Systems. He is currently a co-founder and board member of the Minnesota Emerging Software Advisory, a non-profit C-level mentoring organization for stage software companies in Minnesota, and holds two patents for application-based managed network services.

Sanjay is the CEO and co-founder of VeloCloud where he leads the team that is working to Re-Invent WAN and transform how businesses connect. Prior to VeloCloud, Sanjay ran publicly traded OnMobile Global, serving as its President and COO. Sanjay also spent time at Citrix through the acquisition he negotiated with Caymas where he was President and CEO. At Citrix, he defined the product strategy and go to market for the Access Management, Delivery Controller and WAN acceleration product lines. Prior, Sanjay served in executive roles at Webvan (Vice President of Engineering and Business Development) and at Hewlett-Packard where he initiated and rapidly grew Internet Infrastructure as a profitable new business for HP. He holds an MS from Stanford University, an MS from the University of Wisconsin, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from The Indian Institute of Technology   Sanjay is involved in the application of internet and mobile technology to solve energy problems in emerging countries. He also enjoys bicycling, running, gadgets, watching cult movies (The Big Lebowski), and gardening with his family.

Ramesh Prabagaran has a track record of bringing disruptive and innovative networking products to market focused on carriers and enterprises.   Prior to getting acquired into Cisco, Ramesh was part of the founding team at Viptela and served as Vice President of Product Management and Partnerships at Viptela driving the product strategy, go-to-market and key technology partnerships. Before that, Ramesh was at Juniper Networks as a senior product line manager establishing the product vision for enterprise and datacenter routing products (M and MX Series), and WAN-focused solutions for Fortune 100 companies.  Ramesh holds a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from University of Kansas, and a Master of Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Frank Lyonnet is a Deputy CTO in the Steelhead, SteelFusion and SD-WAN business unit at Riverbed Technology since 2012. Frank participates in shaping the company's long term vision and positioning.  From 2004 to 2012, Frank was Vice President of Product Marketing and Product Management at Ipanema Technologies where he launched the first Hybrid Networking solution on the market. Earlier, Frank founded ActiVia Networks, a Content Delivery Networking company in 2000. As a CEO, he managed the company growth until 2003 when he sold it to Stratacache Inc.  Frank began his career as a researcher within the l'Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (INRIA). Frank holds a Ph.D in IT with a specialization in IP Networks.

Atchison Frazer brings over 20 years of IT strategic marketing expertise to SD-WAN innovator Talari, most recently as CMO of Xangati, a hybrid-cloud IT infrastructure performance management software provider acquired by Virtual Instruments.  Prior to Xangati, Atchison was global marketing leader for ADC-vendor KEMP Technologies and also Gnodal Ltd, a UK innovator of HPC data-fabric technology and HFT fintech infrastructure (now part of supercomputing leader Cray).

Nicolas has 10 years experience in networking starting in Orange and then for the last 6 years at Juniper Networks. He has been working primarily on routing and more recently he has been focusing on SDN topics and been deeply involved in key EMEA SDN projects.