Conference Agenda

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.

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 enterprises.   In this role, Carsten has over 20 years of experience in telecommunication networks testing and is responsible for EANTC's business development. His technical areas of expertise include validation of 5G, Open RAN, and transport technologies.

Rami has over 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry as a technology leader. Throughout his career, Rami held various senior leadership positions in architecture, product strategy, and business development at NEC/Netcracker, Telco Systems, DragonWave, Axerra Networks, Carrier Access, and Paragon Networks. He also served as a member of many global standardization organizations such as MEF, BBF, ETSI, IETF, IEEE and ITU-T.  Currently Rami serves as an advisor/consultant in the area of technology, business development, product strategy, and knowledge delivery for SDN, Virtualization, SD-WAN, Security, Carrier Ethernet, MPLS and 5G.   Rami holds an MBA ,MS in Computer Science, MS & BS in Electrical Engineering & a minor in Mathematics.

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 Senior Director, Solutions Marketing, Patrick is responsible for creating and evangelizing key messages about Fortinet’s cyber security solutions.   Prior to joining Fortinet, over the course of the past 30 years, he has worked for a number of small to medium size organizations as well as larger companies such as Wellfleet Communications, Bay Networks, Nortel Networks, Hughes Network Systems, and Comtech Mobile Data Communications in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, holding a range of senior-level international sales and marketing roles.  Patrick received his technical training while serving in the US Navy. Patrick is based at Fortinet’s EMEA facilities in Sophia Antipolis, France.

Ralph is a multidisciplinary technology subject matter expert, thought leader, and trusted advisor who helps clients achieve their business objectives through innovative solutions. At Ciena, Ralph is currently defining and architecting multicloud networking to simplify and facilitate the secure interconnection between enterprise workloads running in public clouds and private data centers.   Ralph's expertise spans the assessment, definition, architecture, design, integration, operations, marketing, and sales of multi-vendor solutions and managed services using SD-WAN, SASE, SSE, Zero Trust, and Multicloud Networking technologies. In 2017, Ralph launched SD-WANaaS, one of the first co-managed SD-WAN service offerings available via a 100% OpEx consumption model. Ralph is also a founding member of MEF Forum where he developed the industry’s first SD-WAN service standard and Zero Trust Framework for Service Providers to continuously protect users, devices, and applications and mitigate threats from them.  In 2014, Ralph was awarded the Distinguished Fellow title at MEF Forum for his outstanding, sustained leadership and contributions to shape the telecom industry. In 2016, he was awarded the MEF Excellence Award for Best Consulting Practice for SDN and NFV solutions. In 2018, Ralph was named one of the top 25 movers & shakers in the telecom industry by Fierce Telecom Magazine and in 2022, he was awarded the MEF Outstanding Contributor Award for his leadership and contributions to Zero Trust, Edge IaaS, SASE, and IP security services standards. Ralph also co-authored 4 books, published dozens of white papers, and regularly lectures on leading-edge technology topics at industry events.

Chris Taylor is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for Edge at VMware. The solutions he directs remove the friction of deploying and managing edge infrastructure, services, and applications so customer can focus on their business outcomes.   Prior to VMware, he spent 15 years in the security industry working with endpoint, email, web, and CASB products. He has a degree in mechanical engineering from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo and an MBA from Santa Clara University.   Before joining product marketing, he held roles at manufacturing and technology companies in product design, systems engineering, and product management.

In her current role, Anne-Gaëlle is responsible for supporting EMEA MSSP to create innovative managed services based on Fortinet security networking solutions, such as secure SDWAN, ZTNA or SASE.  Prior to this, Anne- Gaëlle worked as head of overlay services portfolio in a large global service provider.

Monika is a Senior Consultant in Packet Network Engineering with over two decades of profound 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, ensuring seamless introduction of innovative capabilities.   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.

Nicolas Marcoux has 15+ years of experience in networking and cybersecurity. Today at Palo Alto Networks, he is a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) Architect aiming at developing managed services with key partners.   He is today focusing on Cloud-Delivered Security Platforms (Prisma SASE, Prisma Cloud and Cortex XDR).

Stefano is responsible for Cisco’s SD-WAN and SASE business in EMEA. During his IT career of over 20 years, he has held multiple positions in engineering, product management, business development and international sales leadership.

Jaye Tillson is a Field CTO at HPE, boasting over 25 years of invaluable expertise in successfully implementing strategic global technology programs. With a strong focus on digital transformation, Jaye has been instrumental in guiding numerous organizations through their zero-trust journey, enabling them to thrive in the ever-evolving digital landscape.   Jaye's passion lies in collaborating with enterprises, assisting them in their strategic pursuit of zero trust. He takes pride in leveraging his real-world experience to address critical issues and challenges faced by these businesses.   Beyond his professional pursuits, Jaye co-founded the SSE Forum and co-hosts its popular podcast called 'The Edge.' This platform allows him to engage with a broader audience, fostering meaningful discussions on industry trends and innovations.   In his leisure time, Jaye indulges in his passions for motor racing, savouring delectable cuisine, and exploring the wonders of the world through his travels.

Colin Bannon is CTO for Business and is responsible for defining our technology vision for our customers – aligned with our strategy. Part of his responsibility is to predict technology trends and future customer technology roadmaps. He acts as a trusted advisor for many CIO’s.   He’s a veteran in the industry with expertise in designing, deploying, and running some of the world’s largest next generation networks. He has a holistic philosophy to network design, working back from Hi rémibusiness outcomes, user experience and applications dev strategy to inform the intuitive network, architecture, systems, and service wrap design.   As well as sitting on several technology advisory boards, he lectures at Warwick University on Disruptive Innovation. He was also named as one of the 50 CTOs to watch by Global Telecoms magazine.

Joseph Fernando is the manager of the Sales Engineer team at Cato Networks for South EMEA.   He joined Cato three years ago, bringing a 20+ years of SE experience in networking and Cybersecurity companies such as Check Point in the early 2000’s, Citrix NetScaler and more recently Palo Alto Networks.

Adrien Olalainty is a Versa SASE Systems Engineer for EMEA. He joined Versa Networks in early 2021 with SD-WAN background, and quickly extended his security knowledge and experience towards a Unified SASE expertise.   Adrien has worked on designing numerous SASE architectures, and delivered multiple PoCs and trainings for his Customers, Partners and Service Providers in Europe.

Marcel Stadler is Product Manager SDWAN at Open Systems. Since joining Open Systems in 2012, Marcel held various positions in Customer Success, where he was responsible for the global network and security services of enterprise customers.  In 2022, Marcel has transitioned to the Product Department and is in charge for the SD-WAN portfolio of Open Systems.

Jean-Sébastien Milliere has been Security Sales Specialist at Cisco for more than 10 years, with a particular expertise on Cloud security.  Previously, he worked with several start-ups specialised in cyber-security.

As Senior Director, Solutions Marketing, Patrick is responsible for creating and evangelizing key messages about Fortinet’s cyber security solutions.   Prior to joining Fortinet, over the course of the past 30 years, he has worked for a number of small to medium size organizations as well as larger companies such as Wellfleet Communications, Bay Networks, Nortel Networks, Hughes Network Systems, and Comtech Mobile Data Communications in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, holding a range of senior-level international sales and marketing roles.  Patrick received his technical training while serving in the US Navy. Patrick is based at Fortinet’s EMEA facilities in Sophia Antipolis, France.

Jaye Tillson is a Field CTO at HPE, boasting over 25 years of invaluable expertise in successfully implementing strategic global technology programs. With a strong focus on digital transformation, Jaye has been instrumental in guiding numerous organizations through their zero-trust journey, enabling them to thrive in the ever-evolving digital landscape.   Jaye's passion lies in collaborating with enterprises, assisting them in their strategic pursuit of zero trust. He takes pride in leveraging his real-world experience to address critical issues and challenges faced by these businesses.   Beyond his professional pursuits, Jaye co-founded the SSE Forum and co-hosts its popular podcast called 'The Edge.' This platform allows him to engage with a broader audience, fostering meaningful discussions on industry trends and innovations.   In his leisure time, Jaye indulges in his passions for motor racing, savouring delectable cuisine, and exploring the wonders of the world through his travels.

Nilesh leads SASE Sales Acceleration for EMEA, focused on supporting organisations on their SASE journey to securely connect users from anywhere to applications everywhere, whilst ensuring the best user experience.  Nilesh brings more than 15 years of experience across multiple architectures including Cloud Security and Enterprise Networking.

Monika is a Senior Consultant in Packet Network Engineering with over two decades of profound 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, ensuring seamless introduction of innovative capabilities.   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.