Handsets Forum USA '07

Frank Altschuler, North American Marketing Manger, Trango Virtual Processors

Frank Altschuler is in charge of North American marketing for Trango Virtual Processors, a leading provider of embedded virtualization IP.

He has just recently joined Trango from Newisys where he was in charge of marketing for their X86 scaling solutions. He has previously held marketing positions at Starcore LLC, a DSP intellectual property firm, and Cirrus Logic, a fabless semiconductor company.

Prior to moving into marketing, Mr. Altschuler spent 15 years in engineering design and development in areas such as communications and electro-optics.

Mr. Altschuler has earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University.

David Barton, CTO Security Director, AT&T

David W. Barton, Director – Security Architecture and Strategy, AT&T, is responsible for identifying future security and technology trends, tying them to business and customer requirements, and developing security solutions. Currently David is leading the strategy to define the Security Target Architecture for both core and wireless networks. David came to Cingular from Sprint where he developed, implemented, and managed security initiatives for Sprint’s internal networks. He has more than 18 years of hands-on experience in telecommunications, security, data networking, and communications systems integration and has been involved in wireless security since 1998. David holds an Executive MBA from the University of Missouri – Kansas City and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Simpson College.

Dave Carey, General Manager, Consumer Products Group, Kyocera Wireless Corp.

In his role as General Manager of the Consumer Products Group at Kyocera Wireless Corp. (KWC), Dave Carey has ultimate responsibility for all facets of KWC’s consumer-device product lines, from product roadmap and engineering development to manufacturing and sales. Carey previously served as KWC’s Vice President of Strategic Planning, where he charted the direction of the company’s product, technology and business-development strategies. He joined KWC in 2004 as General Manager of the company’s Core Products Group.

Carey brings to KWC’s management team more than 20 years of experience in various elements of corporate leadership, business development, operations and engineering. He has led international teams of business and technology professionals and increased revenues and profits through strategic management and financial planning. With his extensive acumen in operations and team management, he has found the right customer-focused solutions for a variety of business challenges. Additionally, his expertise extends to global P&L management for as many as five concurrent business units, fundraising and mergers and acquisitions.

Before joining KWC, Carey was CEO of Catalyst, a venture investment and consulting firm he founded in 2003. Carey also served as Chief Operating Officer at Zucotto Wireless, a “fabless” semiconductor company creating hardware-based Java accelerators. As the Chief Operating Officer at Composite Optics, a designer and manufacturer of orbiting satellites, he helped grow the company from $10 million to $100 million in revenues in less than five years.

Carey holds a bachelor’s degree in material science engineering from the University of Cincinnati and continued his studies in business and finance at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He lives in Rancho Santa Fe, a suburb of San Diego, with his wife and two sons.

George Cacioppo, Vice President of Product Development, ACCESS

George Cacioppo is responsible for delivery of core platform, integration, quality assurance, licensee support, and Professional and Premium Services for Access Systems America. Cacioppo is a dynamic senior executive with experience in software development, international customer management and support, revenue generation, product cycle improvement, intellectual property licensing, and extensive vendor and customer contract development, negotiation, and relationship management. Prior to Access Systems America, Cacioppo was Vice President Software Engineering and Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Solutions Division for Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Cheri De Lacy, Vice President of Strategic Planning, Kyocera Wireless Corp.

Cheri De Lacy is the Vice President of Strategic Planning at Kyocera Wireless Corp. In this capacity she manages the company's product planning and industrial design, along with the strategic development of emerging technologies such as Near Field Communications (NFC), WiMAX and Wi-Fi/cellular convergence. A veteran in the communications and computer systems industries, she has more than 15 years of experience with both start-up and multinational high technology firms.

Before joining Kyocera, De Lacy was senior vice president, sales and marketing for CompXs, and was later appointed interim CEO by the CompXs Board of Directors to assist with positioning for an eventual acquisition by Integration Associates. De Lacy has also served as CEO of MoNET Communications and as vice president of the Access & Fiber Optic Communications Unit at Infineon Technologies North America, where she directed R&D and marketing and business development activities for the company’s wireline, fiber optic module and optical switching portfolios. She has held executive and management positions at some of the top companies in communications and systems design, including RealChip Communications Inc., Mitsubishi Electronics America, as well as Everex Systems where she served through a successful IPO as a contributing member of the management team. Her electronics career began with Texas Instruments, in the Consumer Electronics Group. De Lacy graduated from Santa Clara University with a BA in Business Administration.

Markus Grupp, Handset User Experience Design Manager, TELUS

Markus Grupp is Handset User Experience Design Manager at TELUS, where he has led user experience strategy since 2005, including the evolution of the Fastap keypad. He led the product development of the award-winning ZTE D90 Fastap phone.

Prior to joining TELUS, he was Product Experience Manager at Orange/ France Telecom R&D based in London, where he managed the re-design of the Orange Homescreen.

Previously, Markus worked on the user interface design for the Nokia 7700/ 7710 media phones, Nokia 9300/ 9500 Communicators and Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, as well as Synaptics’s MobileTouch touchpad technology.

Markus has also worked throughout Canada, the UK and Germany, designing for clients including Vodafone, Daimler-Benz, the NHS and Servier Laboratories.

A sought-after design speaker, Markus has presented at industry and academic conferences in Europe and the USA. Active in the design community, Markus has lectured and tutored at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College and University of Westminster and the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto.

Markus holds a B.A. in International Trade from the University of Waterloo, Canada and an M.A. in interaction design from the University of Westminster, London.

David Holmes, Marketing Manager NFC & Security ICs for BU A&I - S&M Identification North America, NXP Semiconductors

As marketing manager Near Field Communication (NFC) & Security ICs, Holmes is responsible for the marketing and business development of NFC, Smart Card and Reader ICs in North America. In his previous role as business development manager for NFC, Holmes was responsible for successfully building the NFC eco-system and securing significant design-wins in North America focusing on hardware manufacturers, software developers, system integrators, and content and service providers. He plays a crucial role in identifying new market directions from analysis of market intelligence and leading new product introduction activities. Holmes also leads the team in developing and delivering product and system market training for customers, field sales teams and channel partners. Prior to his current position, Holmes served as the Intel account manager, providing worldwide account management for all NXP business with Intel Corporation.

Holmes joined NXP from Vishay Intertechnologies, where he worked as a field applications engineer. Before that, he served as production supervisor, product engineer and quality engineer at Lucent Technologies.

Holmes graduated from Portland State University with a Master of Business Administration, and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Nebraska.

Richard Humbach, Director, Head of NFC Business Line, Nokia Emerging Business Unit

Richard Humbach is Head of the Near Field Communications (NFC) Business Line in the Nokia Emerging Business Unit based in Helsinki. The business line activities include mobile phone programmes such as the 6131 NFC, end-to-end solutions including a wide range of services, and global NFC ecosystem development activities. Richard joined Nokia in 2005 after completing his MBA at Imperial College London, and is based in Helsinki, Finland.

Richard has an international background in the mobile industry with a broad range of experience including consultancy, strategic product management and marketing, sales, operational roles and co-founding a wireless start-up through a management buy-out. Richard worked for almost a decade at Ericsson, and then also in smaller international companies in the mobile space.

Joshua Knight, Chief Strategist, Mobile Security, AT&T Mobility

Bringing 15+ years experience from within the communications industry, Joshua’s background includes Marketing, Operations, Product Development, Engineering and Architecture. Currently the Chief Strategist over Endpoint Security Architecture and Planning for AT&T, he has served in several senior roles within medium to large sized communications companies, including The Peoples Network, International Family and Sprint Nextel. In addition to his corporate work, Joshua has served the last eight years as Assistant Professor of Marketing, Technology and Business. A graduate of Friends University, his academic background includes undergraduate work in Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics and an MBA in Business Technology.

Aaron Konvisser, Senior Technology Marketing Manager, Nokia

Mr. Konvisser holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from WPI and an MBA from Rice University.

Mr, Konvisser joined Nokia in 2002 and is responsible for developing the technology strategy for Location Based Services and a number of other areas for Nokia’s CDMA BU. Previously at Noka, he oversaw the approval of several handsets at Verizon Wireless.

Prior to joining Nokia, Mr. Konvisser worked for Zucotto Wireless who created a Java native microprocessor and for Qualcomm, Inc. where he brought a number of products to market and also acted as a venture capital investment manager in what is now Qualcomm ventures.

Lalit Kotecha, Advance Technology Strategist, Verizon Wireless

Lalit Kotecha has an Advanced Technology Strategist role at Verizon Wireless, where he is responsible for next generation wireless and associated technologies and applications. For the past several years he has actively participated and contributed to the IEEE 802.16 and 3GPP2 standards bodies. Previously, he worked as a Wireless Architect to design systems based on Advanced Antenna Technology and multi-hop mesh networks, both enhancing WiMax technology and proposed as part of the 802.16 standards. Mr. Kotecha was instrumental in deploying 1xRTT data networks in the South Korean market while working with Cisco Systems. He has over thirteen years of experience designing wireless systems including, GSM, CDMA, 802.16, 802.11, UWB, digital switching systems, and satellite-based personal wireless networks for Motorola, Hughes, and Cisco Systems. Mr. Kotecha has an MS from the Indian Institute of Science.

Ram Kumar, Associate Vice President, Product Engineering Client Group, Infosys Technologies, Ltd

Ram Kumar, Associate VP leads the Product Engineering Client Facing Group at Infosys Technologies Ltd, working to grow business in the Product engineering space with responsibilities worldwide for PE business development, pre-sales support, marketing, consulting and new service development. Ram has a track record of executive and operational leadership in building businesses around computing and communication infrastructure products and services. Most recently, he was the founder and CEO of WIncNet Corp., a wireless infrastructure firm focused on a mobility soft-switch for enterprise VoIP and data mobility. Previously, he led Voiceworkz Inc., a unified communications technology product to a liquidity event. Ram held executive management positions at Scient, SAP and OSF. At Scient, a business strategy consulting and technology services firm, as Managing Director of the Global Enterprise business he scaled revenues to $154M and an IPO in 3 years. At SAP as Corporate Director and Head of world wide Technology Marketing and Business Development he built the global footprint and revenues for the SAP R/3 ERP platform and services from 400M to 3B$. At the Open Software Foundation, he was Director and General Manager of the Interoperability Business Unit. He introduced the concept of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and built $60M dollar business around DCE - the first SOA platform that is the underpinning for Microsoft's .Net and web services offering. Ram was a co-founder of Open Horizons and has held board and advisory roles at several firms, such as Coresma, Luminate and Seisint. Ram has a Masters degree in Computer Science and a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Boston University. He has a strong background in SOA, Networking and wireless infrastructure, security, mobility management and protocols and has published in industry magazines and spoken widely at industry conferences. Ram lives in San Francisco, CA with wife and two kids. He is an avid skier and competitive squash player.

Michael Lindsey, Senior Vice President of Electronic Delivery, BancorpSouth

Michael Lindsey is senior vice president and manager of Electronic Delivery Services for BancorpSouth, a bank holding company headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi with approximately $13.2 billion in assets. BancorpSouth operates banking, insurance, and financial service offices in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana. In his current role, Mr. Lindsey is responsible for the development and support of electronic payment, mobile and Internet products. Mr. Lindsey is also responsible for wire transfer, corporate customer contact center, application development for end user applications for banking company, and corporate help desk.

Mr. Lindsey joined BancorpSouth in 1989 in the Information Services group. In 1993 he became vice president and manager of the Retail Delivery Services group. Mr. Lindsey was responsible for migration of core banking applications, development of software used by branch network, and development of the Internet channel. Mr. Lindsey assumed his current position in September of 1999. Recently, Mr. Lindsey was named as one of the Bank Systems &Technology’s Most Innovative CIOs of 2007.

Vipul Mehrotra, Director, Business Development, Convergence (Devices), Nokia

Vipul has worked in the IT and Mobile Communications industry for 15 years in different marketing, strategy, sales and business development roles. He has been with Nokia for 10 years in various positions (across networks and devices businesses) in different countries. He is currently the Director, Business Development for Convergence in the US on the handset side. Vipul has a MBA from IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland and is currently based in Dallas.

Silviu Moraru, Manager of Technology and Competitive Intelligence, Wireless Terminals Division, Samsung Telecommunications, America

Silviu Moraru is Manager of Technology and Competitive Intelligence for the Wireless Terminals Division of Samsung Telecommunications America. As the principal analyst of the cellular industry market dynamics, Moraru works closely with engineering groups and business entities within the company in crafting the strategy and product planning for future development of handsets that are intuitive, easy to use and leverage the most advanced networks and service offerings from the carriers across all available technologies. Prior to this position, he has held various engineering and management positions at Sony Ericsson, NEC and Motorola. He has researched and was active participant in steering and standard committees that helped bring to life many of today’s technologies such as Bluetooth and Location Based services. In addition he was responsible for designing platform architectures that were deployed in numerous successful products already in the market and filed two patents.

Moraru received his bachelor’s and masters degree in electrical engineering from University of Texas at Arlington and is a graduate of the executive MBA program at the Southern Methodist University Cox school of business.

Finn Nielsen, Program Manager; Browser and widget technologies, Forum Nokia

Mr. Nielsen is program manager for Forum Nokia’s developer program supporting web designers and web developers in taking full advantage of expanding their services to mobile users. Mr. Nielsen has an extensive background in software engineering, support, and product management. Most recently Mr. Nielsen was product manager for developer tools offered on www.forum.nokia.com including the Series 40 SDKs.

Seung June(SJ) Oh, Senior Product Manager, LBS Service, HELIO

Seung-June(SJ) Oh is the Head of Location based services at HELIO—a new mobile brand built for young, passionate consumers that want a fully-loaded wireless experience. He is responsible for crafting the strategy and delivering the company’s innovative location based services including Buddy Beacon, GPS enabled Google Maps and Garmin Mobile. Prior to HELIO, he worked at SK Telecom, global business division where he led several key wireless Internet strategies and business development projects and was instrumental in driving the company’s global expansion.

Seung-June holds a Bachelor of Science in Managerial Economics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Jared Peterson, Director, Application Developer Program, Sprint Nextel

In his current position, Mr. Peterson is responsible for supporting all 3rd party application developers in Sprint’s portfolio of wireless data services. He has grown Sprint’s application developer program from concept to a flourishing community by providing developers with tools, resources, training, and paths to market. As a leader in the company’s wireless data efforts, Jared was instrumental in launching the first mobile Java platform in the United States, and has supported hundreds of top-named wireless applications from product concept to launch.

The Sprint Application Developer Program includes full lifecycle management for wireless data partners in the areas of messaging, mobile email, industry solutions and digital media. Prior to joining Nextel, Mr. Peterson spent five years as analyst and Research Director at International Data Corporation (IDC), a leading market intelligence and advisory firm in the information technology and telecommunications industries. He has also worked for as a market strategy consultant for Deloitte Touche.

Mr. Peterson holds a BA in Economics & East Asian Studies from the Mansfield Freeman school of Wesleyan University (CT).

Tim Raby, Managing Director, OMTP

Tim joined OMTP on 1st January 2006. Prior to joining OMTP, Tim was Head of Devices for O2 Group where he was responsible for all Terminal technology and Portfolio activity during the 3G launch period. He was responsible for the successful launch of the first ODM consumer O2 brand X phones alongside the XDA PDA family. Tim came to O2 via BT Internet and Genie which he joined in early 2000. During this period he played a key role in every part of the evolving mobile data value chain; Business Development in Genie Europe, developing Unified Messaging, pioneering Java Games and launching O2 Active. Tim started his career as a software developer becoming a well known architect of voice and data financial trading room systems. As a director of Alphameric for 12 years he was involved in numerous data broadcast and Internet based projects.

Dan Shey, Principal Analyst, Business Mobility, ABI Research

As principle analyst responsible for developing and leading ABI Research’s examination of business mobility markets, Dan Shey focuses on the opportunities and challenges for the wireless industry when business productivity applications are moved into the mobile domain. Specific research focus areas will include fixed/mobile convergence, business-centric mobile devices, mobile business services and applications and analysis of wireless services in relevant industry verticals.

Dan brings a wealth of operations and technology experience to his role at ABI. Prior to joining ABI Research, Dan worked as an independent technology business consultant, including engagements for a mobile asset tracking/mapping products firm, a Web-based pay-for-performance marketing company, a startup voice services business, and a business process and IT consulting firm. During that time, he executed contract research projects for ABI Research, including studies on cellular modems and in-building wireless solutions.

Earlier still, he worked for four years in product management, product development and marketing at Qwest Wireless, a company that during his tenure first operated as a mobile network operator and later as an MVNO. In these roles, he managed multiple voice and data products and developed business plans for a number of new wireless products including data-centric devices, Wi-Fi, and mobile broadband, as well as leading teams to develop fixed-mobile services. At Qwest, Dan was part of the Management Development Program for high-potential senior management candidates. Previously, he was a project engineer at Boeing, where his responsibilities ranged from R&D to shop floor operations to field support, and he also served as a business development manager at St. Louis Testing Laboratories.

Dan holds a BS in Physics from Loras College and an MS in Metallurgy from Iowa State University. In 2000, he received his MBA from the University of Michigan where he is also a Fellow of the school’s Tauber Manufacturing Institute.

Asokan Thiyagarajan, Technology Evangelist, Motorola Inc

Asokan Thiyagarajan serves as a technology evangelist within the Ecosystem & Market Development team at Motorola. In this role, he is responsible for recommending strategies to address market and technology trends as well as partnerships with key developers.

Asokan has over 18 years of international experience in high technology sectors, developing software and communication systems. Prior to Motorola, Asokan held a variety of senior development, operations and strategic management positions at companies such as Nokia, Ericsson and Compaq (HP). He also has entrepreneurial experience, having co-founded a technology company.

Asokan holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, From Madurai University, India.

D.P. Venkatesh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of mPortal Inc

Mr. Venkatesh has more than eighteen years experience in the Communications industry across Wireless, Internet, and Media sectors. His roles have varied from executive management to strategic planning and business development.

As CEO of mPortal, Mr. Venkatesh oversees all aspects of strategy, sales, and marketing for mPortal. Over the past seven years, he has led the company through its various growth stages.

Prior to founding mPortal, Mr. Venkatesh was with McKinsey & Company in their Hong Kong Office as part of their global Telecommunications Practice and worked with several leading global communication providers as a strategic consultant to their Boards and Management teams.

Mr. Venkatesh also led the Asia Pacific Communications Industry practice for Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE:CSC) and started CSC’s office in Asia in Hong Kong. Within 2 years, CSC’s Asia base grew rapidly to include 5 countries (Hong Kong, India, Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia). Earlier in his career, Mr. Venkatesh held several positions in product management and marketing for Convergys (Nasdaq:CVG) in North America while working with communication providers in their BSS/OSS infrastructure needs.

Mr.Venkatesh is an accomplished speaker and industry expert on the media, internet and communications space and is a frequent speaker and panelist at various industry events. He is also a frequent contributor to articles and magazines and has been quoted numerous times in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, RCR Wireless, Telephony and Entrepreneur magazine. He was selected by Frost & Sullivan as a recipient of the Wireless Industry “Movers & Shakers” award.

Mr. Venkatesh holds an MS in Industrial Engineering and an MBA both from the University of Cincinnati, as well as a BS in Chemical Engineering from Anna University.

Barry Young, Senior Vice Preseident, DisplaySearch

Barry Young is Senior Vice President of DisplaySearch. As one of the industry's leading authorities on OLEDs and flexible displays, Young has authored all of DisplaySearch's OLED and Flexible Display reports and has visited and consulted with most of the OLED manufacturers worldwide. Young has been published in multiple technical display journals and has spoken across the globe on the display industry. Before joining DisplaySearch, Young was CEO and President of OWL Displays where he co-developed innovative driver technology for a-Si and p-Si TFT LCDs, and was awarded a key patent on an innovative architecture for driving low temperature polysilicon TFT LCDs. Prior to OWL, he was Vice President and General Manager for Tandem's Integrity System's Division. He has also served as Managing Partner at Booz Allen & Hamilton, Executive Vice President with Wells Fargo Bank, Senior Vice President at Citibank and President and CEO of Lexar, an early developer of an all-digital PBX.