The industry-leading Board of Directors and passionate subject-matter experts driving MEF’s committees and projects.
MEF has a long history of industry collaboration to solve shared business challenges, which is engrained in MEF’s mission and organizational structure. The member-elected, business-focused Board of Directors helps to reinforce the membership’s direction to deliver measurable value to the industry and its stakeholders. The merit-based appointment of technology specialists leads the cross-domain and cross-geographic collaboration within MEF’s committees.
Nan Chen
President, MEF
Head of The One Network,
Ericsson
Nan is a tech entrepreneur, a world traveler, and an avid runner …
As a tech entrepreneur, Nan founded and serves as president of MEF that defines, certifies, and federates global communications services. Nan also founded CENX (acquired by Ericsson) that pioneered industry first service assurance solution for closed loop automation. His previous ventures include Atrica (acquired by Nokia) and SynOptics/BayNetworks (acquired by Nortel). Nan has been recognized regularly as one of Top 100 Most Influential People in Telecom/Internet Industry.
As a world traveler, Nan visited over 50 countries mostly for work, and over 200 wineries mostly for pleasure; As an avid runner, Nan raced over 20 marathons, including World Marathon Majors.
In his previous life, he was a record holder in pole vault at Beijing University with 2 MS & 1 BS degrees.
Aamir Hussain
Chairman, MEF
Chief Product Officer and Senior VP,
Verizon Business Group
Aamir Hussain is Chief Product Officer and Senior Vice President of Verizon Business Group and has held that position since December, 2019. Aamir has nearly three decades of experience implementing global technology operations, innovation, complex infrastructures, consumer and business solutions and digital transformation.
He is responsible for Verizon Business Group’s holistic product portfolio and its strategy and alignment against Verizon’s Network-as-a-Service framework – including Multi-access Edge Compute, Software Defined Networking, IoT and 5G services, global networking solutions, security, advanced communications services, and managed and professional services – and leads product management across all customer segments.
Aamir is a veteran international technology executive with experience in operations and technology functions within the cable and telecom industry. He is an investor, advisor, and board member with a focus on the consumer and financial enterprise, wireless industry, technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) sectors. Most recently, Aamir was CEO of Collinear Networks, a next generation wireless intelligent connectivity startup. In this role, Aamir was responsible for providing strategic leadership for the company by working with the board of directors and the executive management team to establish long-range goals, strategies, plans and policies.
Prior to Collinear Networks, Aamir was the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for CenturyLink. In this capacity, he was responsible for overseeing CenturyLink’s worldwide network, technology transformation, architecture and innovation roadmap, including product development, IT operations, cyber engineering, physical/network security and global cloud and managed services development functions. Aamir joined CenturyLink as CTO in 2014, where he transformed the company’s core network into a Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)-based environment. He was also instrumental in accelerating broadband enablement efforts through innovative solutions such as vectoring/bonding, GPON, G.fast and wireless 5G deployments.
Aamir has also held senior leadership roles at Liberty Global, Covad, TELUS and Qwest. Aamir sits on several startup and non-profit boards, is technical advisor to technology companies and holds 11 patents in telecommunications.
Aamir holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of South Florida and a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. In addition, he has completed leadership, innovation and strategy training at Harvard University, the INSEAD Business School in France and the International School of Business Management in Switzerland.
Bob Victor
Treasurer, MEF
Treasurer, MEF
Senior Vice President of Product Management,
Comcast Business
Robert (“Bob”) S. Victor serves as Senior Vice President of Product Management for Comcast Business, where he is responsible for development and lifecycle operations of all Comcast Business products and services as well as Blueface, a Unified Communications Company based in Ireland.
Bob joined Comcast in 2008, and in prior roles has served as Senior Vice President of Strategic and Financial Planning for Comcast Corporation and Chief Financial Officer for Comcast Business. Prior to Comcast, Mr. Victor was a Partner at The Boston Consulting Group.
Frederick Chui
Director, MEF
Chief Commercial Officer,
PCCW Global
Frederick joined Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) in 1991 and held senior positions in solutions design, product management, product development and marketing.
Until 2008, Frederick was the Senior Vice President of PCCW Global’s International Products and Solutions division and was responsible for managing PCCW Global’s product management and development activities, as well as overseeing marketing and presales support activities around the world. In 2008, Frederick was appointed head of Eastern Europe, Mediterranean, the Middle East, Africa and Oceania sales and business development operations.
In early 2011, Frederick became Senior Vice President, Global Marketing and Sales. He was responsible for overseeing PCCW Global’s business development in data sales as well as presales activities, access management and marketing strategies. In 2012, he became the Senior Vice President, Global Data Sales and Presales and, in 2019, the Chief Commercial Officer of PCCW Global.
Before joining HKT, Frederick engaged in the development of products and solutions for a number of telecoms operators serving the Asia Pacific region.
Frederick graduated from the University of Nottingham with a Bachelor of Engineering and holds an Executive MBA from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Frederick has been serving on the MEF Board since 2018. And he is also a Committee member of the HK Trade Development Council ICT Services Advisory Committee.
Andrew Dugan
Director, MEF
Chief Technology Officer,
Lumen
Andrew Dugan is Chief Technology Officer for Lumen. In this role, he is responsible for the development, integration and deployment of the Lumen global network supporting Enterprise, Consumer, Wholesale and Government customers. Andrew Is running for his third term on the MEF board and actively supports the efforts of MEF through internal and external sponsorship of several MEF Initiatives. Andrew views the work being done at MEF as an important part of Lumen’s objectives – to create a differentiated Digital Experience for customers through standardization and automation.
Andrew is a veteran technology executive with more than 32 years of experience in building telecommunications networks, switching platforms and services platforms. Prior to his CTO role, he served as Senior Vice President of technology planning, network architecture and security. He joined Level 3 in 1998 where he played an integral part in building its global network. He held various roles at Level 3 and was named its CTO in 2016.
Shawn Hakl
Director, MEF
VP, 5G Strategy,
Microsoft
Shawn is responsible for building and executing the product strategy and partnerships for Microsoft’s Azure for Operators portfolio. His team works across product, engineering, and sales to help operators execute on the digital transformation of the core and edge networks. Prior to Microsoft, Shawn served at Verizon as the Senior Vice President of Business Product, responsible for a $29B portfolio covering services such as enterprise networking, 4G/5G, cyber security, collaboration and IoT.
Daniele Mancuso
Director, MEF
SVP Chief Product Management,
Sparkle
Daniele Mancuso is SVP Chief Product Management at Sparkle, in charge to develop the Group’s entire product portfolio.
In the previous years, he served as Chief Marketing Solutions & Business Development, EVP ICT Engineering and Director Innovation & Engineering.
Daniele brings nearly 30 years of broad commercial and technical experience in building and marketing telecom networks and associated products, both for the wholesale and enterprise markets, spanning from submarine cables to L1/L3 transport services, from Carrier Ethernet to SD-WAN & Multicloud, from wholesale voice to cloud-based unified communication & collaboration platforms and Multimessaging.
During his years of technological leadership Daniele initiated the transformation of Sparkle towards an API-centric Global Service Platform, introducing the pillars of software-defined, virtualized and programmable networks as well as the full commitment of the Company to contribute and follow MEF standards & certification programs, of which he’s a total believer & supporter.
He is frequently invited as speaker at industry events to share his vision, experience and execution challenges.
Daniele holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Catania.
Franck Morales
Director, MEF
Vice President, Connectivity Services,
Orange Business Services
Franck Morales, Vice President of Connectivity at Orange Business Services, was appointed MEF Board Director in 2020.
With over 30 years of industry experience, Franck has been a key player in Orange Business Services’ global transformation towards SD-WAN and he is embracing the new wave of digital transformation as an enthusiastic champion of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE).
Franck Morales is keen to enhance the Orange position in a marketplace which requires a dedicated telco Cloud platform for connectivity and security as part of the new infrastructure for Service Providers.
His experience in managing durable strategic partnerships is an important benefit in this ecosystem where Service Providers are reinforcing close relationships with vendors and hyper-scalers to comprehensively meet customers’ needs.
In his free time, Franck enjoys travelling, running, cycling, in addition to Opera and Theatre, and he will be more than happy to share his knowledge on French wines and gastronomy.
Rasesh Patel
Director, MEF
EVP, Chief Product & Platform Officer,
AT&T Business
Rasesh Patel has responsibility for AT&T Business’ portfolio-wide P&L with $36 Billion of annual revenue, including Mobility, 5G, Edge Compute, Internet of Things, SD-WAN, Cybersecurity, Voice, Collaboration, and Cloud Connectivity. He also oversees pricing and the group’s digital platforms and portals. Rasesh has a wealth of experience at AT&T, including sales, distribution, customer operations, customer experience, digital, and product management. He previously led the distribution and care organization for AT&T Communications, where he and his team of 50K employees delivered best-in-class products and services and cared for customers. Prior to joining AT&T, during his tenure at DIRECTV, Rasesh served as SVP of Customer Experience. Rasesh received an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine. He enjoys travel, golf, and has a passion for climbing mountains. He, his wife, and their daughters reside in Dallas, TX.
Mirko Voltolini
Director, MEF
VP, Innovation,
Colt Technology Services
Mirko Voltolini is VP Innovation at Colt, responsible for leading the effort to define the long-term strategic product roadmap for Colt, working to identify innovative ideas and technologies to ensure Colt is driving forward as an industry leader.
He is responsible to identify, develop and execute an innovation strategy aligned to Colt strategic business goals, to define and manage the Colt innovation process and the portfolio of innovation development projects, to accelerate the validation of new ideas with partners and customers
Prior to this Mirko was the Head of Network On Demand, responsible for leading the effort to architect and develop the Colt network and product portfolio to deliver an online digital customer experience where customers order, design and manage their network services on demand.
He joined Colt in 2002 and has held several senior leadership roles in the technical development and engineering areas.
Mirko is a member of the Board of Directors of MEF and leads Colt contributions to the definition of MEF standards.
Mirko holds an MSc in Telecommunications Engineering from Politecnico of Milan.
Director, MEF
SVP, Product, Marketing and Professional Services for Bell Business Markets,
Bell Canada
Jeremy Wubs
Director, MEF
SVP, Product, Marketing and Professional Services for Bell Business Markets,
Bell Canada
Jeremy Wubs is Senior Vice-President, Product, Marketing and Professional Services for Bell Canada. He is responsible for all marketing programs, pricing and product management for mid-sized and large markets nationally.
At Bell, Jeremy has launched a number of innovative products and services across networking, unified communications, cloud computing and security. He formerly held roles as the Vice-President of Product Management and Vice-President of Pricing and Marketing Programs, in addition to leading the national pursuit teams responsible for Bell Business Markets’ largest and most strategic pursuits.
Prior to these roles at Bell, Jeremy spent a number of years involved in the development of vertical solutions as well as advanced research and development focused on communication-enabled solutions spanning both the enterprise and carrier markets globally.
VP Strategic Programs, Business Development EMEA,
MEF
Daniel Bar-Lev
VP Strategic Programs, Business Development EMEA,
MEF
As Vice President Strategic Programs, 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.
Chief Technology Officer,
MEF
Pascal Menezes
Chief Technology Officer,
MEF
Pascal Menezes is a high-energy technology leader with depth and breadth of expertise, business acumen, and the ability to translate technical strategies into results. Pascal has decades of demonstrated success in technology strategy, planning, and execution in internetworking, next-generation information systems, communication architectures and cloud technologies. As co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of MEF, Pascal directs the organization’s technology strategy and roadmap, currently focused on connectivity, digital services, cybersecurity, edge computing, and service provider automation for cloud-scale deployments.
Previously Pascal led several high-tech startups and spent 10 years in Microsoft’s Skype for Business Global Carrier Group (i.e., Teams) delivering on global, large-scale cloud technology development. Passionate about technology, Pascal sits on the advisory board of Layer 1 2 3 and the editorial board of Capacity; has held leadership positions in several industry associations; received numerous industry global thought leadership awards, including Capacity Magazine Top 20 Leaders in SDN 2018, Top 25 Movers and Shakers in Telecom 2018, and Capacity Magazine Power 100 2019; and delivers executive presentations extensively at conferences worldwide. Pascal holds 30+ patents and patents pending and has co-authored numerous standards within the IETF, MEF, and Broadband Forum.
Chief Operating Officer,
MEF
Kevin Vachon
Chief Operating Officer,
MEF
As MEF COO since 2006, Kevin leads a team that builds, supports and scales the MEF’s ever-increasing mix of global programs activities. He is actively engaged with MEF’s global member and partner community and has a broad perspective on the important role that MEF plays in the industry and how to deliver results.
MEF is a global industry association of network, cloud, and technology providers who together drive network transformation to power the digital economy. MEF develops service standards, LSO frameworks and APIs, and certification programs for services, technologies, APIs, and professionals. As a major milestone in this journey, Kevin led MEF’s efforts to conceive and bring to market, MEF 3.0, the global services framework. He was instrumental in engaging global service providers for the development of MEF 3.0 LSO Sonata APIs for inter-carrier automation.
Prior to joining MEF, Kevin held the position of CEO of DIATEM Networks Inc., a Carrier Ethernet software company from 2003 to 2005 and was President and CEO of NUVO Network Management, a network management outsourcing firm, from 1996 to 2002. Previously, he held other senior management positions with NUVO and spent 10 years in a wide variety of capacities with Gandalf Technologies, a network equipment manufacturer.
MEF work is developed through four distinct but collaborative committees.
Leading the work of MEF to enable new revenue streams, improve operational efficiencies, and better customer experience through automation and streamlining of inter-provider activities.
Luca Cardone
Head of Marketing & Sales Operations,
Retelit
Luca Cardone was appointed as Head of Marketing and Sales Operations of Retelit in 2013 thanks to the managerial skills he gained in over 20 years’ experience in the TLC field. Luca has various experiences both nationally and internationally in Product Marketing and telecommunication BSS/OSS development, in the management of telecommunications networks, and in the field of Cyber Security. At the beginning of his career, he was a researcher at the CSELT on Networking and Security issues. In that period he contributed to build the IPv6 Tunnel Broker mechanism (RFC 3053).
In the following years Luca worked as Network Manager in the TOP-IX and then moved on to the marketing and development of Telecommunication and ICT products in international and national companies such as Tiscali International (Tinet) and Retelit. He is also part of the Board of Directors of PA Evolution Srl. In 2020 Luca was included in the Forbes Italia TOP 100 Italian Marketing Directors.
Commercial and Business
Director, Wholesale Technology and Operations,
Rogers Wholesale Solutions
Sean Chen
Director, Wholesale Technology and Operations,
Rogers Wholesale Solutions
Sean Chen is the Director of Wholesale Technology and Operations at Rogers, responsible for leading the Solution Architect, Account Consultant and Automation team.
Sean has over 20+ years in telecommunication industry with experience spanning from Sales, Product management, Solution design and Operations.
His focus on customer first philosophy and passion for improving efficiency on customer life cycle management has led him to initiate the development of LSO Sonata API for inter-carrier sales with the goal to reduce quote turn around time and increase serviceability accuracy.
Sean is an avid martial art practitioner and holds a purple belt in Brazilian Jujitsu.
Mohit Manral
Global Product Manager,
Colt
Mohit is a product leader with 12+ years of product management experience in creating and managing digital, telecom and cloud product offering. Currently, he is leading and influencing product ideation, incubation, scale-up, go to market strategy, launch and success roadmap for products in IP portfolio (IP-VPN, SD-WAN, IP Access, uCPE, Edge Cloud, NFV Infrastructure, Multi-cloud etc) for Colt.
Mohit has been actively working and shaping how telco industry leads the digital transformation for the enterprise networking. He has been working with Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) since the on-set of the technology. He has also helped opinion formation in various Industry forums, analyst groups and other standardization bodies like ETSI for NFV specifications. He has been contributing to MEF Internet Access Services incubation group by defining requirements and sharing business expertise on changing landscape of Internet services & standardization.
Laurent Sevette
Senior Director Architecture and Engineering,
Lumen
Laurent Sevette is the Senior Director of Network Architecture in EMEA, responsible for leading the network technology team spanning Optical, Ethernet, IP and Voice technology domains. In addition, he is responsible for the full technology lifecycle from selection through to in-life management, optimisation and rationalisation.
Laurent has a wealth of industry knowledge, having spent over 20 years in the telecoms sector. He has a long-standing relationship with MEF and is co-chair of the LSO committee which allows him to be at the forefront of industry developments and how they will shape the future of network orchestration and automation for enterprise customers. He is passionate about the standardisation of enterprise IT architecture adopting MEF 3.0 LSO APIs, that speed up innovation of MEF certified assured and automated services.
Leading the MEF services standards work, including underlay connectivity services and overlay services, the Digital Services committee aligns with the Services pillar of our MEF 3.0 Global Services Framework.
Digital Services
Chris Purdy
Head of Service Assurance Strategy,
Spirent Communications
Chris Purdy
Head of Service Assurance Strategy,
Spirent Communications
Digital Services
Jason Wolfe
Sr. Network Architect,
Bell Canada
Jason Wolfe
Sr. Network Architect,
Bell Canada
Leading the MEF LSO API standards work including East-West and North-South APIs and modeling. The LSO committee aligns with the LSO API pillar of our MEF 3.0 Global Services Framework.
Michael Kearns
Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer,
Amartus
Entrepreneur, expert and strategic advisor in Network & Cloud automation and Intelligent operations solutions. Michael is Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Amartus. He is currently spear-heading new product innovation in the area of Inter-Provider Service Automation. He was CEO from 2003 to 2015, and during this time he led the company from startup to becoming a leading industry innovator. In 2015 he oversaw the successful exit of the company’s orchestration product business to Huawei where he assumed the role of VP of Fixed Network OSS, responsible for new product innovation in Network Automation & Autonomous Networking. Michael’s experience combines deep commercial & technical expertise with active involvement in industry groups & standards to deliver ground-breaking solutions. He was appointed as co-chair of the MEF LSO Committee in 2020.
Stephen Poteat
Product Development and Operations,
Verizon Business
Stephen Poteat is in Product Development and Operations with Verizon Business primarily focused on Private WAN solutions and automation.
Stephen has over twenty years of industry experience, stemming from Operations to Solutions Engineering and Network Architecture. He has been engaged with the MEF most recently with his patent-pending PoC (Proof of Concept) work involving LSO APIs, AI and SDN.
Stephen holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington, spending his early career in embedded systems development and as a GPS satellite controller while in the USAF serving during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
Karthik Sethuraman
Principal Software Architect,
NEC/Netcracker
Karthik Sethuraman is a Principal Software Architect at NEC/Netcracker and a member of the 5G/6G technology strategy team in Service Provider Solutions Division, is primarily involved in setting direction for Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) and SDN Control systems. He has extensive experience in architecting, designing and hands-on coding of control and management software systems, and in applying software development lifecycle processes and best-practices as the team transitioned from traditional waterfall development process to a sprint-based agile workflow. As a co-chair of the MEF LSO (Lifecycle Services Orchestration) Committee, he is actively involved in LSO APIs standards development and a technical contributor. Karthik also leads the ONF Transport API (TAPI) project, is a TST member of ONF Open Transport Configuration & Control (OTCC) and Open Information Model & Tools (OIMT) projects. Karthik has a degree in Computer Science and spent his early career in AI systems research.
Leading the MEF certification standards work including both company-based certifications for services and technology as well as the professional certifications program. The Test and Certification committee aligns with the certification pillar of our MEF 3.0 Global Services Framework.
Charles Eckel
Global Technology Standards,
Cisco
Charles is a recognized champion of open source, standards, and interoperability. As a member of Cisco’s Global Technology Standards team, Charles is responsible for identifying and guiding open source efforts related to key standards initiatives. In MEF, Charles co-chaired the Digital Services Committee the past several years, home of network service standards for SD-WAN and SASE. He is also active in IETF, where he started and runs the IETF Hackathons, advancing the pace and relevance of networking standards by combining the speed and collaborative spirit of open source communities with the rigor and precision of standards organizations. Charles is also an active member in a number of open source projects in the Linux Foundation and elsewhere. He is a frequent speaker at open source conferences and helps run the Software Defined Networking devroom at FOSDEM. His current focus areas include application networking, network automation, and the intersection of networking and security, particularly where there is a need for new standards and closely associated open source projects.
Divesh Gupta
VP, New Technology & Sales Operations,
PCCW Global
Divesh has over 25 years of experience in the international telecommunication market. In his current role at PCCW Global, Divesh leads several software development teams engaged in digital transformation of international data connectivity services. A certified MEF-CECP, he focuses on enhancing customer experience and reducing turnaround times by improving the efficiency of the sales team and automating existing manual business processes. These initiatives include: LSO Sonata API development for inter-carrier sales process automation for trading of international connectivity services; a custom designed CPQ (Configure-Price-Quote) application called QuickQuote, which together reduces the turnaround time for quote responses to PCCW Global’s customers from several weeks to only a few minutes.
Divesh is an ONF certified SDN associate (OCSA); he is Co-Chair of the Test & Certification committee at MEF; has a MEF-CECP 2.0 certification. He attained his MBA from University of Iowa, Tippie School of Management in May of 2006 and majored in Marketing & Entrepreneurship.
