Board of Governors

Romil Bahl

President and CEO
KORE
IMC Chairman

Romil Bahl serves as CEO of KORE. He brings almost 30 years of consulting, information technology, professional services, and IoT experience in high-growth and turnaround environments. Throughout his career, Romil has been instrumental in enabling breakthrough growth in information and professional services organizations. He has risen to complex challenges where he has crafted growth strategies, tapped new emerging markets and energized global teams. His leadership approach reflects deep expertise in developing strong client relationships and creating teams that are driven to innovate and excel.
Prior to KORE, Romil served as President and CEO of Lochbridge, a leading technology solutions provider in the IoT, Connected Car and digital enablement space. Before that, he was EVP and GM of Global Industries for CSC, leading the industry go-to-market dimension across the entire approximately $9 billion commercial business unit, creating global growth strategies and expanding CSC’s global footprint into offerings such as cloud, cybersecurity and big data. Earlier, Romil was CEO of a data analytics-focused public company and had leadership roles at A.T. Kearney, Infosys and Deloitte Consulting.
Romil earned an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Directorate of Marine Engineering & Technology in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Sam Colley

CEO
Pod Group USA
IMC Vice Chairman

Sam has specialized in business development within the global M2M/IoT ecosystem for over 8 years having worked in the UK, Spain and North America. Currently Sam is CEO of Pod Group USA and is based in San Francisco, where he runs all North American operations. Since being in the USA Sam has helped establish Pod’s reputation as an MVNO in the market, built out a successful partner program and continues to actively help expand Pod’s global footprint.

Syed Zaeem Hosain

CTO
Aeris Communications

Mr. Hosain is responsible for the architecture and future direction of Aeris’ networks and technology strategy. He joined Aeris in 1996 as Vice President, Engineering and is a member of the founding executive team of Aeris. Mr. Hosain has more than 38 years of experience in the semiconductor, computer, and telecommunications industries, including product development, architecture design, and technical management. Prior to joining Aeris, he held senior engineering and management positions at Analog Devices, Cypress Semiconductor, CAD National, and ESS Technology. Mr. Hosain is Chairman of the International Forum on ANSI‐41 Standards Technology (IFAST) and Chairman Emeritus of the IoT M2M Council (IMC). He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.

Ganesh Sivaraman

Sr. Dir. Product Marketing IoT
Airgain

Ganesh Sivaraman has 20+ years of experience creating high-value, high-impact products at Nokia, startups and large enterprises that solve customer problems. Prior to joining Airgain, he was responsible for building indoor positioning and asset tracking systems using IoT embedded in lighting for some of the major big box retailers. At Airgain, he heads Products for NimbeLink IoT product line. Ganesh brings an unique blend of telecom, IoT and SaaS experience to drive growth.

Laurent Vieira de Mello

Chief Operating Officer
Astrocast

Laurent Vieira de Mello is COO of Astrocast, responsible for Marketing, Regulatory, PMO, Product Management and Quality departments. Prior to joining Astrocast, Laurent spent nearly 20 years managing international projects in the energy and aerospace sectors. He also has experience in entrepreneurship, business development and non-for-profit organizations. Laurent received a master’s degree in micro-engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), a master’s degree in Aerospace Dynamics from Cranfield University and an Executive MBA from HEC Lausanne.

William L. Yan

President, Americas
AVSystem

A passionate tech industry veteran, Mr. William Yan has played key executive roles in both emerging and well-established companies on a global scale, culminating at C-level executive positions with full P&L responsibilities. In his career, Mr. Yan has built and managed a global team of Marketing, Sales, Business Development, and Professional Services professionals. Working extensively with telecom and broadband service providers’ Network Operations, Engineering and Architecture, and Customer Care teams, Mr. Yan has built a core domain expertise in the telecom / broadband network management, OSS/BSS, and Service Management platforms.

Mehrdad Negahban

Founder and CEO
beamLive

Mr. Negahban has more than 25 years of industrial experience in development and marketing of advanced communication products and Internet-based solutions. He was an employee or a consultant for several world-class companies. Currently he is the co-founder and CEO of BeamLive Inc. the inventor of “Mobile IoT Communication” built on a configurable mobile cloud platform. Mr. Negahban has more than 10 publications in IEEE journals, seminars and conferences. Has been granted 12+ International and US patents. In 1999 he founded Valence Semiconductor as a world-class mixed-signal communication and RF system-on-chip company. His recent focus is on broadband IoT and mobile connectivity serving public safety, transportation and smart cities.

Mikaël Schachne

VP Mobility Solutions
BICS

Mikaël Schachne joined the international division of Belgacom in 2001 which was then spun-off and merged with Swisscom International and MTN International. After having successfully led the product development and management of new international mobile data services such as Signalling, GPRS Roaming eXchange (GRX), SMS Hubbing, MMS Hubbing, Instant Roaming and Open Connectivity Roaming Hubbing, he’s now in charge of Mobility Solutions at BICS. The portfolio which has been built across the last 10 years is now supporting international mobile communications needs for more than 500 Mobile Operators and MVNOs across the world. Mikaël Schachne previously worked for Winstar Europe and Mobistar where he gains extensive expertise in the implementation of telecommunications networks in the fields of GSM, GPRS, Wireless Local Loop, IP and SS7. He graduated from the Brussels University Applied Science Faculty (Belgium) as a Civil Electrical Engineer specialised in Electronic and Telecommunications and holds a master in Business-to- Business Marketing from the Vlerick Management School in Leuven, Belgium.

Mobeen Khan

Chief Operating Officer
Blues Wireless

Mobeen leads operations and go to market function at Blues Wireless as the COO. Blues Wireless’ mission is to provide the fastest and most cost-effective way to add wireless connectivity to any product and enable and accelerate massive IoT adoption. We are the creators of Notecard, a highly secure system on a module (SoM) with embedded 10-year global connectivity, and Notehub an associated Software-as-a Service, that allows any developer to send data from remote assets using JSON and two-lines of code. Previously, he was COO at CIMCON, a leader in Smart Cities and Smart Lighting solutions, with deployments in 150+ cities in 20+ countries.
Prior to that, Mobeen was part of the leadership team at AT&T IoT business unit as a general manager leading software and platforms solutions. He worked on building and execution of AT&T strategy to move beyond network connectivity into IoT platforms and solutions business, in vehicle communications including connected cars, fleet telematics, and asset management.

Prior to that he led marketing organization for AT&T enterprise mobile solutions business. Before AT&T, Mobeen worked at multiple startups and strategy consulting organizations. He started his career as a Systems Engineer and Technical Sales Manager at RAM Mobile Data (which was acquired by Cingular / AT&T).

Mobeen has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Computer and Communication Engineering from Rutgers University, and MBA from Columbia University in Finance and Management. He was awarded a patent on use of Blockchain in device management and a patent on Multiaccess Edge Computing (MEC) environment in 5G IoT network deployment.

He enjoys playing competitive league cricket and tennis, and traveling with his wife, daughter and two sons to learn about world history.

Harald Remmert

CTO, Cellular Solutions
Digi International

Harald Remmert is an accomplished technology leader in the IoT ecosystem with over 20 years of experience in product strategy, design, development, testing and engineering leadership with a proven track-record of introducing successful products to the market. Harald has deep technical knowledge in mixed hardware and software product development. In his current role at Digi he’s on the lookout for new technologies and tools such as 5G, Edge Compute, Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence to innovate and solve business problems more efficiently.

Dan Schieler

SVP of Overseas Sales Department
Fibocom

Dan Schieler is the SVP of Fibocom Oversea Sales Department and Chief Executive Officer at Rolling Wireless.

Prior to joining Fibocom, Mr Schieler was Senior Vice President & General Manager of Automotive at Sierra Wireless, where he directed sales of $185M and managed a global team of R&D, Product Management and Sales/Technical support. Mr Schieler spent more than 15 years at Sierra Wireless as head of different business units.

Mr Schieler joined Sierra Wireless as Vice President of North American Sales in 2003, when AirPrime, Inc. was acquired by Sierra Wireless. At AirPrime, he was Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, responsible for driving AirPrime’s sales strategy, and managing a highly experienced international sales team.

Prior to joining AirPrime, Dan Schieler worked for Xircom’s OEM division where he managed accounts with top-tier OEM computing manufacturers.

Ben Travers

Product Director
Ground Control

Ben is tasked with ensuring that Ground Control has all of the hardware, airtime and services needed to offer our customers the best possible solution for their IoT and M2M connectivity needs. Ben is a highly experienced product manager, with a background in technology services and app development.

Aliaksandr Kuushynau

Head of Wialon
Gurtam

Aliaksandr Kuushynau is the Head of Wialon at Gurtam, an international developer of Wialon, the world’s largest platform for GPS tracking and IoT. Being a flexible and multifunctional system, Wialon helps deliver any telematics project of any scale and for any industry.

Aliaksandr joined Gurtam in 2009 as the Chief Marketing Officer. In his current role, Aliaksandr directs the entire Wialon division. He is responsible for building product development and commercial strategy, strategic and tactical planning, as well as coordination of all departments within the Wialon division and communication with key customers.

Over his career at Gurtam, Aliaksandr has built and managed a global high-performance team of software development, marketing, sales, and business development professionals. As an accomplished executive with 18 years of overall experience in management, Aliaksandr has ensured leadership for Wialon, Gurtam’s flagship product, and pioneered the largest global community of telematics and IoT professionals.

Ajay Joseph

Chief Technology Officer
iBasis

Volkhard Bregulla leads HPE’s Global Industries Manufacturing and Distribution (M&D) for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Mr. Bregulla and his organisation are responsible for addressing and solving business and technology issues and as a result delivering significant business outcome for HPE’s clients in the M&D Industry. The responsibility includes the entire HPE portfolio of technology products, services as well as business solutions.

In his current role, he is responsible for the business relationship and industry specific content HPE develops, sell and delivers as solutions together with a select set of strategic partners and channel organizations to enable the New Style of IT and Business in the Digital economy.

Jaap Groot

CEO
Ignion

Jaap Groot is an experienced international executive with strong entrepreneurial skills who has created momentum, revenue growth and leadership in the IoT & M2M marketplace through outstanding commercial and business development skills and through creating relationships with industry leaders that are centered on solving strategic business issues.

Jaap holds a Master Degree (Ir) from the Technical University in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and he has founded, built and sold businesses during his career. Over the past 25 years Jaap worked for Roadshow (now Descartes), Qualcomm, MiX Telematics, Sigfox and Semtech, and has been driving Industry Alliances as Vice President Europe at the LoRa Alliance and Co-Chair of the IOT Workgroup at the Wireless Broadband Alliance. He currently is the CEO of Ignion in Barcelona.

Pete Koat

Chief Operating Officer
Incognito

Pete is responsible for defining the strategic technology direction and innovation path for Incognito, identifying functional requirements with customers, and contributing to relevant industry standards. Pete is also responsible for driving the development and execution of Incognito’s IT strategy. Prior to Incognito, Pete spent over 15 years as CTO at telecom software specialists including Libre Communications and Skitter, developing telecom solutions in video streaming, data compression and OTT real-time communications. Pete holds multiple patents related to IP video compression, delivery, and streaming.

Fred Yentz

Founder and CEO
IoT Launch LLC

An experienced technology executive with proven success and strong global business development experience within the Internet of Things and Industrie 4.0 market sectors. Fred has successfully launched world class Industrial IoT software and cloud based IoT service platforms targeting customers from small innovator companies up to and including fortune 500 corporate customers. Fred brings both deep industry knowledge as well as a vast network of ecosystem partners and industry relationships which can be leveraged to solve the many challenges faced by companies on their digital journey.

Fred is the founder and CEO of IoT Launch LLC. Prior to IoT-Launch, Fred has served as President of Telit IoT Platforms, CEO of ILS Technology, VP and General Manager RadiSys Corp – Industrial and Telecom divisions as well several leadership positions with IBM’s Manufacturing System Products Division, IBM PC Company and IBM System Products Division.

Ellen Boehm

VP of IoT Strategy & Operations
Keyfactor

Ellen leads the product strategy and go to market approach for the Keyfactor Control platform, focusing around digital identity security solutions for the IoT device manufacturer market. She is passionate about IoT and helping customers establish strong security implementations for the lifecycle of their overall IoT systems. Ellen has 15 years of experience leading new product development with a focus on IoT and connected products. She has also held leadership roles in Product & Engineering at General Electric and Sky Technologies over her career.

Brandon Cannaday

Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer
Losant

Brandon is co-founder and CPO of Losant. He is responsible for driving the product vision, marketing plan, and product support. He spends a good chunk of his time understanding the customer-driven requirements of the product. He gains insights through direct interaction with customers, engagement on the forums, and working with the Losant Solutions team.

Brandon has worked for more than ten years in enterprise software, which includes experience in the government sector. He began his career at Griffin Analytical, where he worked with C++ to build software for chemical detection. He then went on to Interactive Intelligence, where he focused on enterprise software with .Net as the primary technology. In 2012, Brandon co-founded Modulus with Charlie Key. At Modulus, Brandon was the CTO in charge of all technology architecture and product engineering.

Tony Shakib

GM/Partner
Microsoft Azure IoT

Tony Shakib leads Microsoft’s IoT Business Acceleration (IBA) team inside Azure engineering organization and drives the Azure IoT Eco-system and strategic business engagements for top 100 IoT Enterprise Accounts, Partners, Developers and ISV/Startups.

Tony is accountable for IoT customer value realization, business development, rapid solution deployment, joint customer GTM programs and accelerating time and process to large-scale commercial deployments.

The IBA team focuses on top industries such as IIoT/Manufacturing, Mobility/Connected Vehicle, Smart Spaces/Utilities, Retail, Healthcare and Agriculture.

Microsoft IoT team develops unique IoT/AI/ML technologies and digital solutions for all industries. Microsoft is also the leader in the hybrid intelligent cloud and edge architectures and provides a comprehensive Platform-as-a-service and Software-as-a-service (IoT Central) capabilities for rapidly developing and deploying massively scalable IoT applications.

Tony has more than 27 years of business leadership and management experience in the communications space. As Vice President of IoT Vertical Business Solutions for Cisco, Tony led Cisco’s Internet of Things business development, Industrial solutions creation, Vertical thought leadership and customer relevancy across Process Manufacturing (Oil & Gas and Mining), Discrete manufacturing, Transportation, Utilities, Smart City, M2M, Retail and Defense verticals. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering with honors in Math from McMaster and Brock Universities in Ontario, Canada.

Sara Brown

Vice President of Marketing
Multi-Tech Systems, Inc.

Sara Brown is responsible for all marketing communications at IoT systems provider MultiTech. Brown is a strategic marketing professional dedicated to driving quantifiable business results with data-driven outreach to IoT/M2M user markets. For nearly 20 years, she’s boosted revenue of organizations big and small; including Sierra Wireless, Telit, and Wavecom.

Niall Strachan

Head of Product Strategy
Pelion

Niall is a driven and passionate technology innovator with a career that has been focused on customer centric impact. With an established career built entirely in telecommunications and IoT he has created products, teams, culture and value for both the organizations he has worked for and their respective customers.

With a background in computer science, Niall is driven by industry innovation and strives to build products that have both a strong product market fit today but also drive innovation to shape that market in future.

Niall’s experience within various organization sizes ranges from startup, SME and large enterprise fosters a wide skillset focused on leadership. This enables guidance, advisory and management of all areas of the business that impact the customer journey, ranging from the product creation and innovation processes through to the impacts of a smooth operational processes.

Throughout his career, he has focused on building autonomous teams with a growth mindset that enable the execution of a strategy through the organizations belief and understanding of the where, what, why and when.

Dominikus Hierl

SVP Sales EMEA
Quectel Wireless Solutions

Dominikus Hierl is currently acting as Senior Vice President Sales EMEA at Quectel Wireless Solutions, the global market leader for IoT modules, and is responsible for the European business.

Until April 2016 he was CEO of Telit Automotive Solutions, and before that for over 10 years was Chief Marketing Officer at Telit Communications Plc, where he was responsible for sales, marketing and product management for the group of companies.

Before joining Telit, Mr. Hierl was Global Vice President Business Development at Siemens Wireless Modules, where he was responsible for the strategy and business development of the division and was a member of the division’s management. Before joining Siemens AG, Mr. Hierl worked as a sales engineer for trunked radio and paging systems at Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co.KG.

Dominikus holds a degree in electrical engineering and industrial engineering from the Munich University of Applied Sciences.

Sridhar Ramachandran

Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Somos

Sridhar (Sri) Ramachandran is Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Somos, a leading trusted data management company. In his role, he oversees the company’s technology strategy and long-term vision.

Sri is an accomplished executive with a broad spectrum of experience in public and private companies in the telecommunications and cloud services industries. He has deep domain expertise in Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, VoIP, and cloud, as well as extensive experience leading cross-functional agile teams.

Over the last 20 years, Sri has brought his technical vision and leadership to several leading tech firms. Most recently, he served as the Vice President and Americas Head of IoT & Mobility Solutions at G+D Mobile Security Inc. Prior to that role, he held CTO positions at Numerex (now Sierra Wireless), Utilidata, Inteconnections division of Telcordia Technologies and NexTone (now Ribbon).

Sri has a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Kim Bybjerg

VP, Head of Continental Europe
Tata Communications

Kim Bybjerg is Vice President IoT & Mobility at Tata Communications, a leading global digital infrastructure provider that powers today’s fast-growing digital economy. With a leadership position in emerging markets, Tata Communications leverages its advanced solutions capabilities and domain expertise across its global network to deliver managed solutions to multi-national enterprises and communications service providers.

With extensive experience in the IoT field, Kim has been involved in countless IoT projects across Europe and outside, being responsible for the go-to-market strategy, the commercial and product strategy, as well as the execution of these strategies.

Prior to Tata Communications, Kim has been CEO of Teleena and Director Business Development in Europe, Middle-East and Africa for Jasper (now Cisco-Jasper), a large provider of IoT SaaS services for Telecom operators. Before that, he has been Managing Director at JHB Group, which envolved out of two technology companies: mobile payment enabler, Liquix, and smart-metering company, Xemex. As Director M2M Northern Europe at Vodafone, Kim has been developing the M2M activities for one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. Before Vodafone, he already setup the M2M business for KPN, where and for which he also established a partnership with Jasper.

Prior to becoming an expert within the IoT space, Kim held various Management positions at Orange, Siemens, IBM and AT&T.

John Keever

CTO
Telit IoT Platforms

Mr. Keever is the CTO of Telit’s IoT Platforms division (formerly ILS Technology), which he founded in October 2000. He has more than 24 years of experience in automation software engineering and design. Mr. Keever came to Telit from IBM Corporation, where he served as IBM global services principle responsible for e-Production solutions architectures and deployment. Mr. Keever has over 18 years of plant floor automation experience with IBM, and is the former world-wide development and support manager for Automation Connection, Distributed Applications Environment, PlantWorks and Data Collection hardware and software products. He served as lead marketing and solutions architecture at IBM, where he was responsible for General Motors, BMW, Chrysler, Tokyo Electron, Glaxo-Wellcome, and numerous other global manufacturing companies. Mr. Keever has both hardware patents and software copyrights.

Nils Gerhardt

CTO
Utimaco

Nils Gerhardt is the Chief Technology Officer for Utimaco, a leading provider of cyber security solutions, and board member of the IoT M2M Council. Before joining Utimaco, Nils worked at Giesecke + Devrient in various executive management roles with regional and global responsibilities in Germany, Canada and the USA. As Chairman of the Board of GlobalPlatform, a global industry organization, Nils brought major companies together to define the standards for secure digital services and devices.

Erik Kling

Vice President, New Business Development
Vodafone

Erik Kling has over 20 years’ experience in the communication technology field, his experience covering hardware, software, services and solution elements of the industry. Having held senior sales and product management roles across the globe, Erik joined Vodafone in 2010. As Vice President IoT New Business Development, Erik’s responsibilities include building and developing the M2M domestic new business team including the Latin America region, driving M2M solutions into Vodafone Global Enterprise accounts along with additional customers and markets and defining, developing and nurturing the M2M ecosystem within the marketplace.

Prior to joining Vodafone, Ludovico was the CEO of Cobra Telematics (now Vodafone Telematics) leading 450 employees in 7 different countries. Ludovico started his career in the Private Equity industry in Italy and in the UK leading investments in different sectors such as logistics, luxury goods, gaming, renewable energies and food.

Ludovico holds a degree in economics and financial institutions from Università L. Bocconi of Milan (Italy). As well as his native Italian, he is fluent in English and French.