Board of Governors

Kim Bybjerg

Vice President IoT & Mobility, Tata Communications - IMC Chairman

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.

Romil Bahl

President and Chief Executive Officer, KORE - IMC Vice 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.

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.

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.

Mike Ueland

General Manager, Cellular Routers, Digi

Mike Ueland is General Manager of the Cellular division at Digi. He joined Digi in October 2016 as Senior Vice President of Global Sales and has also held the role of President, IoT Products and Services. He has a proven track record and extensive experience managing M2M and IoT solutions businesses for more than 20 years. Prior to Digi, Mike served as President for Telit Americas, Telit Wireless Solutions. Earlier, Mike held leadership positions with Motorola and RAMAR Technology. He is a graduate of Kenyon College with a Bachelor of Arts and holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in marketing and finance from the University of Chicago.

Aliaksandr Kuushynau

Chief Wialon Officer, Head of Wialon Division, Gurtam

Wialon division is the largest division in Gurtam, which develops and promotes the company’s main product. The tasks of the Chief Wialon Officer include building a commercial and product development strategy, tactical and strategic planning, as well as coordination of the work of departments within the division and communication with key customers.

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.

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.  Ellen is passionate about IoT and helping customers establish strong security implementations for the lifecycle of their overall IoT systems.

Ellen has 15+ years experience leading new product development with a focus on IoT and connected products in Lighting controls, Smart Cities, Connected buildings and Smart Home technology.  Ellen has 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.

Scott Schwalbe

CEO / CO-Founder, NimbeLink

Richard Hobbs

President, Novotech Technologies

Richard Hobbs is the President of Novotech with over 20 years’ experience in the distribution industry. Before Novotech, Richard spent eight years at DCI, where he served in various management positions, rising to Vice President of Sales. Richard earned his BA in economics from Bishops University.
As the president of Novotech Technologies, Richard is responsible for the company’s overall performance, and is dedicated to driving the company’s growth and profitability. Richard lives by the saying “work hard, play hard” and encourages all Novotech employees to create a work/play balance in their own lives.
Richard enjoys spending time with his family and friends, listening to music and riding his motorcycle. He is also an avid golfer who requested that we mention his handicap of 6.

Dave Weidner

Chief Market Development Officer, Pelion

Dave is responsible for driving strategic growth opportunities in IoT for Pelion, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Arm. With experience launching and growing new business initiatives, cultivating partnerships and establishing technology and business ecosystems, Dave is focused on engaging stakeholders across ecosystems to realize the value of the IoT. He joined Arm in 2014 and previously led the global Operator Relations team responsible for engaging with MNOs & MSOs on subject areas including IoT, Networking and 5G. Prior to Arm, Dave has extensive experience in the tech industry developing partnerships, delivering software products and launching services in the embedded, mobile and cloud services.

Sam Colley

CEO, Pod Group USA

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.

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.

Frank Lewis

Director of Business Development for IoT and Analytics, Software AG

Frank Lewis is the Director of Business Development for IoT and Analytics at Software AG. Software AG reimagines integration, sparks business transformation and enables fast innovation on the Internet of Things so you can pioneer differentiating business models. We give you the freedom to connect and integrate any technology from app to edge. We help you free data from silos so it’s shareable, usable and powerful – enabling you to make the best decisions and unlock entirely new possibilities for growth. Before joining Software AG, Frank was the Head of Americas Channel Success for the IoT Cloud business at Cisco Jasper. Frank has helped hundreds of Enterprise customers build, launch, manage and monetize their IoT Business with many Service Providers in the Americas and around the world. Frank has over 20 years of extensive experience in Sales, Business Development, Systems Engineering, Operations Planning and Program Management at HP, AT&T and AT&T Bell Labs.

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.

Mo Nasser

VP of IoT Solutions, Taoglas

Mo Nasser is an award-winning veteran of the Internet of Things (IoT) industry with over 25 years of global executive leadership experience. He is responsible for driving the innovation, product management and business development of Taoglas’ extensive, world-leading IoT portfolio.
Prior to joining Taoglas, Mo oversaw the IoT business at Sprint. His responsibilities included creating and commercializing innovative IoT solutions that impact the way people live, companies operate, and societies evolve. Mo led a team of over 35 professionals which focused on exploring and implementing leading-edge technologies including IoT applications, artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics, cloud computing as well as edge computing.

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.

Ludovico Fassati

Head of Vodafone IOT Americas, Vodafone

Ludovico joined Vodafone in August 2014 thanks to the acquisition of Cobra Automotive Technologies. Ludovico is now leading Vodafone IOT business in the Americas based out of the New York City office. Before this he was heading Vodafone IoT Vertical Market Development with responsibility for driving new business, new technologies (as NBIOT and IOT Satellite) and developing vertical industries such as smart metering, home automation, industrial equipment and m-health.

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.