Ahmed Khattak is the founder and CEO of US Mobile, the only American carrier built natively on the public cloud that lets customers ride and switch between all three major networks (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile) on demand. A Pakistani immigrant who landed on an F1 student visa, he spent a decade clawing US Mobile to $100M in annual recurring revenue, then doubled it to $200M in nine months. Before that he co-founded GSM Nation, a $130M unlocked-phone marketplace that taught him how the carriers really make money.
Noel Goddard is the CEO of Qunnect, a Brooklyn-based quantum networking company building hardware that turns ordinary telecom fiber into quantum-secure networks - at room temperature, no exotic cooling required. A biophysicist with a Rockefeller PhD and a Harvard fellowship, she taught physics at Hunter College, founded two biotech startups, and worked as a deep-tech seed investor before joining Qunnect in 2020 as COO and then CEO. Under her, Qunnect commercialized the world's first room-temperature quantum memory, ran a 34km entanglement link over live New York City fiber, and raised an oversubscribed Series A led by Airbus Ventures.
Orisa Cherenfant is SVP of Industry Relations & Strategic Growth at Twilio, the cloud communications platform powering billions of messages, calls, and interactions globally. A first-generation college graduate from Cape Verde who earned dual degrees in Finance and Marketing from Boston College, she built her career through GE's leadership development programs before moving into tech. At Twilio, she leads industry partnerships and growth strategy, speaks at major conferences like MWC Barcelona and Twilio Signal, and was named a 2025 Entreprenista 100 Award winner. She is based in Los Angeles with her partner Eli and their twins, Margaux and Maverick.
Ross Ortega is VP of Product Management at Microsoft, currently leading Discovery and Communications initiatives. He previously built a $1 billion portfolio of Azure networking services - including ExpressRoute, Virtual WAN, Application Gateway, and Web Application Firewall - and then led Azure for Operators, Microsoft's 5G and edge computing platform for telecommunications providers. Before Microsoft, he co-founded Consystant Design Technologies and served as President and CTO of GraniteEdge Networks. A career technologist with roots in embedded systems and networking, Ortega has spent over two decades at Microsoft shaping how enterprises and telecoms connect to the cloud.
Jing Liu is the Founder and CEO of SIMO (formerly Skyroam), the AI-driven cloud connectivity platform that lets devices roam across 300+ mobile carriers in 145+ countries without a physical SIM card. She founded the company in 2008 in Silicon Valley, pioneered patented virtual SIM (vSIM) technology, raised $63.5M in funding including a $20M Series C2 in 2019, and has built SIMO into a platform serving over 15 million users and 6+ million connected IoT devices. Under her leadership, SIMO extended its reach from travel hotspots to enterprise IoT, automotive, and mission-critical connectivity.
Alexey Aylarov is the CEO and co-founder of Voximplant, a Voice AI orchestration and cloud communications platform (CPaaS) powering 30,000+ customers and 2+ billion calls annually. A VoIP engineer turned serial entrepreneur, he spent 20+ years in telecommunications before building Voximplant into an enterprise-grade platform combining serverless infrastructure with AI-driven voice and video communications. Based in Sunnyvale, California, he co-founded the company in 2013 alongside Sergey Poroshin and Andrey Kovalenko, guiding it to profitability in under two years and through a $30M Series C raise in 2021.
Qwilt builds the Open Edge Cloud - a federated CDN embedded inside service provider networks (Verizon, BT, Vodafone, Comcast, Telecom Italia and dozens more) that pushes video, software, and real-time applications closer to the end user than any traditional cloud. Founded in 2010 by ex-Cisco and ex-Juniper engineers, it operates 2,196 edge nodes across 38 countries on 6 continents with 150+ Tbps of edge capacity, and is the leading commercial champion of the Open Caching standard inside the Streaming Video Technology Alliance.
Selector is an AI-powered network and infrastructure observability platform founded by ex-Juniper Networks executives. It combines a network-specific large language model, knowledge graphs, and causal reasoning to ingest telemetry from across complex hybrid environments, cut alert noise, surface root cause, and reduce mean time to resolution for telecoms, cloud providers, and global enterprises.
Tashinga Musiyazviriyo is the Founder and CEO of The Singular, a Johannesburg-based digital transformation company building purpose-driven IoT, AI, and private 5G network solutions across industries including mining, telecommunications, manufacturing, smart cities, and healthcare. With a career forged inside Ericsson's core network engineering teams and a deep grounding in mobile network design and performance, Tashinga brings both technical precision and entrepreneurial drive to the challenge of connecting Africa's industries to the future.
Vasili Triant is the CEO of UJET, an AI-powered cloud contact center platform backed by $183M in funding and built on Google Cloud. With over 20 years spanning Cisco, Serenova, LiveOps, and ShoreTel, he has navigated virtually every inflection point in enterprise communications - from on-premise PBX to cloud-native AI. Appointed sole CEO in April 2025 after serving as CBO, COO, and Co-CEO, Triant now leads UJET's push to reshape customer experience with agentic AI orchestration, deep CRM integration, and a mobile-first architecture that treats the smartphone as the default CX channel.
Stealth Communications is a New York City fiber-optic internet provider that has been quietly digging up Manhattan streets since 1995 to lay its own dark fiber, build its own routers, and sell ultrafast, dedicated business internet to enterprises, schools, broadcasters and government agencies.
Frédérique Dame is a General Partner at GV (Google Ventures), where she leads investments in consumer technology, life sciences, and AI. A French immigrant who moved to Silicon Valley at 24, she built her career as a product and engineering leader at Yahoo!, Photobucket, SmugMug, and Uber — where she helped scale the company from 80 employees to 7,000+ across 68 countries. At GV she co-leads the Women's Health investment team and has backed companies including Midi Health, Found, Allara, Oula Health, and TMRW. She serves on the board of Les Mills International and previously on Ubisoft's board, and was named to Rock Health's Top 50 in Digital Health.
Bassel Ojjeh is the CEO and co-founder of LigaData, a Menlo Park-based data platform company specializing in AI-powered telecom analytics and big data infrastructure. A Syrian-American serial entrepreneur, Ojjeh previously co-founded digiMine (behavioral targeting pioneer, later Audience Science), DMX Group (acquired by Yahoo, where he served as SVP), and nPario (big data platform). He also co-founded Syria's first English-language private university and SYNC, the first international tech conference held in Syria in 50 years, working to bridge Silicon Valley with Damascus.
Cardi Prinzi is the Chief Executive Officer of Sail Internet, a Bay Area fiber and fixed-wireless ISP serving residential and business customers across Silicon Valley and San Francisco. With more than 30 years of senior leadership in telecommunications - spanning Sprint, MCI Worldcom, Equinix, TelePacific, New Edge Networks, EarthLink, Pacnet, Telstra, and Windstream Enterprise - Prinzi brings deep expertise in strategic vision, product development, and revenue growth to one of the region's most customer-focused internet providers. Since joining Sail Internet in 2024, she has overseen a period of significant expansion including the acquisitions of Paxio Residential, Paxio MDU, and Ether Web Network, plus a high-profile partnership with Twist Broadband.
Ed Meyercord is President, CEO, and Director of Extreme Networks (NASDAQ: EXTR), a publicly traded enterprise networking company with 2,700 employees and over $1.1 billion in annual revenue. He took the helm in April 2015 after serving as Chairman of the board since 2011, steering Extreme from a hardware-centric also-ran into a cloud-managed, AI-native networking platform. Under his watch the company now powers the wireless networks at Old Trafford, the Burj Khalifa, Taylor Swift concert tours, and Samsung's global operations, while its SaaS ARR has grown dramatically. Before Extreme, Meyercord ran Talk America (a publicly traded telco), Cavalier Telephone, and Critical Alert Systems, after starting his career as an investment banking VP at Salomon Brothers. He is also known for bringing improv comedy principles into corporate leadership and for his advocacy for people with intellectual disabilities through SKIT Programs.
James Graham is the founder and CEO of Community Phone, a San Francisco-based telecommunications company that replaces traditional landlines with a cell-tower-connected device requiring no internet. Backed by Y Combinator, recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30, and a Thiel Fellow, Graham built Community Phone after watching his grandmother get sold a $1,000 phone she didn't need by a major carrier. The company now serves 25,000+ customers across all 50 U.S. states with no contracts, no hidden fees, and a 3-year price lock - principles that mirror Graham's belief that technology should serve people, not exploit them.
John Grady is the CEO of Ayla Networks, a San Jose-based IoT and smart home software platform that powers over 15 million connected devices and 250 billion annual transactions for brands like SharkNinja, De'Longhi, Canadian Tire, and Schneider Electric. A Boston College and Indiana University Kelley School of Business graduate with 20+ years in technology sales and operations, Grady rose through roles at Brown Brothers Harriman, Covad Communications, Pace PLC, ChargePoint, and Solar Mosaic before joining Ayla in January 2022 as Head of Global Sales and ascending to CEO in 2024. Under his leadership, Ayla was ranked the #1 US-based Smart Home Platform by ABI Research and announced a major Google Cloud partnership in April 2025.
Nathan Patrick is the Chief Executive Officer of Sonic, a California-based fiber internet provider that has been challenging the telecom duopoly since 1994. A career network engineer turned executive, Patrick rose through the ranks to CTO before taking the helm as CEO in 2024. He won the 2016 FTTXcellence Award for his technical leadership and has spearheaded Sonic's aggressive expansion beyond its Bay Area roots into Oakland, Los Angeles, and Dallas - backed by the belief that fast, honest internet shouldn't be a luxury.
Mike Promotico is the President and CEO of ProTelesis Corporation, a San Diego-based managed IT services provider he has helped build into a West Coast powerhouse over 37+ years in telecommunications. Starting as a principal at INet Corp in 1987 and helping grow it into one of North America's largest Mitel resellers, Promotico has spent three decades bridging the gap between traditional telecom and modern IT - co-founding Technology Assurance Group, leading Standard Tel Networks, and ultimately guiding ProTelesis through eight strategic acquisitions including the 2025 cyber-physical convergence play with Amer-X Security. Under his leadership, ProTelesis manages over 100,000 endpoints for more than 10,000 customers across the U.S.
Keith Zubchevich is the President and CEO of Conviva, the streaming intelligence and digital experience platform that monitors over 5 billion sensors and processes 3 trillion real-time events daily. A serial entrepreneur who has founded six companies and raised over $500 million across his career, Zubchevich joined Conviva in 2008, served as Chief Strategy Officer, and stepped into the CEO role in 2021. Under his leadership, Conviva has evolved from streaming quality-of-experience monitoring into a full agentic AI analytics platform. He is widely recognized as a clear-eyed voice on the limits and measurement requirements of AI agents in consumer-facing applications.
Sunil Kaul is the CEO of Airlinq, a Silicon Valley-based enterprise IoT platform company serving automakers, mobile network operators, and enterprises with a secure, scalable, AI-powered platform for connected vehicle and IoT ecosystem management. With over 20 years in telecommunications, Kaul has grown Airlinq into a globally recognized leader in IoT connectivity management, earning top rankings from Kaleido Intelligence, Counterpoint Research, and Frost & Sullivan, while forging partnerships with major names like Volvo, Verizon, NTT DOCOMO, Jio, and Tata.
Arthur 'Artie' Chang is the CEO and founder of PanTerra Networks, a cloud-based unified communications company he has helmed since 2001. A serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur who started his career at Bell Laboratories and took SoloPoint Communications through an IPO, Chang brings together an engineering pedigree from Northwestern and UC Berkeley with a Stanford Executive MBA. At PanTerra, he has spent over two decades building a bootstrapped challenger to the telecom giants, competing on agility and innovation rather than scale, and now driving the company's AI-powered communications platform, Streams.AI.
Megan Mackh is Vice President of Commercial Sales at Salesforce, where she leads teams driving customer success across cloud solutions. A Stanford and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business alumna, she spent nearly 15 years at Google - rising through AdWords, inside sales, and ultimately heading Global Telecommunications Partnerships for Google Cloud across 60+ telco partners worldwide. Named to CRN's Women of the Channel in 2020 and 2021, she is known for building high-performing teams and taking bold leaps into leadership from an unusually early age - she managed 18 people at AT&T at 22. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Public Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Wahaj us Siraj is the co-founder and CEO of Nayatel, Pakistan's leading fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) telecom company. A mechanical engineer by training who pivoted to entrepreneurship out of frustration with government bureaucracy, he sold a Suzuki car to fund his first venture and went on to build Pakistan's first FTTH network - a first for all of South and Southeast Asia. Under his leadership, Nayatel has grown to 170,000+ customers, 2,500+ employees, and operations in 17+ cities, while also launching Pakistan's first HD TV channels and partnering with Facebook to expand fiber across 8 cities.
Asif Jafri is the Founder and CEO of Kistpay, a Shariah-compliant smartphone and laptop financing platform bridging the digital divide across Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Thailand, Africa, and the UAE. With 27+ years of combined corporate and entrepreneurial experience spanning banking, telecoms, and consumer goods, he has built Kistpay into a globally recognized venture - winning the IsDB Pitch Competition 2024, earning GSMA Top 10 finalist status, and speaking alongside world leaders at the World Bank Global Digital Summit. His mission: connect the next billion people to the internet through affordable device financing, with a particular focus on women's economic empowerment.
Syed Amir Jafri is the CEO and co-founder of Eocean, a Pakistan-based CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) company serving 2,000+ enterprises across 180+ countries with SMS, WhatsApp, and Voice APIs. He co-founded Eocean in 2008 with his brother Syed Asif Jafri, bootstrapping the company from a local communications startup into a regional technology leader. He is also co-founder of Kistpay, a fintech platform focused on smartphone financing and digital inclusion in Pakistan. A certified Chief Digital Officer from MIT Sloan Executive Education, Jafri bridges the gap between traditional enterprise communication and emerging AI-driven platforms, with clients including Google, Unilever, HBL, and Careem.
Isfandiyar 'Asfi' Shaheen is a serial entrepreneur and investment professional known for his work in global connectivity and financial modeling. After a successful career in Pakistan's industrial sector, he served as the first Entrepreneur in Residence at Facebook Connectivity, where he worked on innovative methods to deploy fiber optics. He is currently focused on the intersection of AI and financial analysis, building tools to empower modelers through code.