Women@MEF

Debika Bhattacharya

Board Chair, MEF

Chief Technology Officer,
Verizon Business Group

Debika Bhattacharya is Chief Technology Officer, Verizon Business. She is responsible for ensuring a consistent and simplified end-to-end experience for Verizon’s B2B customers. Her focus spans across the technology lifecycle from product development, to design & solutioning, to operational enablement. Previously she held the role of Chief Product Officer, and was responsible for the company’s holistic product portfolio and its strategy.

As a global executive with 30+ years in the telecommunications industry, Debika has extensive experience leading complex technology projects for Fortune 1000 clients. She has held a variety of executive roles within Verizon, including an overseas assignment in Europe. She was instrumental in the global expansion of Verizon’s communications network, as well as the deployment of breakthrough optical wave technologies.

Debika is deeply committed to the advancement of MEF objectives related to building secure, dynamic and standards-based automated networks with cloud-like experiences.

Barbara Abela

Product Management & Development,
Crown Castle Fiber

Carma Austin

Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, Vendor & Partner Relations,
CyberRatings.org

Alysia Bennett

Manager, Finance & Operations,
MEF

Tiffany Brown

Chief Executive Officer,
Sage Management

Amanda Harrington

Director, Product Marketing,
Calero

Dawn Howell

Director, Product Management,
Equinix

Portia Mokoena

Product Management,
MTN GlobalConnect

Juliette Morel

Senior Product Marketing Manager,
Orange

Isabelle Morency

Head of Engineering and Standards,
Iometrix

Jenn Parkhill

Director, Program Management & Strategy Execution,
Verizon

Grace Petrucci

Product Manager,
ServiceNow

Melissa Power

Director, Public Relations,
MEF

As Director of Public Relations, Melissa oversees MEF’s media relations strategy and execution globally. She works with MEF and industry executives and experts to craft and promote stories that bring the MEF brand to life. In collaboration with MEF leadership, staff and members, Melissa develops the communications strategy and content to drive strong brand awareness and thought leadership across MEF’s key external audiences horizontally, vertically, and geographically.

Miguelina Rios

Head of Network Communications, Americas,
Bloomberg

Lorella Scalcione

Chief Information Officer,
Sparkle

Giselle Simas

Vice President, Sales, US East,
Calero

April Taylor

President,
EstherTech

April Taylor serves as the President of EstherTech and has over 20 years of telecom experience. She is a subject matter expert on telecommunications ordering, billing, network inventory, contracts, and blockchain topics. She successfully identified and negotiated over $1B in billing disputes across all global products and services and has implemented blockchain solutions for global telecommunications carriers. April has been involved in the CBC’s blockchain use cases and standards development since 2021. She double majored in Finance and Accounting at Virginia Tech and started her career as a Systems Analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense.Accounting at Virginia Tech and started her career as a Systems Analyst for the Department of Defense.

Lori Vachon

Director, Global Events,
MEF

Lori has been involved in the events industry for 25+ years in various industries, including tech, biotech, and pharma. Lori manages MEF’s events program, including the Infinite Edge Series, member meetings, industry events and annual flagship MEF Series. She has traveled around the globe expanding her role into membership recruitment and retention, with a focus on the APAC region, while working closely with members in various countries to encourage engagement in MEF.

Susan White

Head of Strategy & Portfolio Marketing,
Netcracker

Susan leads strategy and portfolio marketing for Netcracker, a leading operations and business software company. She drives and executes strategic and marketing initiatives, in close collaboration with customers and partners, with a strong focus on generating business growth.

With over 20 years of experience in the telecoms industry, her career spans a variety of leadership roles including strategy, product management, product marketing and sales. Her expertise encompasses a wide range of technologies across all telecom spanning networks and IT where she combines her business, technical and leadership strengths to help service providers innovate and drive new value in the dynamic digital market.

Sue has a Bachelor of Engineering honours degree in Electronic Engineering with Communications from the University of Sheffield in the U.K.