NaaS Excellence Awards

Jitesh Bhayani

Research Vice President, WW Telecommunications Services,
IDC

Jitesh Bhayani is a Research Vice President in the WW Network and Telecommunications group, serving as a Research Lead and Thought Leader across a diverse set of Telecom Services, collaborating across IDC’s team of telecom research analysts. He provides strategic direction and advisory services across a variety of disciplines such as wireless, wireline, voice, and managed services. Jitesh is a key collaborator with IDC’s Consulting Services Team and serves as a trusted advisor to multiple Communications Service Providers, Cloud Services Providers, and IT Solutions vendors.

Jitesh has over 20 years’ experience in senior roles in product lifecycle management, market development and strategy in the telecom and cable industries. Recently as an SVP of Product and Strategy at Tangoe Inc. he led the company’s overall strategic product roadmap and vison. Prior to Tangoe, Jitesh served as the VP of Technology Innovation and Product Strategy at Frontier Communications spearheading the company’s foray into Cloud, IoT, Fixed Wireless, and Managed Services.

Before Frontier, Jitesh spent 10 plus years at Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable, where he held multiple leadership roles with increasing responsibilities in product management, development, marketing, and strategy for their B2B business units.

Greg Bryan

Senior Manager, Enterprise Research,
TeleGeography

Greg is Senior Manager, Enterprise Research, at TeleGeography. He’s spent nearly two decades at TeleGeography developing many of our pricing products and reports about enterprise networks.

He is a frequent speaker at conferences about corporate wide area networks and enterprise telecom services. He also hosts the TeleGeography Explains the Internet podcast.

Roy Chua

Founder and Principal,
AvidThink

Roy Chua is a principal at AvidThink, an independent research and advisory service focused on infrastructure technologies. Roy is a frequent speaker at telecom and cloud conferences, and AvidThink has been quoted by and featured in major publications including the WSJ, Fierce Telecom, Fierce Wireless, The New Stack, and Light Reading. Roy was also a co-founder at SDxCentral, a technology publication.  

He has previously worked as a management consultant for Fortune 500 and startup companies, specializing in go-to-market and product strategy. Roy is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s electrical engineering and computer science program and MIT’s Sloan School of Business. With over 20 years of experience in telecom and enterprise computing, networking, and security, he has also founded Silicon Valley startups.

Rosemary Cochran

Principal Analyst & Co-Founder,
Vertical Systems Group

Rosemary Cochran is a Principal and Co-Founder of Vertical Systems Group, which specializes in the delivery of defensible quantification and insight on networking markets, service migration trends and emerging technologies. Her expertise covers Carrier Ethernet, Layer 2/Layer 3 services, SD-WAN, business Fiber, Cloud connectivity, and SDN/NFV/LSO solutions. Frequently sourced by industry media, she also moderates for webcasts and industry conferences, including MEF events since the early years.

Erin Dunne

Director of Research,
Vertical Systems Group

Ms. Dunne is the Director of Research Services, responsible for managing the delivery and support of Vertical Systems Group’s syndicated ENS (Emerging Networks Service) Research Program offerings for clients worldwide. In this role, she coordinates analyst resources, directs content distribution for ENS research, and assures high quality client experience.

Her expertise covers migration to emerging service technologies, Ethernet and Cloud Connectivity, Hybrid Layer 2/3 VPN solutions, Managed SD-WANs, pricing dynamics for network services, and business Fiber trends.

On these topics, Ms. Dunne has moderated and chaired numerous industry webcasts and business panel discussions. She is frequently sourced by leading industry media. Additionally, she is a judge for the annual MEF awards presented at the organization’s global event.

Ms. Dunne has more than twenty years of consulting services experience at Vertical Systems Group. Her previous experience includes enterprise IT and industrial engineering projects.

Roopa Honnachari

Director - Network & Software Advisory Practice,
ISG

Roopa is a subject matter expert in next-generation intelligent services such as SD-WAN, SDN, NFV, Cloud and Edge Networking, and established WAN services such as MPLS VPN, Ethernet, DIA and Waves.  As part of the ISG Network and Software Advisory team, Roopa assists clients in transformation initiatives around networking, security and enterprise solutions. Roopa has nearly two decades of experience. Roopa’s strong in-depth knowledge of telecom technologies has helped her contribute to engagements that include strategy assessments, RFP development, contract negotiations, transformation and change management.

Prior to joining ISG Roopa led the Global Network Services & Edge practice at Frost & Sullivan. In her role she provided strategic advice to companies on product strategy, competitive strategy, market share expansion, partnership development.

Grant Lenahan

Partner and Principal Analyst,
Appledore Research

Grant has more than 25 years experience in the telecommunication infrastructure and software industry. He provides a unique combination of management and technical acumen from a focus on technology and business model innovation.

He previously served in CTO for Ericsson and is actively involved in the industry standard bodies, including TM Forum, ZOOM and Open Digital initiatives.  His areas of focus include NFV orchestration and management, SDN policy control, service creation and fulfillment, real time charging, digital ecosystems and M2M.

Grant holds a Bachelor of Science from Drew University and an MBA (SM-Management, SM-Engineering) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sian Morgan

Research Director, Enterprise WLAN & CNaaS,
Dell’Oro

Siân Morgan joined Dell’Oro Group in 2022 and is responsible for the Wireless LAN, and Campus NaaS and Public-Cloud Managed LAN market research program She’s known for delivering comprehensive quantitative insights into the Enterprise Wireless LAN market and cloud platform adoption, including AI.

With over 25 years of senior management experience in telecom and network technologies, such as 5G, OpenStack, LTE, IMS, and Wi-Fi, Ms. Morgan has held various roles in pre-sales, R&D, and post-sales support. Fluent in both French and English from a decade in Europe, her research is widely cited in industry publications. Ms. Morgan is also a frequent industry conference speaker.

Ray Mota

CEO & Principal Analyst,
ACG Research

Ray Mota, Ph.D., is a leading expert in carrier strategy, infrastructure services, and AI integration, with a focus on AIOps, AI business models, and cost optimization through AI. As the founder of ACG Research, he provides strategic direction and expert analysis on networking and AI technologies.

Dr. Mota has held significant roles at Aberdeen Group, Eastman Kodak, and the IRS, and has developed cloud applications and a software patent. Recognized as a thought leader, Ray’s insights have been featured in top publications such as “The Wall Street Journal” and “Forbes” magazine. He is a frequent keynote speaker at global telecom events.

Outside of his professional achievements, Ray is a celebrated amateur baseball player, coach, and a dedicated philanthropist, supporting sports events for children with illnesses. HispanicBusiness.com named him one of the top 100 most influential Hispanics in the U.S.

Ian Redpath

Research Director, Transport Networks and Components,
Omdia

Ian is the Research Director for Omdia’s, optical transport, components, routing, and networked edge services. He is responsible for strategy, client, product, and team development. Managing a team of communications technology professionals, he covers how communications and cloud service providers and enterprises utilize and deploy leading-edge optical networks, components, routing, and edge technologies.

Ian and the team have been advising clients on how to evolve and grow networks based on a rapidly evolving 5G, cloud, and edge world. Ian’s past advisory efforts have included work on the evolution of open optics and transport SDN, right of way value for new entrants, and cloud-communications SP partnering. He has also supported open industry fora, built hot topic conference tracks, and supported industry player mergers and acquisitions. Ian is the 2019 winner of the NGON & DCI World People’s Choice Award and is a regular speaker at industry events. He received his MBA from Queen’s University at Kingston in Canada and a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Manitoba.

Charlie Reed

Partner,
ATLANTIC-ACM

Charlie Reed has worked at ATLANTIC-ACM since 2005 on projects ranging from market sizing and forecasting to corporate strategy. Charlie has a broad perspective on the telecommunications market and deep expertise in sizing and forecasting the enterprise and wholesale carrier markets. Charlie is responsible for the firm’s delivery of data intensive sizing and analysis projects and the development of market models and algorithms to isolate trends from large and diverse datasets. Charlie is a key contributor to ATLANTIC-ACM thought leadership, several industry journals and has spoken at a host of industry-wide conferences.

Charlie has a B.A. in economics from Colby College, focusing on econometrics and micro-theory with minors in both environmental studies and business. He graduated cum laude and was a four time NCAA Academic All-American for the sport of Alpine Ski Racing.

Mauricio Sanchez

Sr. Director, Enterprise Networking & Security Market Research,
Dell'Oro

Mauricio Sanchez joined Dell’Oro Group in 2020. With Dell’Oro Group, Mr. Sanchez leads the Network Security, SASE & SD-WAN market research programs, which will encompass ways in which contemporary network security solutions are being adopted and deployed, whether as appliances, virtually or as a service. Additionally, Mr. Sanchez helps shape the coverage of next-generation networking architectures and services models.

Mr. Sanchez brings over two decades of experience as an executive manager in networking and security technologies, products, and solutions spanning data center, campus, and mobile architectures. Prior to joining Dell’Oro Group, Mr. Sanchez served at Intel Corporation as Product Line Director of Ethernet products within Networking Division for Data Platforms Group, focused on Ethernet controllers, NICs, and SmartNICs for data center servers. Before Intel Corporation, Mr. Sanchez spent seventeen years with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in a variety of networking and security roles, focused on defining and driving security technology strategy for all HPE Networking solutions spanning product security, access control, and SDN-based real-time threat management.

Mr. Sanchez has a BS degree in Computer Engineering, an MSc in Electrical Engineering, and minor in German from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He has thirteen patents granted.

Rob Schult

Research Director,
TeleGeography

Robert Schult is a Research Director at TeleGeography and manages the company’s wholesale pricing and enterprise network research groups. His areas of expertise include telecom service pricing, international transport and Internet backbone networks, corporate WAN technologies, and Cloud service integration.

Steve Thomas

Senior Industry Director,
Frost & Sullivan

Steve Thomas is a Senior Industry Director in the ICT-Enterprise Network Services practice at Frost & Sullivan. He has 20+ years of experience managing network technologies and the ecosystem that supports them.  During his career, he has held roles in Service Management, Network Engineering, IT, and Marketing.

Steve joined Frost & Sullivan in 2022 after more than 25 years working with leading service provider and enterprise IT firms, including Orange Business and General Motors IT Telecom Group. He holds a BS in Economics and Masters Telecom Management.

Brian Washburn

Research Director,
Omdia

Brian Washburn works in the service provider, enterprise and wholesale group, supporting its enterprise networks and wholesale, workspace services, and digital enterprise services practices. Brian has covered communications and networking services for nearly 30 years with Ovum and now Omdia. His coverage spans how enterprises buy and use network and related managed services, as well as how providers can build, market and sell, deliver, and operate their services for enterprises most effectively. 

Gorkem Yigit

Research Director,
Analysys Mason

Gorkem is a Research Director within the Networks and Cloud research practice at Analysys Mason. He is the lead analyst for the “Cloud and AI Infrastructure” and “NaaS Platforms and Infrastructure” research programmes. His research focuses on the building blocks, architecture and adoption of the cloud and AI native, disaggregated and open networks that underpin the delivery of 5G, multi-cloud and NaaS services and enable operational automation. He also works on a range of consulting engagements with telecoms and IT vendors, operators and financial institutions including strategy assessment and advisory, TCO/business case analysis and marketing support through thought leadership collateral.