MEF Assembling All-Star Speaker Line-up for MEF18 Event

Executives, top experts from AT&T, Comcast Business, Deutsche Telekom, PCCW Global, Spectrum Enterprise, Verizon, Orange Business Services, CenturyLink, Equinix, Sparkle, Colt, Ciena, Microsoft, McKinsey, AEG & More

Los Angeles, 10 September 2018 – MEF is pleased to announce it is on track to assemble a world-class line-up of more than 110 service and technology expert speakers at the MEF18 global networking event, held 29 October – 2 November 2018 at the JW Marriott LA LIVE in Los Angeles, California.

“MEF18 has emerged as the must-attend event for senior communications professionals as the industry embraces the MEF 3.0 framework for defining, delivering, and certifying assured services across automated networks,” said Kevin Vachon, COO, MEF. “We are proud to host a broad range of experts committed to enabling a new generation of services that provide an on-demand, cloud-centric experience with unprecedented user- and application-directed control over network resources and service capabilities.”

Keynotes & Featured Speakers. Keynote and featured speakers thus far include:

Service & Interconnection Providers

• Marc Halbfinger, CEO, PCCW Global
• Eric Cevis, President, Verizon Partner Solutions
• Kyle Malady, Chief Network Operations Officer & Acting CTO, Verizon
• Aamir Hussain, Executive VP & CTO, CenturyLink
• Brian Lillie, Chief Product Officer, Equinix
• Michael Strople, President Allstream, Managing Director – Canada, Zayo Group
• Kevin O’Toole, SVP, Product Management, Comcast Business
• Shawn Hakl, SVP Business Products, Verizon
• Jean-Claude Geha, SVP of International Services & Technology, Deutsche Telekom AG
• Stefan Schnitter, SVP Infrastructure, Deutsche Telekom Pan-Net
• Josh Goodell, VP of Intelligent Edge, AT&T Business
• Satya Parimi, Group VP, Data Products, Spectrum Enterprise
• Franck Morales, VP of Marketing Connectivity Services, Orange Business Services
• John Paul Hemingway, CEO SES Networks
• Mirko Voltolini, Head of Network on Demand, Colt Technology Services
• Jeff Lewis, VP of Product Management, Comcast Business
• Adam Saenger, VP of Product Management, CenturyLink
• Divesh Gupta, VP Technology and Sales Operations, PCCW Global
• Luigi Migliaccio, VP Voice, Data & Messaging, International Delivery Unit, Deutsche Telekom
• David Hughes, VP of Engineering, PCCW Global
• Bart Oskam, CTO, Eurofiber
• Shahar Steiff, AVP New Technology, PCCW Global
• Andy Mayer, PMTS, Network Cloud and Infrastructure , AT&T Labs
• Daniele Mancuso, Director of Innovation & Engineering, TI Sparkle
• Brendan Gunn, Director of Product Marketing, Verizon Partner Solutions
• John Isch, Director of Network & Voice NAM, Orange Business Services
• Oleg Berzin, Senior Director of Technology Innovation, Equinix
• Jack Pugaczewski, Distinguished Architect, CenturyLink
• Ralph Santitoro, Head of SDN/NFV/SD-WAN Services, Fujitsu Network Communications

Enterprise

• Bill Martin, CIO, AEG (ownership in Staples Center, LA Lakers, LA Kings)
• Gert Vanderstraeten, Principal Enterprise Architect, IT Infrastructure Services, Microsoft
• Michael Martin, Networking & Security Architect, McKinsey

Technology Solutions Vendors

• Kevin Sheehan, CTO of the Americas, Ciena
• Patrick Ostiguy, President & CEO, Accedian
• Dave Stehlin, General Manager, Lifecycle Service Assurance, Spirent
• Steve Vogelsang, CTO, IP & Optical Networks, Nokia
• Hayim Porat, CTO, ECI
• Steve Marsh, CTO North America, Intraway

A full MEF18 agenda and speaker line-up are available by visiting the Agenda and Speakers pages on the MEF18event.com website.

About MEF18MEF18 focuses on enabling agile, assured, and orchestrated communications services for the digital economy. MEF18 is on pace to be bigger and better than last year’s popular MEF17 event, with a target audience of 1,000+ attendees from 275+ companies and 35+ countries; 250+ service and technology executives; 110+ expert speakers, 115+ sponsors and partners; and more.

MEF18’s content, networking, and special activities are designed to appeal to executives and other senior experts from communication and cloud service providers; enterprises; government organizations; network technology suppliers; systems integrators, open source projects, standards organizations; industry and financial analysts; investors; the press; and others.

MEF18’s program will build upon popular elements of last year’s event while introducing several new activities. Elements include: world-class plenaries and sessions with service, technology, and enterprise expert speakers; MEF Workshops; the WAN Exchange (brought by WAN Summit); PoC demonstrations; MEF 3.0 implementation demonstrations; a vibrant Networking Hall; MEF Awards Dinner; Global Media Hub; LSO Hackathon; and on-site MEF professional certification exam preparation courses. This year, the 4Q18 MEF Members Meeting will be collocated with MEF18. For more information: www.MEF18event.com

2018 MEF Awards Submission Deadline – 13 SeptemberThe 2018 MEF Awardsprogram is open for entries until 13 September 2018. The program recognizes service, application, technology, and professional excellence and innovation. To view the full listing of 44 award options and to submit an entry, visit the awards’ website.

Sponsorship OpportunitiesFor sponsorship information, please visit the MEF18 Sponsor Price List and Sponsorships and Benefits pages or email Alysia Bennett at alysia@mef.net.

About MEF

An industry association of 200+ member companies, MEF recently introduced the MEF 3.0 transformational global services framework for defining, delivering, and certifying assured services orchestrated across a global ecosystem of automated networks. MEF 3.0 services are designed to provide an on-demand, cloud-centric experience with user- and application-directed control over network resources and service capabilities. MEF 3.0 services are delivered over automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks powered by LSO, SDN, and NFV. MEF produces service specifications, LSO frameworks, open LSO APIs, software-driven reference implementations, and certification programs. MEF 3.0 work will enable automated delivery of standardized Carrier Ethernet, Optical Transport, IP, SD-WAN, and Layer 4-7 services across multiple provider networks. For more information: https://www.mef.net.

Additional resources:

• MEF 3.0 Overview
• MEF YouTube Channel

Media Contact:
Ashley Schulte
Witz Communications for MEF
ashley@witzcommunications.com