Meet the shortlist
Erling Gudmundsson, CEO, Gagnaveita Reykjavik. Last year’s winner.
“Erling has brought Gigabit connections to over 50,000 homes and companies in Iceland in record time! He is a hard-working and focused CEO and deserves a credit for all the hard work he has done for us in here Iceland!”
Tom Anschutz, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, AT&T
“For his work on Open Source at AT&T and work with European Operators to develop this area in telco”
Kate McKenzie, CEO, Chorus
“For giving NZ some of the fastest speeds on Earth! also being a female CEO in telco. Before joining Chorus, Kate was Chief Operating Officer of Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company. She joined Telstra in 2004 holding a range of senior executive roles in strategy, marketing, products, regulatory and wholesale.”
Axel Clauberg, Vice President, Aggregation, Transport, IP (TI-ATI) & Infrastructure Cloud Architecture, Deutsche Telekom
“For his outspoken views at lack of industry collaboration, as well as his work towards open source telco, his pioneering research at DT and role as TIP chair.”
Dr Paul Doany, CEO, Turk Telekom
“For two years he has been fortifying Turk Telekom as the backbone of communication and information technology in Turkey. He has been instrumental in driving a policy of stable and secure internet connections with an infrastructure that is protected from external conditions, via fiber optic cable networks.”
Barna Kutvolgyi, MD, JT Global
“For his strategy and management in driving and achieving the goal of connecting every home in Jersey to high-speed fibre-optic broadband. He has effectively replaced the islands entire broadband network, faster than has effectively been done anywhere else in the world.”
Fran Heeran, Global Head of Automation & Cloud, Vodafone Group, Board Member of Linux Foundation Networking
“For his drive to successfully virtualize Vodafone, and concerted support for the Open Source community. Forcing Vendors to offer virtualized components for Vodafone’s networks, and thus creating real change for operators in the Vendor Eco-system.”
Dana Tobak CBE, CEO, HyperOptic
“For her success in establishing HyperOptic as a leading challenger in laying full fibre gigabit broadband in the UK, with coverage across 28 towns and cities. With ambitious targets of connecting 2 million homes to full fibre broadband by 2022 &a
