• Neil McRae left BT at the end of 2022
• He had been chief architect at the UK’s national operator
• Now he has joined one of his previous technology suppliers
• He will be chief network strategist at Juniper

For those wondering what Neil McRae, formerly the chief architect and managing director for architecture and technology strategy at BT, was going to do next after leaving the UK national operator at the end of 2022, the wait is over – he has joined Juniper Networks as the vendor’s Chief Network Strategist. 

“In this company-wide, cross-functional role, Neil will focus on assisting Juniper’s customers, including service providers, cloud providers and enterprises, in developing the next-generation architectures leveraging Juniper’s products and experience-first solutions,” the company noted in an email sent to TelecomTV. 

And the vendor is not shy in pointing out that McRae is already very familiar with Juniper’s technology portfolio. In its email note, the Sunnyvale, California-based vendor noted that while at BT, McRae “led a significant transformation, as well as leading BT’s 5G launch and mobile strategy. Neil has worked with Juniper as a customer and partner for almost twenty years through his tenure at BT, building several global networks using Juniper platforms.”

One of those platforms is BT’s increasingly important network cloud, which is currently supporting a number of critical, real-time services at the UK operator and for which Juniper has been a key technology partner since 2019. 

McRae will no doubt soon be out and about and talking about his role at Juniper, as well as anything else he’s asked about of course! And you can chat to him in person at TelecomTV’s upcoming DSP Leaders World Forum event in Windsor, UK, next month, where he will be hosting his now legendary charity pinball tournament in aid of the National Autistic Society. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV