What’s up with… Telia, Yago Tenorio & Verizon, NGMN

• Telia appoints new CTIO 
• Verizon officially confirms Yago Tenorio appointment
• NGMN tackles AI-enabled network automation

In today’s industry news roundup: Telia has a new tech chief; Verizon confirms TelecomTV’s new CTO appointment scoop; NGMN offers AI-enabled network automation help to mobile operators; and much more!

Telia has appointed Alexandra Fürst (pictured above), currently chief operating officer (COO) at enterprise IT services firm Dustin Group, as chief technology and information officer (CTIO) with effect from 31 March 2025 (at the latest). “With the appointment of Alexandra as chief technology and information officer and head of the technology unit, the unit will have an experienced leader with business acumen from leadership roles within IT and technology,” stated Telia in this announcement. Fürst is effectively replacing Dr Rainer Deutschmann, who stepped down as the Swedish telco’s COO in May. Telia CEO Patrik Hofbauer noted: “Over the years, she has demonstrated strong leadership in international positions and an ability to identify and act on opportunities to use new solutions and technologies to create customer value and advance business goals. Together, we will work to simplify and modernise Telia’s IT operations, innovate, and challenge ourselves to do an even better job for our customers and all our other stakeholders.” Fürst added: “I’m excited to join Telia during this period of change, with an opportunity to contribute to delivering great customer experiences in the Nordic and Baltic regions. I look forward to working with brilliant and competent colleagues across Telia to further position the company to adopt new technologies, increase customer satisfaction, and really stand out from the competition." And it certainly is a period of change for Telia: In early September it announced a headcount reduction of 3,000 jobs and the introduction of a new operating model, while Hofbauer put some flesh on the bones of the new strategy during the company’s investor update last week. 

It’s an interesting day for people changes… Former head of BT’s enterprise services unit, Rob Shuter, has been appointed to the supervisory board of Dutch telco KPN. When he was nominated for a board seat earlier this summer, KPN noted that Shuter would bring “valuable knowledge and expertise” to the board. Aside from his previous executive role at BT between 2021 and 2023, Shuter’s experience in telecom includes serving at the helm of MTN Group, Vodafone’s Europe Cluster and Vodafone Netherlands, and as the CFO of Vodacom South Africa. Shuter’s departure from BT was announced at the end of 2022, when the UK operator merged its BT Enterprise and BT Global units to form the BT Business division – see BT merges units to form BT Business and save £100m.

And Huawei has announced that Sabrina Meng (aka Meng Wanzhou) is back at the helm at Huawei, as the vendor’s CFO is the latest to take on the role of rotating and acting chair (from 1 October 2024 to 31 March 2025). “During her term, Ms Meng (who is the daughter of Huawei’s founder) will serve in the company’s top leadership position and head the board of directors and its executive committee,” noted Huawei in this announcement, which provides a detailed breakdown of her various roles and achievements at Huawei over the past decade. It doesn’t, though, mention her stint under house arrest in Canada after she was accused of breaking US sanctions by doing deals with Iran. She was released in 2021 after striking a deal with US prosecutors, who had been trying to extradite her for two-and-a-half years.

Five days after TelecomTV broke the news, Verizon has officially announced the appointment of Santiago ‘Yago’ Tenorio, until recently network architecture director at Vodafone Group, as its new CTO and senior VP of strategy and technology enablement. Tenorio will report directly to Joe Russo, executive vice president and president of global network and technology. “As we continue to advance our 5G and 5G-Advanced network builds, this is the right time to also look towards the future technology Verizon will enable,” stated Russo. “As Verizon enters its next chapter, we must position our organisation for success and remain focused on our global networks and technology mission: To build and operate the best, most reliable, highest-performing and most secure networks to power and empower how customers live, work and play.” Verizon noted that Tenorio is “recognised for his expertise in architecting Vodafone’s Open RAN, cloud networking and network APIs… In his new role, Tenorio will lead Verizon’s work in advancing new 5G use cases, work with partners to lead new technology advancements and map out the next generation of technologies that Verizon will bring to customers where they live, work and play.” The strategy and technology enablement (STE) team will begin operating when Tenorio starts on 28 October.

The NGMN Alliance has launched a new publication aimed at mobile network operators that want to automate their network operations using AI applications (and who doesn’t, right?). Automation and Autonomous System Architecture Framework – Phase 2 provides “guidance and direction on the use cases, requirements, and architectural principles to embrace interoperable, multivendor and standards-based autonomous networks that will help to manage the increasing complexity of the evolving 5G-Advanced ecosystem,” according to the industry group. “AI has huge potential to revolutionise the way we plan, build, operate and maintain networks, the services we offer and our ability to respond rapidly to customer needs,” noted Arash Ashouriha, chairman of the NGMN Alliance board and SVP of group technology at Deutsche Telekom. “This publication provides a further foundation for the mobile industry to move forward together by developing and embracing a standards-based approach to autonomous networks,” he added. Michael Irizarry, a member of the NGMN Alliance board and executive vice president and chief technology officer at UScellular, is also keen on using AI tools to automate radio access networks (RANs). “With the ever-increasing complexity of networks and the move towards disaggregated and cloud-based architectures, it is more fundamental than ever that we manage that complexity by introducing AI at all levels of our networks and operations. UScellular is proud to have led this activity, working alongside our partners at NGMN. We strongly encourage the industry to adopt this guidance when developing the industry standards that are necessary to ensure autonomous networks can be delivered through open and interoperable standards.” Mobile operators around the world are optimistic about the impact that AI can have on their mobile network operations, with the main impact still to come, according to a recent survey of mobile network operator executives conducted by TelecomTV – see AI’s main impact on the RAN is still to come – report.

– The staff, TelecomTV