Collaborating to Accelerate 5G vRAN Deployments

Anil Bhandari

VP Product Management, Altiostar

Anil Bhandari is Vice President of Product Management at Altiostar, leading product strategy for the company. He has over 25 years of experience in the telecommunications market both from the telecom operator and infrastructure vendor perspective.

Anil was previously with Cisco, leading the Mobility Architecture team for the South Asia region. In this role, Anil was responsible for leading large-scale network modernization in packet core platforms and establishing Wi-Fi as a carrier-grade radio solution for operators.

Prior to Cisco, Anil held various leadership roles at Motorola Solutions in sales and services responsible for the network infrastructure business.

Petr Lédl

VP, Head of Network Trials and Integration Lab, Deutsche Telekom

Petr Lédl is VP of Network Trials and Integration Lab and chief architect of Access Disaggregation program. His main responsibility is identification, prototyping and technical evaluation of future mobile network technologies and related concepts (mainly 5G, LTE-A/Pro, Managed connectivity, etc.) and defining and implementing DTAG disaggregated RAN architecture based on O-RAN principles.

He studied Electrical Engineering at Czech Technical University in Prague between 1995 and 2004. Since 2003 he has been working in different positions in Technology organizations of Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile Czech Republic.

Claus Pedersen

Vice President of Communication Technology Group, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Throughout his 33-year career with HPE, Claus Pedersen has worked in many roles, always focusing on taking projects from innovative concept to solutions which benefits HPE and its customers.

In his current role as Vice President of the HPE Telecommunications segment, Claus is responsible for growing the Hybrid IT groups business with HPEs telecommunication customers and partners. Claus and his team work to enable segment specific product features, solutions, services, and go to market relationships, which provides HPE Telecommunication customers with unique capabilities that empower their business.

Claus has been at forefront of enabling Communication Service Providers to take advantage of advanced IT technologies in their network infrastructure. Prior to his current role, Claus was responsible for HPE’s business in the Communications Media & Entertainment (CME) segment through and with Network Equipment Providers. Claus established several Go to Market Alliances for equipment providers in the Communication Service Provider segment. Over a decade ago, Claus spearheaded HPE’s work to enable Industry Standard Servers to meet the demands of telecommunication workloads.

Claus has held management positions at HPE in Laboratories, Storage and Software, as well as various sales and business development functions.

Claus holds a Master of Computer Science degree from Aarhus University, Denmark. He lives with his family in Grenoble, France.

Cristina Rodriguez

VP, Intel Wireless Access Network Division, Intel Corporation

Cristina Rodriguez is vice president in the Data Platforms Group and general manager of the group's Wireless Access Network Division (WAND) at Intel Corporation. She is also general manager of the Austin Design Center. She leads Intel’s efforts in the wireless access network including innovative solutions for highly scalable, fully virtualized networks, as well as highly optimized custom deployment models with a focus on 5G, the next generation of wireless networks. Rodriguez is responsible for strategy, roadmaps, product definition, forecasting, investment decisions and profit and loss for the business.

Rodriguez joined Intel in 2014 with the acquisition of LSI Corporation's Axxia Networking Business from Avago Technologies Ltd., where she led and carried out software strategy and was part of the small divestiture team. In her first Intel role as director of software for WAND, Rodriguez managed the division's worldwide software engineering and product development efforts. She also led the successful integration of the Axxia team into Intel and aligned the team's focus with Intel's networking business. Since joining Intel in 2014, her team has been recognized twice with Intel’s highest honor, the Intel Achievement Award, for their contribution to the company’s 5G leadership efforts.

Before her tenure at LSI and Avago, Rodriguez spent seven years holding leadership roles in software development at Agere Systems Inc. and its parent company, Lucent Technologies Inc. Earlier in her career, she worked at Zilog Inc. and at two startup ventures.

Rodriguez earned her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría in Havana, Cuba; her master's degree in computer science from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in Madrid, Spain; and completed the Stanford Executive Program at Stanford University. Rodriguez is also a member of the Intel Hispanic Leadership Council.

Ray Le Maistre

Editorial Director, TelecomTV