Karen Bach

Chair of start-ups, scale-ups and pivots in health tech, media tech, ad tech, net zero, IoT, life sciences, datacentres, fintech...

Innovation advocate: AI entrepreneurs with CDL, Said Business School (University of Oxford).

Mentor to entrepreneurs and #WomeninTech.

A huge fan of digitalisation and simplification, I love working with teams with energy, passion and transparency.

Enthusiastic amateur in all things #neuroscience and #neurotech.

19 years Board insight as Chair, exec and non-exec, 4 exit processes incl. $0.5bn exit, 6 IPOs, 25+ acquisitions plus funding of all types.

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Katherine Motlagh

Katherine Motlagh is the former Chief Financial Officer of CyrusOne LLC, where she was responsible for CyrusOne’s accounting, finance, capital markets, tax, procurement, and investor relations functions. Prior to joining CyrusOne, Ms. Motlagh served as CFO of the Europe, Africa and Latin America regions at American Tower, where she led a global finance organization of over 300 employees. Earlier in her career, Ms. Motlagh held divisional CFO roles as well as a variety of finance and accounting leadership roles with progressively increasing responsibilities at Ericsson, Inc., Nokia, Inc., and Nextel Communications, Inc.

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Dr. Lara Stoimenova

Dr. Lara launched Sigma Economics on the back of over 20 years’ of experience as a competition and regulatory policy expert.

She has direct experience of influencing regulatory decisions at the highest level and understating what matters most to decision makers. Currently, she serves as NED on the boards of the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority (a regulatory body) and Portsmouth Water (a regulated commercial entity).

Prior to launching Sigma Economics, Dr. Lara worked as a Partner and Co-lead of the Competition and Regulatory practice at Flint Global. She has also worked in senior roles at the UK’s Competition Authority (CMA) and Ofcom.

Lara has recently cofounded Simulnova Software to develop state-of the-art digital twin software applications. The firm’s mission is to help firms understand the complex, interconnected nature of their risks and identify the best solutions to mitigate them.

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Miles Loo, Jr.

Miles Loo Jr., CRE, FRICS, joined Newmark Valuation & Advisory in 2017 in the Downtown Los Angeles office, where he serves as a Vice Chairman and the Global Lead for Newmark Valuation & Advisory’s Data Centers & Life Science group.

Loo Jr. is well recognized as the industry’s leading appraiser of data center properties. His experience includes advising private equity funds, institutional investors, large pension funds, Fortune 500 companies, cloud companies and Global IT conglomerates on investments in all types of data centers, including mission critical, disaster recovery data centers, colocation facilities, carrier hotels, internet gateways and life science properties. These assignments have involved data centers owned and/or operated by Fortune 500 companies across numerous industries as well as Uptime Institute Site Certified Tier III and Tier IV facilities; U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED Platinum, Gold and Silver buildings; and state and federal disaster recovery data centers. Loo Jr. has led valuations of large individual and portfolio valuations spanning multiple countries across six continents (NA, EMEA, APAC, LATAM and African regions) and has consulted on a number of the world’s largest data centers.

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Tricia Paoletta

Patricia (Tricia) Paoletta focuses her practice on digital infrastructure, trade and technology policy.

Tricia provides advice on regulatory, trade and legislative policy to clients before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), congress and the Administration. Her clients include providers of digital infrastructure, including satellite, cloud, submarine cable and drones. She advises providers of broadband services on regulatory compliance and policy issues facing emerging technology, like Artificial Intelligence or A.I.

Tricia has accrued considerable experience with digital infrastructure trade and policy in the public sector. She was senior advisor to the International Bureau Chief and Office Director at the FCC. Patricia subsequently served as Director of Telecommunications Trade Policy in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, where she worked on the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Basic Telecommunications Agreement, NAFTA implementation, and bilateral agreements with China, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea. After USTR, Patricia served as Majority Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She then moved to Level 3 Communications, as Vice President, Government Relations.

Tricia served as chair of the FCC’s Advisory Committee for the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-23). She has served as a delegate to numerous meetings at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); including WRC-23 and CITEL (the Committee on International Telecommunications at the Organization of American States) PCC-II. Tricia has secured licenses for several international providers, negotiating with the various security agencies to obtain mutually-agreeable entry conditions, and provides regulatory and compliance advice to those licensees. She represents the wireless trade association 5G Americas and has advocated for the association on mobile broadband before congress and the FCC.

Tricia is on the Pacific Telecommunications Council’s Advising Council. She is also a member of the USTR Alumni Association, Washington International Trade Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA), Women’s Foreign Policy Group, and Women in Technology. Tricia has been on the Board of Advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue’s Latin America Telecom Advisor, Co-Chair of the American Bar Association International Communications Committee, and served as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Technology Policy Committee. She was also on the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Telecommunications and Information Technology of the European Institute.

Tricia has served as the Chair of the FCC’s National Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Steering Committee and as a Board Member for the Voice on the Net Coalition. She has had multiple leadership roles in the Federal Communications Bar Association, including as Co-Chair of the FCBA’s Annual Seminar Committee; as a member of the FCBA’s Ad Hoc Speakers Committee; as Co-Chair for the FCBA International Practice Committee; and as a Co-Chair of the FCBA Legislative Practice Committee and serves as a panelist occasionally for those Committees.

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Robin Brown

Details to follow shortly...

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Manoj Menon

Manoj Menon, is founder and CEO of twimbit, an immersive life-long learning platform providing industry know-how to aspiring leaders. He is a futurist and an authority in the area of digital transformation. He helps individuals, society and businesses make sense of the fast-changing world that we live in.

Prior to starting twimbit, Manoj was a Senior Partner and Asia Pacific Managing Director at Frost & Sullivan. He was a founding member of the team in Asia, joining them in 1996 as an analyst. He went onto helping them open offices in over 13 countries and helping it become a leading advisory firm in the region.

His presentation and workshops provide a unique view of how the world is transforming and how we can be better prepared to participate in this new era. He has spoken at over a 1000 seminars and private conferences in the last decade across all continents.

Manoj is a chartered financial analyst (CFA), has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering and also holds a post-graduate degree in Business Administration (PGDBA). He is an author of many research studies on future industries and markets. He has appeared on major media such as CNN, BBC, Channel News Asia, CNBC and other regional media providing his opinion on major business events around the world.

Manoj is passionate about sports. He is an avid fan of Liverpool Football Club, runs marathons and is currently learning on best practices from sports that can be integrated into business practices.

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Michael Tobin OBE

Michael is a highly successful serial technology entrepreneur & pioneer with over 30 years’ experience in the telecoms & technology sector.

As Chief Executive, Michael Tobin OBE led TelecityGroup plc, a leading FTSE250 Technology company from 2002 to 2014.

He joined Redbus in 2002 delisting it from the main market to AIM, & then took it private, winning the London Business Awards “Business Turnaround of the Year” award in 2005. After engineering the merger with Telecity, & the acquisition of Globix he successfully re-listed TelecityGroup in October 2007 winning the accolade of UK Innovation Awards IPO of the year 2008 & the techMARK Personality of the year in the same year.

Subsequently he grew the business organically & acquired businesses in Manchester, Helsinki, Dublin, Sofia, Istanbul & Warsaw transforming the company from £6m market cap in 2002 to being a top performer in the FTSE250 worth over £2.5Bn, being recognized as Britain’s Most admired Tech Company in 2012.

Prior to joining TelecityGroup, Tobin headed-up Fujitsu’s e-Commerce operations in Frankfurt, Germany. Before that, he ran ICL’s Danish outsourcing subsidiary out of Copenhagen Denmark. He also held several senior positions based in Paris for over 11 years including Business Development Director at International Computer Group coordinating global distribution of IT infrastructure.

As a Non Exec Director, Tobin was instrumental in transforming PACNET in Hong Kong from a Sub Sea Cable operator to a successful Datacenter operator culminating in its sale in 2015 to Telstra for $800m. In 2017 he was the key driver of the sale of Itconic in Spain to Equinix generating over 7x money for Carlyle in just 19 months, and as a NED oversaw the sale of Datapipe in New York to Rackspace and Basefarm in Norway to Orange on behalf of Abry Partners.

Tobin has been involved in multiple PE backed Datacentre transactions around the world including Teraco in South Africa, ITConic in Spain, Basefarm in Norway and Datapipe in the USA. He currently holds numerous Technology Non-Exec Directorships around the world & is the Chair of AIM listed Audioboom plc and BigBlu Broadband plc.

Mr Tobin is Chairman of the Friends of The Loomba Trust supporting widows in India, a Patron and Founders Circle Member of The British Asian Trust, Founder of the CEO Sleepout event for Action for Children & has sat on fundraising boards of the Princes Trust, Cooperation Ireland & the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Mr Tobin’s charitable focus is primarily the education, welfare & empowerment of young people & children around the world.

In 2016 Mr Tobin slept in the streets to raise money and awareness for Action for Children, completed his Duke of Edinburgh Diamond Award, and raised over £100k running 40 Marathons in 40 consecutive days for the 40th anniversary of the Princes Trust. In 2020 Tobin trekked to the South Pole raising over £500k for the Brain Tumour Charity

Michael’s business & thought leadership have been widely recognized. He was named ‘UK IT Services Entrepreneur of the Year’ by Ernst & Young in 2009, 2010 & 2011; PWC Tech CEO of the Year 2007; London Chamber of Commerce 'Business Person of the Year’ for 2009 & 2010; In 2009 was named techMARK ‘Personality of the Year’; In 2007 & 2009 he was the winner of the DCE Outstanding Leader of the Year, & in 2008 won ‘Data Centre Business Person of the Year’ at the Data Centre Leaders awards. He was awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Data Centre Industry’ at the Data Centre Europe awards & in 2011 received a Lifetime Achievement Award for services to the industry.

In 2005 he was named number 31 of Britain’s Top 50 Entrepreneurs & in 2014 he was honoured in the Queens New Years Honours List with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) medal for Services to the Digital Economy.

In 2016 he received business awards for Outstanding Non Executive Director of the year in the Best Business Awards 2016 and the Global Business Excellence Awards 2016, and Chairman of the Year at the Stevie Awards in the USA. In 2017 he was recognized as Datacentre and Cloud Influencer of the Decade in Monaco at the Broadgroup Industry Awards and named in Smith and Williamson’s Top 25 Power Individuals of Industry.

Michael has many motivational & Inspirational speaking engagements & in 2014 he launched his first book, “Forget Strategy, Get Results” to great acclaim, and his second book, ”Live, Love, Work, Prosper” was released in 2018. His third book, “Lifting the Floor” was released in 2020.

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Tara Giunta

Tara K. Giunta, a partner in the Litigation Department of Paul Hastings, is Co-Chair of its ESG Risk, Strategy and Compliance Group and a Member of the firm’s Investigations and White Collar Defense practice, which is routinely recognized by the Global Investigations Review (GIR) as a leading investigations practice and one of a handful of global "elite" practice groups. Ms. Giunta is a recognized risk, strategy and compliance expert and advisor to global companies on corporate governance and enterprise risk management. She advises C-suites and boards in identifying and mitigating risks, developing and enhancing compliance programs, investigating and remediating wrongdoing and/or internal control weaknesses, conducting compliance-related due diligence in M&A and other commercial transactions, and developing reporting and disclosure frameworks.

Her work has spanned the globe, performing risk assessments, conducting investigations and rolling out comprehensive compliance programs in Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Asia.

Ms. Giunta was recognized by GIR in its inaugural Women in Investigations list, which recognized 100 women across the globe who are “achieving great things in a competitive and notoriously tough area of law.” She is also Co-Chair of the firm’s Global Diversity Council and Chair of the firm’s Women’s Initiative. Ms. Giunta is Founder and Editor of the firm’s publication, Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in the Boardroom, now in its Fifth Edition, and speaks often on corporate governance, ESG compliance and risk. Ms. Giunta was a recipient of Corporate Counsel’s 2019 Women, Influence & Power in Law Awards under the Thought Leadership category.

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Dharman Sury

Dharman Sury brings more than 25 years of experience in telecommunications and digital infrastructure.

He joined Brookfield last summer to oversee the funds investments into datacenters in Europe.

He spent the last 6 years as CFO of Data4, a privately-held european data center operator, growing the bottom-line of the company 2.6x, raising close to €1bn of debt, taking the company through two rounds of equity cycles and expanding the platform to Spain and Poland.

Priorly, Dharman spent 8 years with Orange, a telecommunications operator, in charge of corporate M&A in APAC and subsequently head of international sales for French large accounts at Orange Business Services. He started his career as a fast-track senior civil service with the French Treasury, moving then on as an advisor to a Cabinet Minister designing, and implementing innovation and R&D policies as well as the Minister’s communication and media strategy on these topics.

Dharman was nominated Top10 CFOs of French mid-caps by DAF Magazine in 2017 and Top50 Global Leaders in Data Center Finance in 2019 by Data Economy.

Dharman is a graduate of the Ecole des Mines de Paris and of the Corps des Mines.

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Anne Foster

Managing Director with over 15 years’ experience across investment, financial advisory, asset management and investment banking focused on infrastructure and global energy

Ms. Foster is responsible for leading the firm’s Sustainability and Impact initiatives globally, and is a member of Quinbrook’s Investment Committee

Vice President for the CEI division at Capital Dynamics Group between 2010 and 2014, supporting investment analysis, fundraising and investment transaction project management

Previously worked in Asset Management for Deutsche Bank Asset Management Infrastructure, Grant Samuel M&A and Investment Banking at Credit Suisse

Has completed postgraduate studies at MIT in Digital Transformation (Blockchain, IoT, Cryptocurrencies, AI and Cybersecurity), holds a Master of Applied Finance from the Securities Institute of Australia, a Bachelor of Science (specialising in Environmental Science) from the University of New South Wales, Australia with First Class Honours and has also studied under scholarship at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management

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Laurence Hainault

Laurence G. Hainault is a senior managing director in Evercore’s strategic advisory business based in Paris.

Ms. Hainault has more than 25 years of experience advising telecommunications and telecom infrastructure companies and funds at Credit Suisse and before that at DLJ in London and New York.

Prior to joining Evercore in 2023, Ms. Hainault served as managing director and head of EMEA telecom for Credit Suisse based in Paris, where she was a driving force behind the establishment of its digital infrastructure advisory business.

Select transaction experience at Credit Suisse includes advising EDF Invest on a consortium acquisition of a 27% stake in Databank; OVHcloud on its IPO; KPN on the formation of the Glaasport JV with APG; Orange on the sale of a 50% stake in Orange Concessions to Banque des Territoires, CNP and EDF Invest; KKR Infra on the sale of its stake in Hivory to Cellnex; GTT on the sale of its Infrastructure division to Isquared Capital; EQT on the acquisition financing of Melita; OMERS on the acquisition of a stake in Deutsche Glasfaser and Inexio; and Omantel on the acquisition of a controlling stake in Zain.

Ms. Hainault holds a Magistère in Bank, Finance & Insurance as well as a DEA in International Economics from University of Paris-IX Dauphine and a master’s in business law from Pantheon-Sorbonne University.

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Canan Anli

Canan is a strategy consultant, investor and advisor. Canan has been an investor in the Digital Infrastructure and Technology space in the last 11 years working for Mubadala Investment Company. She has led and negotiated several deals for Mubadala in the digital infrastructure, telecoms, software and services space in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Canan is currently supporting PMP Strategy with their principal investor business focusing on digital infrastructure and enterprise software. Previously, Canan also worked for McKinsey. Canan holds a MSc in Earthquake Engineering from Bogazici University and an MBA from INSEAD

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Jing Zhou

Jing is a Senior Director in Alternatives and Strategic Transactions team at Nuveen. She leads the build out of the data centre subsector of Nuveen Real Estate’s alternative portfolio.

Jing joined Nuveen from CBRE where she worked in the Data Centre Solutions team and provided advisory services in the Data Centre sector across APAC region. Prior to that, Jing worked for six years at Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR/S&P 500), where she held several management roles in portfolio asset management team and investment team. She also served as the company’s spokeswomen in Hong Kong. Jing started her real estate career at Eureka Fund Management (now known as AXA IM Australia) in 2006, where she managed the finance function for an AUD $800 million commercial property and hotel fund as part of the company’s AUD $4 billion AUM.

Jing graduated with a Bachelor's of Law from Southwest University of Political Science and Law (China) and a Masters of Professional Accounting from Wollongong University (Australia) and she is a Certified Public Accountant.

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Michalis Grigoratos

Michalis Grigoratos is the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Infrapartners LLC, a Vertically Integrated pre-fabricated Data Center business.

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Vijay Mistry

An established figure in the Data Centre Industry with over 25+ years’ experience in Financial Services, Infrastructure and Data Centre Environments. Prior to VIPA Digital, Vijay was the Operations, VP at Digital Realty, responsible for the company's portfolio of Data Centres across Europe.

Vijay also spent 20 years at Morgan Stanley where he held a number of senior leadership positions including the European Head of Enterprise Computing, Global Head of Data Centre Portfolio Management and European Head of Enterprise Data Centres, where he transformed the team into a world class organisation, earning numerous industry accolades .

Vijay holds a BSc in Information Systems Design, and sits on a number of advisory boards within the DC Industry.

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Barry Gross

Barry is a UK based real estate lawyer with over 20 years experience acting on all aspects of real estate investment, development and financing. He acts for a range of clients including institutional, private equity and ultra-high net worth investors. Barry is sought after for his commercial and solutions-oriented approach with the focus on achieving the client’s desired outcomes in the most efficient manner.

Barry advises clients who own and operate businesses where real estate is core to the business such as care homes, motorway service areas and electric vehicle charging. He is a leading specialist in the data centre sector advising data centre developers, investors, operators and customers. He has acted on a range of data centre transactions including development, leasing and service agreements, sales, mergers and acquisitions and financings in multiple jurisdictions. He jointly leads Simmons' multidisciplinary cross border data centre team.

Barry is also highly experienced in restructuring and special situations having acted on numerous restructurings and enforcements in real estate and real estate intensive scenarios. His clients in this space include insolvency practitioners, financial institutions and buyers who value his ability to focus on real risks and deliver value.

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Claude Achcar

Claude Achcar is the Founder and Managing Partner of Actel Consulting, a highly specialized Tech advisory firm. The company, founded in 2002, differentiates through independent, deep-dive, and hands-on guidance to deliver implementable advisory. Clients include investors, innovators, corporates, telecoms, service providers, and regulators.

Claude has over 30 years of ICT experience. He began his career as an AI Research Associate followed by eleven years in various engineering, marketing, and operations roles with Nortel. Prior to Actel Consulting, Claude was Managing Director and VP Asia at Ciena.

Claude is an engineer by training, holding B.Eng. & M.Eng. (Speech Recognition) degrees from Ecole Polytechnique, and an MBA from McGill University, both in Montreal, Canada.

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Dr. Dmitriy Antropov

Dr. Dmitriy Antropov is Co-Head of the Private Infrastructure Partnership Investments business unit, based in Zug. He is a member of the Private Infrastructure Investment Committee. Dmitriy is leading Partners Group datacenter thematic globally and has been involved in multiple digital infrastructure investments in the US, Europe and Asia. He has been with Partners Group since 2008 and has 18 years of industry experience.

Prior to joining Partners Group, he worked at UniCredit Group, L.E.K. Consulting and Apax Partners. He holds a PhD in world economics from Financial University, Moscow and Master’s in European Business from ESCP Europe. He is also a Financial Risk Manager.

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Stacie (Loidolt) Pascale

Stacie is based in Denver, Colorado and works at Aqua Comms as the VP of Product. She was also the 2023 winner of The Tech Capital's Under 35 Digital Infrastructure Talent Award.

Prior to joining the team, Stacie held the position of Director of Product at Zayo group where she was responsible for LATAM, EMEA, APAC, and the subsea portfolio as well as the Ultra Low Latency business line.

She specializes in building world-class international networks, scaling business lines in high-growth environments, and developing innovative, customer-centric market solutions.

Stacie is a champion for diversity and inclusion and a bridge between generations, founding and supporting multiple action-oriented DE&I initiatives throughout the industry. She has a BSBA and MBA from University of Colorado Boulder and remains engaged in academia through projects aimed at creating the first multidisciplinary Digital Infrastructure university course in the USA.

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Brian Moon

Brian Moon is CEO of the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC). Prior to joining PTC, he held a variety of roles over a span of 15 years at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). He was the vice president of sales and business development at CTA, where he led the sales and business development team for CTA and CES, driving growth and industry engagement for the world’s most influential technology event. Previously he was vice president of international sales from 2014 to 2020 and national accounts manager from 2003 to 2009.

In addition to his two tenures at CTA, Brian was also vice president of sales, convention and allied membership with the National Restaurant Association, and manager of industry relations and exhibits at the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses.

Brian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Professional and Technical Communication with a concentration in Marketing from Rochester Institute of Technology. He is a member of the International Association of Exhibition and Events (IAEE) and is certified in exhibition management (CEM).

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Annemarie Van Zadelhoff

Annemarie is an Entrepreneurial Director with 23 years of experience enhancing operations, elevating customer experiences, and driving profits in diverse international roles. With a deep understanding of the data center industry, she brings valuable insights. Drawing on her extensive background as a Commercial Director and in Business Development, Annemarie is currently employed at datacenterHawk. In her current role as Regional Director EMEA, she helps people and organisations make savvy decisions about data centre real estate.

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Ronnie Preiskel

Ronnie is a co-founder of Preiskel & Co and has over 20 years experience working in the telecoms, internet and technology sectors in a wide variety of roles. His broad and in-depth understanding of the TMT sectors and inside knowledge of the operations of telcos and startups allow Ronnie to provide clients with practical, result orientated advice and solutions to their corporate, regulatory and commercial issues. He has been ranked for many years as one of the leading telecoms lawyer by Chambers & Partners, Legal 500 and WhoswhoLegal.

Ronnie has the benefit of having worked for many years within the industry including for British Telecommunications PLC, a Vodafone JV and a mobile services start-up.

He has advised the Governments of the Falkland Islands and of The Bahamas on the introduction of new communications law and on the privatization of The Bahamas incumbent operator. He also advises a Satellite Regulator and a range of MNOs, MVNOs and service providers on a variety of corporate, commercial and regulatory issues

Ronnie also advises a leading payment services provider, the largest independent data centre in Russian and on various telecoms projects in Africa.

In addition to his work in the TMT sector, Ronnie also advises a number of retail and leisure businesses on fund raising, franchising and commercial matters.

Ronnie has an MA in Economics and Law from Cambridge University, an MBA from INSEAD and speaks four languages.

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