Dan Meyer, Editor, RCR Wireless News

Dan Meyer is currently an editor at RCR Wireless News where he oversees the editorial direction of the magazine, reports on news from the wireless industry and provides opinion stories on topics of concern to the market. Meyer started at RCR Wireless News in 1999 as an editorial assistant and was promoted to reporter in 2000 covering wireless carriers and wireless technologies. Meyer was promoted to managing editor in 2005 and served in that position until the magazine was closed in 2009. Meyer was brought back to RCR Wireless News in mid-2009 by its new owners Austin, Texas-based Arden Media Co. Prior to joining RCR Wireless News, Meyer worked for Center Ice Magazine covering the Colorado Avalanche National Hockey League team and was an intern in the sports department at the Boulder Daily Camera in Boulder, Colo.

Harry Martin, Regional Director of Advanced Wireless Data, Verizon Wireless

Harry Martin is the Regional Director of Advanced Wireless Data for Verizon Wireless’ Philadelphia Tri-State Region. In this role, Harry leads a team responsible for overseeing the company’s roll out of the latest, cutting-edge wireless data devices and advanced services and technology, including 4G LTE — which includes the Philadelphia-area as an initial launch market for this next-generation wireless broadband technology. Harry has more than 30 years industry experience, spanning land line telecom and wireless. He has served in positions of increasing responsibility in engineering, customer service, and data solutions sales during his career with Bell Atlantic Mobile, Verizon Wireless’ legacy company, leading up to his current position with Verizon Wireless.

Deepak Das, Director – Sales and Business Development, AT&T Mobility (twitter @DeepakDas)

Deepak Das is a Director of Sales and Business Development for AT&T Mobility where he works with Line of Business, IT and vertical industry executives to define, deliver and deploy business solutions that help enterprises wirelessly enable their business applications. Deepak was a Co Founder at MOBOW and has previously held leadership roles with Cadence Design Systems, Verplex Systems, and Mentor Graphics Corporation. He holds an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

Shiv K. Bakhshi, Ph.D., Founder & Principal Analyst, Mobile Perspectives (Twitter@shivbakhshi)

Shiv K. Bakhshi, Ph.D., is founder and principal analyst of Mobile Perspectives, a research and consulting firm focused on the mobile and wireless communications industry. Shiv is a recognized expert in mobile technology and markets. His current research interests include the changing global mobile ecosystem (of networks, devices, and services) and the political economy of emerging markets, particularly his native India. Earlier, Shiv was director of worldwide mobile device practice (and before that, of worldwide mobile infrastructure practice) at IDC, a global research and advisory firm.

Shiv has been a student of the mobile industry for more than 20 years, first as university faculty and later as an industry analyst. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic conferences and has presented on a broad range of mobility related topics, including fixed-mobile convergence, IMS, the mobile device ecosystem, and, the structural transformation of the mobile industry.

Shiv earned his master’s as well as his doctorate in Communication from The Ohio State University.

Robert L. Ritter Manager, DAS Land Use, Crown Castle

Robert L. Ritter is responsible for obtaining all permits and agreements necessary for construction of Crown Castle DAS networks in the eastern United States. He has been at Crown Castle since 2005, serving previously as a Senior Attorney in the Legal Department focused on tower and DAS development. His legal work for DAS has included franchise and right-of-way agreements, zoning process, customer licenses, land leases, and federal and state regulatory compliance. Bob has over 14 years of experience in the wireless industry, first with Nextel Communications, Inc., and later in private law practice. He holds a B.A. in political science from Bucknell University, and a law degree and master’s degree in American government from the University of Virginia.

Dave Zilberman, Principal, Comcast Ventures

Dave joined Comcast Interactive Capital in early 2006 and is responsible for identifying, executing and managing new investments while supporting existing portfolio companies. As an investor focused on telecommunications and digital media, Dave brings a combination of operational, technical and advisory experience to bear as a board member. Prior to joining CIC, Dave was a business development manager at Flarion Technologies responsible for a variety of corporate development initiatives. Dave played a pivotal role in Flarion’s fundraising activities and ultimate $805M acquisition by Qualcomm. Prior to Flarion, Dave was a communications and media investment banker and asset management associate at Lehman Brothers. Dave holds a Bachelors of Science in Management with a concentration in Finance from Binghamton University. Dave serves on the Board of Directors of BelAir Networks, Ortiva Wireless and SB Nation and is involved in as an advisor or board observer to a number of other CIC portfolio companies including Bubble Motion and Broadsoft.

Ben Gibson, Chief Marketing Officer, Aruba Networks

Ben Gibson brings 20 years of IT industry experience to Aruba networks, where he serves as Chief Marketing Officer. In this role, Gibson leads global marketing strategy, including Product and Solution Marketing, Corporate Communications, Brand, Demand Generation, Theater and Channel Marketing. Prior to Aruba Networks, Gibson served as Vice President of Marketing for Cisco’s Data Center/Virtualization business, as well as marketing leadership roles for Cisco’s Enterprise Global Marketing Solutions and Program Development and Wireless and Mobility Solutions Marketing. Prior to Cisco, Gibson served as Vice President of Marketing at both Meru Networks and Proxim Corporation, where he led global marketing, communications, investor relations, and channel marketing programs. Gibson holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Business from California State University Long Beach.

Neil Manning, VP Strategic Sales Development, Corning Mobile Access

Neil has been a leader in the Cellular DAS industry for over 12 years with several companies and organizations. He joined MobileAccess in March, 2009 and has been instrumental in driving the successful achievement of corporate objectives across a number of Sales and Operational arenas. He is currently responsible for the go-to-market launch and development of Corning MobileAccess’ distribution channel through Cisco and associated VAR ecosystem.

Prior to joining MobileAccess, Neil served as National Sales Director for Custom Network Solutions (CNS) at Sprint Nextel. At CNS, Neil was responsible for quota driven sales leadership for regional sales teams accountable for qualifying and selling end to end in-building DAS solutions. From 2002 to 2009, Neil oversaw the creation and development of multiple cross-functional support teams within CNS, including a national team for Sales Engineering.

Osmo Hautanen, CEO, Magnolia Broadband

Osmo Hautanen, CEO of Magnolia Broadband Inc. is a wireless communications industry veteran with over 25 years experience leading global leading companies and pioneering start-up operations. Prior to joining Magnolia Broadband, Mr. Hautanen served as the CEO of Fenix LLC, the holding company for Union Pacific Corporation non railroad business, managing a multi-billion dollar portfolio of technology assets. He also had served as CEO of Denver-based Formus Communications, an international wireless communications company prior to Fenix. Mr. Hautanen was President of Americas for Philips Consumer Communications group, a joint venture between Philips Electronics and Lucent. As an 18-year veteran of Nokia, he started and built a new division for Personal Communications Services in 1994, which lead Nokia’s dominance in the North American handset market. Mr. Hautanen also served in multi-discipline roles within Nokia and was a member of their Management Board.

Peter Murray, Wireless Networks, Program Manager, H&M NetWorks

Peter has over 25 years experience building and operating wireless Networks. He was an original member of MCI’s NYC National Account Organization and went on to help write the market entry plan for Winstar Wireless where he was the original General Manager. He has held Sales and Operations leadership positions at PECO, Verizon and Telcove. He received his undergraduate degree in Communications from Rutgers College and his Masters in Information Technology (IT) from Fordham University. He has taught business and IT classes at Temple University and the College of Philadelphia.

JP Finnell, Managing Partner, Mobility Partners (twitter @JPFinnell)

JP is the Managing Partner of Mobility Partners, a boutique consulting and advisory services firm that works with business, technology and carrier clients. Recognized as a thought leader in Enterprise Mobility, JP’s research on collaboration and enterprise mobility is published by GigaOM Pro and he has served on panels at the CTIA, BizTech@Wharton, and Mobilize. JP is a founder of Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic and previously served as General Manager of Mobility Professional Services worldwide for the Enterprise Solutions division of Nokia. He was a Fellow in Leadership New York, received a MA from University of Pennsylvania’s Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies and holds an MBA from the Wharton School.

Marc Ganzi, Chief Executive Officer, Global Tower Partners

Marc C. Ganzi is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Tower Partners. Mr. Ganzi was the sole founder of Global Tower Partners (“GTP”) in 2003. As chief executive of GTP, Mr. Ganzi is responsible for all fundraising, banking and M&A activities at the company.

Mr. Ganzi has enjoyed a successful career as a real estate and telecommunications entrepreneur. Prior to the formation of Global Tower Partners, Mr. Ganzi worked as a consulting partner for DB Capital Partners in New York City from late 2000 to the summer of 2002. While at Deutsche Bank, Mr. Ganzi was tasked with assisting and overseeing the institution’s investments in the radio tower sector in Latin and North America.

Mr. Ganzi is chairman and secretary of PCIA, the wireless infrastructure trade association. He is also a member of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). Mr. Ganzi is Director of Olympus Media, LLC and the Aspen Valley Ski Club. He was named a finalist in the 2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Florida awards.

Mike Maney, Director, Influencer Management, Alcatel-Lucent

Mike Maney is director of influencer management at Alcatel-Lucent. He is an accomplished communications professional with nearly 20 years of experience in a mix of corporate and agency environments. He has served as the lead communications counsel for senior executives of two multi-billion dollar lines of business at the world’s largest information technology company, as well as senior-level counselor to three business unit presidents of Fortune 500 IT services company. He has provided communications counsel to some of the most recognized and influential players in open source, grid computing, and electronic design.

Paul McMillan, Director UC Strategy Office of the CTO, Siemens Communications (twitter @bithead001)

Paul McMillan has over 20 years of experience in the design, implementation, and management of large scale voice, video, and IP networks. He brings extensive experience across Military, Government, and Commercial markets. He joined Siemens Communications in 1996 to assist in establishing the IP networking business in the U.S. market. He has held subsequent positions in Network engineering, Engineering management, and new technology introduction. In his current role, Paul is tasked with developing the long term UC technical vision and strategy for Siemens Global customer base. He has headed several projects integrating UC with mobility, social media, virtualization, and cloud computing. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and guest blogger as well.

Francis Rabuck, Director, Real Time Asset Labs, Bentley Systems (twitter @FraBuck)

Fran Rabuck is the Director of Technology Research for Bentley Systems, where he is responsible for emerging technology research and application in the Applied Research Group. Fran has a 30 year career of contributions to the industry as a consultant, thought leader and internationally recognized expert in emerging technologies in the wireless, media and collaboration space. He serves as the team co-champion for FIATECH’s research in New Materials, Methods, Products & Equipment and is also a member of the Techcast Experts, a virtual think tank of 100 worldwide experts tracking and predicting future technology trends. In addition, he is a member of the World Future Society’s Global Advisory Board. Fran holds a B.S. degree in mathematics from Drexel University, and has earned several certifications in wireless and RFID. He is a frequent speaker/writer, advisor and judge at major technology industry events and his current research interests are in Future-Casting, Sustainability Metrics, Mobile Technology, Next-Gen User Interfaces, Robotics, Sensors and SmartGrid.

Jim Worth, Director, Global Services, Merck (twitter @JimWorth)

Jim Worth is a Director at Merck where he supports Merck Research Labs implementing leading edge collaboration and knowledge management programs. He is keenly interested in advances in mobility applied to general knowledge worker collaboration and within the research, collaboration, and knowledge discovery processes. His prior experience includes senior IT leadership positions at Wyeth Research and Philips Electronics. He holds a BS ME from Georgia Tech, and a Marketing MBA

Mitchell Stewart, Engineering Manager, Dell Boomi

Mitchell Stewart is the Engineering Manager at Dell Boomi and is responsible for the architecture and technology decisions surrounding the AtomSphere Integration Cloud, the company’s cloud integration platform. Mitchell has worked in the software industry for over 10 years. Prior to becoming the Engineering Manager, Mitchell was the primary developer at Boomi and was the architect and lead developer of Boomi AtomSphere. Boomi was acquired by Dell in November, 2010.

Ross Turk, Senior Director of Communities, Talend

Ross Turk is the Senior Director of Communities for Talend, responsible for building a strategic relationship with users, contributors, and open source developers. Ross brings more than 15 years of experience creating software, managing complex IT systems, and helping companies understand and serve developers. He led all community management at SourceForge.net, the net’s largest open source community.

Greg Lowe, Enterprise Social Networking Strategist, Yammer

Greg Lowe (@Greg2dot0) has over 20 years of experience in Fortune 500 companies. Initially within various roles of IT, then shifting his efforts to Social Business, Enterprise 2.0 and Communications. His broad based experience gives him a unique perspective on the challenges faced within many IT organizations and realizes that the emergent Social Business require a strong partnership between the business and IT. Greg’s recent efforts has made Alcatel-Lucent one of the most successful early adopters of social business solutions. Greg now works for Yammer as the Enterprise Social Networking Strategist to help customers understand how to blend the technologies and behaviors to achieve business success using these platforms. Greg also is the customer advocate inside of Yammer.

Chuck Sacco, President, Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic, Vice President Client Strategy, Movitas

Chuck Sacco is a technology entrepreneur, with a number of company and product launches under his belt. His most recent initiative was the sale of PhindMe Mobile, a mobile technology company which he co-founded and led as CEO, to Movitas. Movitas is a mobile technology company focused on the travel, tourism and hospitality markets. PhindMe was Chuck’s second startup, previously launching an enterprise technology consulting business. He grew the consulting and client development operations of that self-funded startup before the business was sold to what is now Infor. Chuck’s career includes a track-record of launching products and growing businesses in the fields of enterprise software, business process management, and mobile technologies.

Ron Braunfeld, Vice President, Business Development, Where (acquired by eBay)

Ron brings over 15 years experience in sales and business development to Where, Inc. Ron joined the team from Mapquest where he served as the Director of Business Development and played an instrumental role in the company’s dramatic growth. During his tenure at MapQuest, Ron (and his team) was responsible for over 20 Million in new revenue opportunities in the wireless, print, and software businesses. Prior to MapQuest, Ron served as Strategic Account Executive for eCal Corporation – bringing in new accounts such as AT&T, CBS, Switchboard, ZDNet, Net2Phone, Disney. Ron was also active in inner city Philadelphia successfully operating one of the first for-profit graffiti removal businesses in the nation. Ron has a BA from the University of New Hampshire and a MA from Temple University. Ron resides in Philadelphia area with his wife and 3 children and enjoys competing in triathlons in his free time. Follow Ron on Twitter @rbraunfeld.

Mike Anthony, Regional Vice President of Sales, Millenial Media

As Regional Vice President of Sales, Mike Anthony joined Millennial Medial in October 2009 and leads the Mid-Atlantic Sales organization. Mike is a sixteen year veteran of media sales, with over 10 years in developing interactive advertising solutions, and today serves a key role in promoting the uniqueness of mobile to help marketers achieve their broader business goals. Prior Millennial Media, Mike held sales positions at AOL, Advertising.com, Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, and CNet Networks. Mike is also a veteran who has served in the United States Marine Corps.

Sam Abadir, Chairman and CTO, appMobi

Appmobi’s Chairman and CTO, Sam Abadir is a practicing IP lawyer and software engineer. Prior to co-founding appMobi, he worked for Concurrent, a leading company in the Video On Demand (VOD) market, as a legal and technical consultant. Sam is a seasoned entrepreneur, having founded two other companies, LiquidSite and Zelo Technologies, which developed super-scalable file systems for video and rich media. Sam served as Zelo’s CEO and was able to raise $5m in venture funding, post 2000 crash, recruiting a high-powered board and executive management team. Zelo was able to assemble a world class technology team exclusively from Harvard, MIT, and Cal Tech. Sam is a graduate of MIT with a BS in Math, and from the MIT Sloan School with a BS in Operations Management. Sam also received a JD with distinction from the University of Iowa School of Law.

Bruce M. Hernandez, Founder & Managing Partner, Spire Capital Partners

Mr. Hernandez is a founder and managing member of Spire Capital Partners, a private equity fund which manages funds totaling $580 million that provides growth and buyout capital to small market companies in the media, communications, information services and business services industries.

Prior to co-founding Spire Capital, Mr. Hernandez co-founded and was Chief Executive Officer of Waller-Sutton Media Partners, a private equity fund focused on the media and communications industries. Prior to Waller-Sutton, Mr. Hernandez was the Chief Financial Officer of Horizon Cellular Group, a cellular telephone company with operations in six states. While at Horizon, Mr. Hernandez was responsible for all aspects of the company’s financial operations and oversaw the sale of the company. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Vermont and a Master of Business Administration degree from New York University. Mr. Hernandez currently serves as a Director of Just Marketing International, Ariston Global and Certiport.

Yaron Eitan, Founder and Managing Partner, Selway Capital LLC

Mr. Eitan has over twenty-five years of experience acquiring, building and exiting businesses. In addition to being the founder and managing partner of Selway Capital LLC, a middle market focused private equity firm, Yaron serves as a partner of SCP Partners, a private equity investment firm with multiple funds under management. SCP Partners specializes in the telecommunications, defense and security, and education industries. Previously, Mr. Eitan was the co-founder of Reshef Technologies, a specialty munitions company, from August 1984 to August 1987, the President of Patlex, an industrial and patent enforcement holding company, from October 1987 to February 1989, and founder and CEO of Geotek Communications, a wireless communications company, from March 1989 to May 1998. In 1998, Mr. Eitan founded Selway Partners, a technology-sector holding company. Selway Partners was sold to SCP Partners in 2002, at which time Mr. Eitan became one of the partners of SCP Partners. In April 2007, Mr. Eitan launched Vector Intersect Security Acquisition Corporation, a special purpose acquisition company, which acquired Cyalume Technologies Holdings, Inc. in December 2008. Mr. Eitan is a director of Cyalume Technologies, DVTel, Inc., Software Technology, Inc. and Magnolia Broadband, Inc.

Mr. Eitan served in the Israeli Defense Forces for six years, where he reached the rank of Major. He received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Haifa University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

David Berkman, Managing Partner, Associated Partners, LP

David J. Berkman is Managing Partner of Associated Partners, LP, an investment firm primarily engaged in the telecommunications, media and internet market segments. Associated Partners’ portfolio includes investments in PEG Broadband (wireless backhaul provider), AP Wireless Infrastructure Partners (ground lease and rooftop easement purchaser), a number of tower development companies, Current Communications, Inc., and LifeShield Security. Mr. Berkman serves as a director on the boards of public companies ICG and Entercom Communications Corp. Civically, he serves on the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Science, and the Board of Trustees of The Franklin Institute. Mr. Berkman has a B.S. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.