Roger Perryman
Roger is currently doing private consulting advisory work along with organization and talent mentorship. Roger is an innovative goal-oriented communications, media, ICT, and high tech executive with a passion to discover, advise, and drive business outcomes coupled with a strong passion for establishing, training, mentoring and leading energetic top producing teams. Roger has held leadership positions across a wide spectrum of organizational functions at Alcatel, Lucent, HPE, and Ericsson and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to help guide the industry and organizations through the Industrial 4.X Digital Transformation. Roger is a high energy, team-oriented, democratic, inclusive, and entrepreneurial executive. Roger’s formal background is in electronics and computer science with numerous personal and professional development involvements and awards over his 30+ year career.
Roger Perryman
Advisory Board Chair
Principal Owner, Roger Perryman Consulting
Katherine Winchester
Vice President of Operations,
Canadian Telecommunications Association
Samer Bishay
Samer Bishay is President and CEO of Iristel & Ice Wireless, Canada’s leading provider of wireless and wireline IP services. As Iristel’s founder, Samer led the company from a small startup to an international telecommunications service provider with domestic infrastructure licenses on three continents (North America, Europe and Africa). Samer oversees global and domestic strategies for Iristel and Ice Wireless and their various brands such as Sugar Mobile. He ensures business objectives are in line with telecommunications trends; guaranteeing customers continued success in highly competitive markets. Well known in the telecommunications field, Samer is a frequent contributor to various public platforms; from newspapers and television to social media and industry websites. Samer also actively participates in many public forums that are helping shape Canadian broadband policy; a key to Canada’s future, especially related to rural broadband development and bridging the digital divide. A licenced jet pilot, Samer was appointed Honorary Colonel of 34 Signal Regiment of the Canadian Armed Forces in 2019. In this role, Colonel Bishay serves as an advocate for the Regiment and the CAF in general; and he helps strengthen the military’s bond with the community. Prior to founding Iristel, Samer was a lead systems engineer in the Radarsat program at the Canadian Space Agency. He is a graduate of the Space & Communications program at York University, with an Honors Bachelor of Science Degree.
Samer Bishay
CEO, Iristel
President and CEO of Ice Wireless
Jodi Baxter
Jodi Baxter is a highly accomplished professional with over 20 years of experience in the telecom industry. She currently serves as the Vice-president of 5G & IoT Connectivity at TELUS, where she leads a dynamic team that drives digital transformation across IoT platforms, enabling businesses to harness the power of data and 5G technology to achieve their operational goals.
Jodi’s journey with TELUS began after graduating from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, majoring in Marketing. She has since obtained an MBA from the University of Victoria and has held various positions in Product Marketing, contributing significantly to TELUS’ success in areas such as High-Speed Internet for Business, Optik TV for Business, and TELUS Health. Currently, she leads the 5G & IoT Connectivity team, responsible for product development, implementation, and day-to-day support for over 2M connected devices.
Jodi Baxter
Vice-president of 5G & IoT Connectivity, TELUS
NAMIR ANANI
Namir Anani, President and CEO of the Information and Communications Technology Council (ictc-ctic.ca), is the chief strategist and driving force in bringing ICTC’s world-class centre of expertise and services to industry, education and government; enabling Canada’s advancement as a leader in innovation, productivity in the global economy. Before joining ICTC, Namir previously led Policy Development & Research at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). He has also held several executive leadership roles in both the private and public sectors including the Department of Canadian Heritage (Director General & CEO), CGI consulting, Nortel, and Novartis (Switzerland). Mr. Anani’s experience extends to; strategic policy development and implementation, learning and capacity building, business transformation, national/international strategic alliances, economic and market research, and technology innovation. Namir holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Salford (UK) and holds Professional Engineer designation in Ontario (P. Eng.). He is also a board member of the Women in Communications and Technology.
Namir Anani
President & CEO, Information and
Communications Technology Council (ICTC)
VANESSA LITTLE
With over 25 years experience in various roles in network and system architecture, mobile video system architecture and governance in both telco and retail sectors, Vanessa has developed a diverse toolset. Vanessa spent much of her career as a contractor, consulting for nearly every telco as well as major retailers in North America over the years. Having worked as everything from unix sysadmin to Chief Technical Officer with a number of leadership and architectural roles in between, Vanessa has contributed to technologies from mobile, enterprise data centre, multi-national networks and beyond. Now at Interdynamix Systems (www.interdynamix.com) as the Global CTO, Van is focused on creating leading innovative solutions that address the current and upcoming market by leveraging commercial hardware and software as well as Open Source technologies in useful solutions that solve for specific problems. This role has her speaking at conferences around the world, and spreading the word about the next generation of technologies. A member of Women of Openstack, and Women in Comms, Vanessa is active in showcasing and championing women in tech fields. Currently splitting her time in various open source communities, Vanessa was the Chair of the Technical Steering Committee of Open Source Mano, is a member of the Layer 123 NFV advisory board, a Linux Foundation Board Member, and spear headed the VNF Onboarding open source community. Vanessa attended the University of Toronto where she majored in Computer Science and Astro-Physics. Vanessa currently makes her home in Toronto Canada, where she enjoys spending her free time playing hockey, tennis and fishing.
Vanessa Little
Global Chief Technology Officer
Interdynamix
Tess Van Thielen
Tess Van Thielen is a Canadian Marketing Executive known for delivering exceptional business results and building high performing teams. Tess has deep experience in Telecommunications and Technology – she has held a variety of roles in product management, segment management, marketing, operations and strategic planning.
Tess spent 17 years at Rogers Communications. In her last Rogers role, as the Vice President of Advanced Services at Rogers for Business Tess led the strategy, business development and commercialization of 5G, Internet of Things, Data Centre, and Advanced Network solutions portfolio. As the GM, Enterprise Wireless, Tess was accountable for a $2B P&L including product & commercial strategy. T
Prior to joining Rogers in 2005, Tess lived in Australia for 8 years and worked in the telecommunications industry in product management and product development.