
Why ROCCO 100
Name | Company | Role | |
---|---|---|---|
Adeep Maharaj | MTN Global connect South Africa | Manager International Roaming | |
Ahmed Saddik | Etisalat Egypt | Roaming Commercial Manager | |
Albert Tiong | Infobip APAC | Senior Operator Partnerships Manager at Infobip | |
Alessandro Giacobazzi | Commify | Routing Manager | |
Alexandros Mygdalias | AMD Telecom | Global Carrier Relations & Business Development | |
Alexis N'Guessan | Africa Digital Connect | Co-Founder | |
Ali Al Amiry | Etisalat UAE | Chief Group Carrier and Wholesale Services | |
Anis Mbarek | VRS | Roaming | |
Ann Heyse | SIGOS | Product Marketing Manager Roaming | |
Anne Morel | Orange | VP, Carrier Sales Europe | |
Anneli Jennersjö Lundberg | CKH Innovations | Director of International Carrier Services | |
Anthony Pizzuto | Vodafone Roaming Services | Industry Manager | |
Appolinaire Kande | MTN CI | Senior Manager Roaming and Interconnect | |
Arne Casteleyn | MTN GlobalConnect | Group Head of Roaming | |
Arve Johannessen | ICE Norge | Head of Roaming and Interconnect | |
Asha Mary Thomas | Etisalat UAE | Director - Commercial Roaming/ Middle East, Africa & India | |
Assaf Landu | Radcom | VP Solutions | |
Atim Akeh-Osu | MTN | Roaming | |
Avnish Chauhan | Mobileum Inc | Co Founder, CTO, and EVP | |
Bernardo Galvao Lucas | Mobileum | Chief Marketing Officer | |
Bettina Sommer | Dimoco | Senior Vice President, Sales | |
Bobby Srinivasan | Mobileum, Inc. | CEO, Co Founder, Entrepreneur and Father | |
Cameron Dunn | AT&T | Expert Mobile Communications Manager | |
Cara Murphy | Nextgen | Director of Product Management | |
Cédric Gonin | Orange | Senior Marketing Director International Mobile Services | |
ChiaChi Lin | Taiwan Mobile | Carrier Relation & International Product Division | |
Colin Yates | Yates Fraud Consulting | Telecommunications Fraud, Risk and Investigations Consultancy, PRISM IRSF Number Database Provider | |
Daniel Heutschi | Comfone | CEO | |
Daniela Alexandrowa | Deutsche Telekom | Senior Commercial Roaming Manager | |
David Roth | Comfone | Business Development Manager | |
Dawood Ghalaieny | Cellusys | CEO | |
Derek Ma | China Mobile HK | Corporate Sales | |
Diane Lecomte | BICS | Senior Product Manager - Roaming | |
Andreas Mann | Vodafone Carrier Services | Principal Product Manager | |
Johannes Opitz | Deutsche Telekom AG | VP Commercial Roaming and Int. Mobile Wholesale | |
Duncan Rose | Commify | Routing | |
Elena Sacco | Telecom Italia | Senior Interconnect Manager | |
Elena Sokolova | VEON Wholesale Services | Manager of Operational Services | |
Erik Sluijtman | Vodafone | VP Europe | |
Farook Ruwala | Thuraya | Roaming and Interconnect Manager | |
Fergal Parkinson | TMT Analysis | Director | |
Filippo Percario | IDT | Vice President Carrier Services EMEA | |
Francesco Ferrero | Vodafone Group | Head of Testing strategy and Business Development | |
Frederic Schepens | MTN GlobalConnect | CEO MTN GlobalConnect | |
Fredrik Söderlund | Sinch | Software and Systems Security Advisor | |
Gabriella Szûros | DIGI | Roaming and interconnect Manager | |
Geok Chwee Ong | Bridge Alliance | CEO | |
Goce Talaganov | Sigos | E2E Experience Business Unit Manager | |
Gugliemo Cirillo | Commify | Roaming | |
Helena Harkness | Nextgen | Strategy | |
Hyunmi Yang | GSMA | Chief Strategy Officer | |
Ibrahim Said Kilong | MTN South Sudan | TADIG Coordinator | |
Jack Maher | Truphone | Roaming | |
James Williams | Mr Connectivity | CEO | |
Jan Willem de Haan | KPN | Wholesale Roaming | |
Javier Sendin | GSMA | Roaming Technical Director at GSMA | |
Jens Schulte-Bockum | MTN | Chief Operating Officer | |
Jesline Tan | SAP | Project Manager | |
Jesper Schlichtkrull | MTN | Roaming Hub - Wholesale | |
Joanitah Butindo | Vodafone UK | Roaming Specialist | |
Jocelyne Paquete | MTN Guinea Bissau | Roaming Co-ordinator | |
John Verna | At&T | Senior Manager, International, Alliances, and Integrations at AT&T/Clearchoice Mobility | |
John Wick | Syniverse | Senior Vice President and General Manager, Head of Global Product | |
José García | GTC | Founder | |
Julia Gullstrand | GSMA | Head of Roaming and Interconnect | |
June Driscol | LimitlessMobile | Snr Manager Roaming & Wholesale. | |
Karl Simonsen | mGage, A Vivial Company | Head of Global Messaging | |
Karmen Nagy-Stephenson | Three UK | Senior Data Core Design Engineer | |
Katarina Velickovic | Mobile Engagement | Queentel | |
Kathleen Leach | Sprint | Principal (DMTS), Global Standards & Ecosystem Development | |
Kathy Corander | Three | International Roaming Operations Manager | |
Katia Gonzalez | BICS | Head of Fraud Prevention | |
Kedar Gupte | MTN GlobalConnect | General Manager - VAS | |
Kim Jakubowski | GCA / AWN Alaska Wireless | Roaming | |
Kingsley Nsona | Rwandatel | International Roaming and Interconnect Specialist | |
Kurt Bonello | OK-Route | Founder & CEO | |
Linda Mikulová | O2 Slovakia | Interconnect Manager | |
Lisa Murray | Verizon | Director Wireless Roaming | |
Louise Lemay | Videotron | Director Wholesale Roaming, Procurement & Carrier Services | |
Marcel Ballemans | KPN NL | Wholesale Roaming | |
Marcel Stevens | BASE | Roaming Manager | |
Marinda Malan | MTN GlobalConnect | General Manager: Postpaid Segment | |
Marius Mets | Analyst at Tallinna Linnatranspordi AS | Ex-Roaming Manager, currently IoT and data analytics | |
Marjolein Medendorp | Telefonica | Roaming | |
Markus Thausing-Aichberger | A1 Group | Head of Wholesale Roaming & Mobile Solutions | |
Marta Gabanska | Orange Poland | Business Development and Specialized Sales Director | |
Mathias Hollerl | Dimoco | Managing Director | |
Mats Granryd | GSMA | Director General | |
Mauro Mele | Comfone | Roaming Operations | |
Maximilian Goldberg | Syniverse | Director of Product Management | |
Meurisse Pierre | Orange | Director Wholesale Enablers | |
Michael O'Brien | Syniverse | Sr. Vice President, Corporate Development & Strategy | |
Mihaela Ambrozie | Vodafone | VRS | |
Mihai Luca | RoamsysNext | RAEX Jedi | |
Mohamed Fawzy | Viva Kuwait | Director Roaming & Interconnection at Kuwait Telecommunication Company- VIVA | |
Mohammed Buari | MTN | International Traffic & Roaming | |
Mubarak Al Mazroa | Zain Saudi | Wholesale Executive General Manager | |
Nabil Baccouche | Etisalat | Vice President - International Roaming & Mobile Services | |
Nadya Golberg | MTS Group | Director Carrier Business Relations | |
Nasreen Ibraheem | Zain Sudan | Roaming and Interconnect Senior Manager | |
Nataliya Malay | Astelit | Head of Interconnect and Roaming Unit, Lifecell | |
Natasha Degroote | Telenet Belgium | Wholesale Roaming | |
Nick Wennekers | Tomia | Product Management Director | |
Nila Roheen | MTN | Global Connect | |
Obaid Rahman | Ooredoo Global Services | Strategy | |
Pavlina Keita | Swisscom | Roaming | |
Peter Chapman | Vodafone Ltd | Billing | |
Petter Näslund | Sinch | VP Product Management Operator Division | |
Phil Yau | Vodafone Group | IP | |
Pinchawee Rasmidatta | Telenor | Account Manager | |
Pontus Berg | Bergatrollet | Roaming Specialist | |
Rasha Yassin | MTN Yemen | Roaming and Interconnect | |
Rob Mattison | GRAPA | Consultant | |
Roula Mostratou | WIND HELLAS | Roaming Manager | |
Rui Paiva | We-Do Consulting | CEO | |
Sami Idahmad | Mobile Vikings | Wholesale and Interconnect Lead | |
Samuel Keurmeur | Orange | Roaming Product Manager | |
Sarah Keller | GMS AG | International Business Development Director | |
Sebastiaan Joustra | Vodafone Comercial Services | VP Sales & Buying Voice and Mobility | |
Sergey Niyazov | MTS Group | Head of Roaming and Interconnect | |
Shellene Hudson (Deceased) | Cable & Wireless | Roaming | |
Shikha Gupta | Airtel India | Roaming | |
Silvio Kutic | Infobip | CEO | |
Simon Gadd | Nextgen | Technology | |
Sinisa Martincevic | Infobip APAC | Operators Partnerships, Senior Operator Partnerships Manager | |
Sizo Nkosi | Infobip Africa | Operator Partnerships | |
Sofia Mota | TMN | Head of Roaming Business | |
Sonja Orovits | CKH Innovations Opportunities Development | Senior Key Account Manager | |
Stephane Chevrier | SFR | International Business Development Director | |
Stephane Dutrertre | Commify Ltd | Routing | |
Stephen Brewer | Mavenir | EVP | |
Stephen Ornadel | Mobileum | Business Development | |
Susanne Wallden | Sinch | Director of IT | |
Svetlana Grant | GSMA | Program Director | |
Theodosis Theodosiou | PrimeTel | CCO | |
Theresa Atinyi-Adade | Airtel Tigo | Senior Manager International Business | |
Thomas Laboulle | Toku World | CEO | |
Thomas Moe | Telia Company | Head of International Wholesale | |
Tina Le Grand | Sinch | Director of Engineering, real time communications | |
Tom Posti | RoamsysNext | All-rounder in roaming, IoT, A2P and transaction security | |
Torbjorn Gustavsson | Telia Carrier | Development Director - Mobile Data Solutions | |
Vait Zharri | AlbtelecomAL | Team Leader Value Added Services Team | |
Vesa Lindberg | SAP | Head of Product Management, Operator Services | |
Viligijon Suli | Albtelecom al | Core Expert | |
Virginie Debris | SAP | Vice-president, Global Product Management | |
Vivek Jhamb | Ooredoo | Group Chief International & Wholesale Officer | |
Vlad Bratu | Sigos | E2E Experience Product Manager | |
Vladimir Miho | Albtelecom al | Software Development and BSS Development Team Manager | |
Wangeci Kanjama | Safaricom PLC | Wholesale Roaming Dept | |
William Hoggarth | Commify Ltd | Routing | |
Yannik Broutin | Iliad Group | Head of Roaming and Interconnect | |
Yuemei Chen | T-Mobile Austria | Roaming Billing Expert |
Why ROCCO 100
Roaming and Interconnect wasn’t built in a day. It’s existed over 30 years and for the first time we would like to recognise the people who have made our industry what it is today, the 100 most influential people in Roaming and Interconnect.
What’s really special about this community is the many outstanding people. Some who have been on astonishing journeys in their careers, moving around the industry but always staying part of it. We have a rich culture of people helping and supporting each other and making a difference. People whose ideas and actions have made a significant contribution to the industry.
We all have people who teach us, some we know intimately, others who speak to us in conferences or whose wisdom appears only on our device screens. Many of them we admire for their commitment and for inspiring us, but we don’t always have an opportunity to share this feedback.
ROCCO 100 is a time to pay tribute
We want to generate a culture of appreciation by recognising people known and unknown who have played a part in shaping it. The ones in spotlight at conferences and the ones who quietly make a difference from their cubicle or corner desk. From Andorra to Zimbabwe there’s people in every organisation, male or female, young or old, who often get forgotten under the pressure of our day to day work.
We are therefore building a community of leaders, who will be at the forefront of sharing ideas, who will challenge each other and from whom we can all learn. When you can connect exceptional people, who knows what exceptional things our industry can produce.
The History of ROCCO 100
2019 marks the start of ROCCO 100, but the idea was on our minds for a few years already.
In 2017 a number of significant voices were crying out for more equality in telecoms. Panel sessions filled with white men, seemed to be more and more common and to a great degree the unconscious bias and traditions of our industry were not enabling women to be recognised or visible as men. The people who use the products and services we make are diverse, so it only made sense that the people who designed them so also bring diverse opinions on how they should be made. This is when we had the idea to create a survey were the most influential women in telecoms could become more visible. However, on sharing the ideas it became clear women didn’t want to be treated differently to men on any level. What we really needed was inclusion.
Some years ago the team at ROCCO also recognised that many significant people in our industry were not active on social media, they had other platforms and what they were saying and sharing was often lost, much of which was great wisdom and learnings about our industry we felt needed to be more remembered and made more visible. ROCCO Radio’s “Well Connected”, “Big Interviews” and “Mastermind” podcasts started the journey to bring visibility to people in a small way but there was still some way to go.
In April 2019 the team at ROCCO decided that as well as the other industry wide initiatives we were doing such as “The Innovators”, there was also need to uncover who were the people behind the best companies in our industry and what were they doing.
We knew that great companies usually had great leaders, but leaders weren’t always the ones at the top or in the spotlight. We knew by identifying the progress of individuals in the industry, we could also spot their progress and encourage learning, mentorship and inspire a new generation of people to be part of our roaming and interconnect world.
However, then came the difficult part. We didn’t want the selection of these people only to be based on the number of people who voted for them (wouldn’t everyone just vote for their boss? and would the boss ask them to do that?) it needed to have more integrity.
There needed to be reasons why the people were selected and our methodology needed as with all our projects to have integrity. Different to all other 130+ research projects we have conducted, this was not about or product or service this was about people. People, with all their complexity, personality and characteristics, we would be recognising individuals which whomever they worked for had an influence on the industry.
A complex task lay ahead for the team. Months of debate ensued, calling in confidants from the industry to test theories. This was our most important research project of all time and the first time any organisation in our industry had even attempted to do this.
In October 2019 we came to our conclusions on our scope and methodology:
- The scope is Roaming and Interconnect people in any kind of company, role and at any level, anywhere in the world
- Who have done influential things in the last year.
- Who were necessarily “influencers” in the social media sense, they could be known or simple unknown to the industry.
- They would be rated based on several factors, number of votes, characteristics and examples of influential things they had done
- We would have two stages, nominations first, then voting, to ensure we had generated enough awareness of the programme and ensure inclusion.
- We decided at the analysis stage to have a panel of people who were known for identifying leadership in people, analytical and who would be able to judge what was influential and what wasn’t
- Above all we wanted to be sure we identified extra-ordinary people whomever and where ever they were and we gave them some visibility and a chance to be heard
Our methodology is documented and our dates are set and we have now started the most interesting study of our history which we believe will change the course of the industry and lead us all into a new chapter. ROCCO 100 connects the most influential people in our sector to see what our industry can do next.

ROCCO 100 Methodology
The nomination phase of ROCCO 100 is very simple. Anyone in the Industry can nominate anyone in the sector of Roaming and Interconnect for what they consider to be influential work within 2019 (Rocco employees including its directors are not eligible to nominate or be nominated). Here are the steps:
- The nominator enters the survey.
- They choose 3 characteristics from a list of 12 they consider are representative of an influential person.
- They then choose 3 people they would like to nominate.
- They provide their contact details incase ROCCO needs to check anything about the nominated people.
- The contact details will also be used to notify the nominators about when to vote.
On the 19th November 2019 the nominations close and on the 20th of November all the nominated people will be listed here and voting will be begin.
On the 2oth November 2019 until February 29th 2020 voting is open.
Voters will have seen the list of nominated people and can choose to vote for up to three people.
- They will enter the ROCCO 100 Voting survey.
- They will select a nominated person
- They will state which three characteristics represent that specific person
- They will state in a sentence why they think the nominated person is most influential from their perspective.
- They will have the opportunity to do this for three people.
Voting closes on the 29th February. Then it’s over to ROCCO to analyse the data.
The analysis stage runs between 1st March and 20th March 2020. The point of this stage is to make a ranking of all the people according to their three elements of their votes which all hold equal importance in the overall ranking.
- The number of votes they have received. ROCCO will rank all the people according to the number of votes they have received.
- The Characteristics Score*. ROCCO will rank all the people according to the scores they have gained on their characteristics.
- The Panel Opinion. ROCCO will use a panel of judges who will rank the ROCCO 100 people according to the statements given by the voters as to why they are influential. The panel will not know the identity of the people who were voted for, only the statement why they were chosen.
- ROCCO will then bring these three ranking together into an overall score and final ROCCO 100 ranking.
*The Characteristics Score is calculated as follows.
- At nomination stage every nominator first states which 3 characteristics they feel best represents an influential person. ROCCO ranks the characteristics chosen by the industry by counting the number of times a nominator selected them. This is felt to be a fair way to judge what characteristics make up an influential person. ROCCO therefore does no prescribe which are the most important characteristics, the nominators choose that.
- ROCCO selects the top ten characteristics and gives them a score based on how important the industry feels they are. ROCCO does not disclose the scoring for each characteristic.
- At Voting stage, the voters choose three characteristics which they feel best represent the person they are voting for, the scores for the characteristics are calculated, creating an individual characteristic score for each and every vote.
- All the scores are added up for an individual and all ROCCO 100 are ranked according to characteristic score.
The communication of the ROCCO 100 will take place on April 1st 2020.
- The Top Ten people will be notified on Wednesday 14th March 2020. They will not know what ranking they have made but that they are in the top ten.
- They will be invited to take part in interviews and a photoshoot at a location to be determined.
- They will be invited to give key note speeches at ROCCO’s event in May 2020.
- April 1st 2020 ROCCO will announce the ROCCO 100 by press release and from its website.
The final stage is that the ROCCO 100 top ten will be invited to speak at ROCCO’s event in May 2020.
- They will be asked to make a keynote speech of their choice at the event.
- They will receive an award at ROCCO’s awards event on the evening of the event.
