MWC Barcelona 2026

Sadayuki Abeta

Dr. Sadayuki Abeta is Chief Open RAN Strategist in NTT DOCOMO for creating open RAN ecosystem globally and shaping them to meet customer and service provider needs. He is also CTO in OREX SAI.

Since joining NTT DOCOMO, INC in 1997, He has been working for research, standardization, and development of the UMTS/W-CDMA, HPSA, LTE, LTE-Advanced and5G. From 2005 to 2009, he was a vice chairman of 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 and rapporteur of LTE and LTE-Advanced in 3GPP TSG RAN WG1. From 2018-2022, he was a General Manager of the Radio Access Network Development Department, which is responsible for development of LTE, 5G, X-haul and satellite communications.

He received the Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Communication Engineering from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan in 1997.

Femi Adeyemi

Dr. Femi Adeyemi is Vice President and Head of Strategic Product Management at 1Finity, a Fujitsu company. He is responsible for engaging the wireless industry in the 5G Open RAN ecosystem, with an emphasis in wireless network design, development, and deployment, to help mobile operators around the world deliver on the promise of 5G and beyond.

Femi has over 25 years of experience in the wireless and communications network industry. Prior to joining 1Finity, he drove technology and product strategy for LTE and voice in 3G/4G macrocell and femtocell product lines at Airvana Inc (later acquired by Commscope and Ericsson). He has also held various senior technical and management roles at Motorola, Engim and Elbera (a company he founded). Femi holds a BS, MS, and Ph.D. in electrical engineering.

Lorenzo Casaccia

Lorenzo leads the Qualcomm Standards & Industry Organization Department as part of Qualcomm’s CTO Staff. His department is responsible for Qualcomm’s activities in standards related to cellular & spectrum technologies, video coding and multimedia, compute and semiconductors, automotive, AI & regional standards organizations.

Changsoon Choi

Dr. Changsoon Choi is Vice President at Deutsche Telekom in Germany, where he is driving AI-based NW transformation including AI-RAN, AI-native NW, etc.
Prior to his current role at DT, he was responsible for the 5G E2E infrastructure at SK Telecom and the world 1st 5G commercialization in Korea. His industry experience also includes positions at NTT DOCOMO Communication Laboratories Europe GmbH in Germany, the Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics (IHP) GmbH in Germany, and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan.
He holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Yonsei University in Korea, as well as an MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States.

Yigal Elbaz

Yigal oversees the global mobile and fixed network technology direction for AT&T, which includes the design of the company’s 5G infrastructure, AT&T’s software-defined networking initiative, protecting and monetizing AT&T’s intellectual property portfolio, and network software automation platforms. His responsibilities include network architecture, standards, planning, development, testing and certification of infrastructure and device technologies.

Yigal previously served as senior vice president of Network Engineering and Operations where he led the engineering and operations of AT&T’s mobility and voice core networks; common IP backbone network; transport and cloud engineering as well as global monitoring of AT&T’s network; tier 3 advanced technical support; business continuity planning and AT&T’s Global Technology Operations Center, which provides centralized command operations.

He also served as senior vice president of Wireless and Access Technology where he was responsible for wireless and wireline access network architecture design and the technology roadmap. Yigal also led ecosystem and innovation through AT&T’s Foundry and his focus on understanding and utilizing the startup community. Through his many assignments, Yigal brings strong leadership and key experiences to deliver advanced access technologies and innovative products and services with speed and agility.

Yigal serves as Chairman of the board for the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS). Yigal also serves on the boards of 5G Americas and the O-RAN ALLIANCE.

Yigal has an MBA from the College of Management Academic Studies and his Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Business Management from Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and two sons.

Lilac Ilan

Lilac Ilan is the global head of business development, AI-powered operations at NVIDIA, collaborating with the global telco ecosystem to drive adoption of AI to transform operations, specifically in Autonomous Networks, customer experience, and employee productivity enhancement.

Before joining NVIDIA, Ilan spent ~20 years with AT&T, where she led several of the company's key strategic growth areas, including IoT, 5G, edge and next-generation networking.

Ilan is renowned for her ability to transform emerging technologies into successful business ventures and for applying strategic approaches to address challenges.

Henrik Jansson

Henrik Jansson is Vice President and Head of North America Business Development for the Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. With more than two decades in wireless telecommunications, he has built deep expertise spanning both technical product leadership and commercial business development.

Henrik’s career has taken him through Europe and Northeast Asia, supporting major operators and enabling large-scale wireless deployments.

Since joining Samsung Networks in early 2023 as Head of the System Integration Business, Henrik has been instrumental in advancing the company’s vRAN and Open RAN ecosystem through strategic industry partnerships. In his current role, he leads efforts to deliver best-in-class 5G connectivity and build the foundation for 6G-era innovation in the North American market.

Henrik holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science & Entrepreneurship from Chalmers University of Technology.

Gabriel Foglander

Gabriel Foglander is Head of Strategic RAN Leadership at Ericsson, where he drives the evolution of AI-native and cloud-enabled RAN capabilities towards 6G. Since joining Ericsson in 2016, he has held roles spanning commercial management, product management, and technical and solution sales, with a strong focus on market and product fit to secure customer success. Before Ericsson, he worked in management consulting and engineering-driven industries across mining, metals, and industrial productivity. Gabriel holds a Master of Engineering and a Degree in Industrial Management & Organization from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Based in Sweden, he enjoys coaching youth football, travelling, and modern art.

Ari Kynäslahti

Ari Kynäslahti is the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Nokia Mobile Networks. In this role, he is responsible for shaping the business, technology, and partnership strategies for Mobile Networks, while also contributing to Nokia’s overall technology vision and strategy. He oversees Nokia Mobile Networks' portfolio and investment management, as well as the standardization and research of radio access networks across different mobile technology generations, ensuring a smooth evolution path to 6G and AI-RAN together with Bell Labs and academia.

Thomas Lips

At Deutsche Telekom, Thomas is responsible for the development and commercial introduction of disaggregated RAN across the group. Additionally, Thomas oversees Deutsche Telekom’s patent management and active participation in global standards bodies, including the O-RAN ALLIANCE and 3GPP.
With over 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, Thomas has held numerous strategic and leadership positions, including serving as CTIO and board member of T-Mobile Poland and CTIO of Deutsche Telekom IoT.

Lucía de Miguel

Manager of Open RAN: Digital, Software and System development in Network Strategy and Architecture, Vodafone.
Lucía de Miguel holds a Telecommunications Engineer Master Degree and joined Vodafone (then Airtel) in 1999. She has a strong background in Network in both Engineering and Operations, moving to management roles since 2011. Joining to the Group Vodafone Organization in 2013, to take up the leadership of different areas, starting with Interconnection Voice Core Engineering, playing a key role in the successful delivery of Voice Core network transformation program (VoLTE migration, IMS virtualization, Data Base evolution or fixed integration).

From April 2022, Lucía joins the OPEN RAN team, to work as Digital, Software & System Development Manager. Her focus is to lead the overall Radio Software Product team, including the areas of RAN Automation (Service Management and Orchestration, RAN Intelligent Controller) and Radio Apps, linked with AI-RAN strategy.

Paul Miller

Paul Miller is Chief Technology Officer at Wind River, driving the company’s global technology vision across intelligent systems, real-time operating platforms, cloud-native infrastructure, and AI-driven solutions. With nearly three decades of leadership in advanced technologies, he leads innovation that powers mission-critical aerospace and defense, automotive, industrial, and telecom systems—enabling intelligent, secure, and autonomous operations at scale. A key architect of Wind River’s cloud and edge strategy, Paul has shaped the company’s 5G cloud platform, next-generation Linux and VxWorks technologies, and emerging AI and software-defined architectures that meet rising demand for connected, adaptive systems across industries.

Sudhakar Pandey

Redefining Connectivity: A Journey Through 22+ Years of Telecom Evolution. Pioneering Open RAN at Rakuten Mobile (Since 2020).
Leading as General Manager for Radio Access Network, driving next-generation telecom innovation.
Global Product Development Expertise - extensive experience managing large-scale Telecom & IT product development across diverse organizations (e.g., TATA, Global Cloud Xchange, Airspan).

Rob Soni

Rob Soni is responsible for all aspects of AT&T’s RAN architecture and infrastructure technical road maps for hardware and software, including baseband units, radios, antennas and all ancillary components. In addition, his team oversees certification and development for RAN hardware, software and features. His team drives AT&T’s strategy and contributions to global standards and to technical industry and government organizations.

Gabriel Brown

Gabriel covers mobile network system architecture for Omdia, including RAN, core, and service layer platforms. Key research topics include 5G to 6G transition, open RAN and AI RAN, 5G SA core, and cloud infrastructure for mobile networking. Gabriel has more than 20 years of experience as a mobile network industry analyst.

Ruth Brown

Bringing over 20 years of experience in mobile and fixed network research and design from her time at BT, Ruth is a leading authority on network evolution at Omdia. Her comprehensive knowledge, developed through hands-on leadership, spans system architecture, core network technologies, and services. A prolific inventor with over 50 mobile network technology patents, Ruth is also a passionate advocate for women in engineering.

Ruth provides insights on mobile network and RAN automation, AI and analytics, data layer, 5G/6G, and Wi-Fi. Her coverage explores leveraging new network capabilities for performance, hyper-personalized services and new revenue streams.

Sadayuki Abeta
‍Chief Open RAN Strategist, NTT DOCOMO
and CTO of OREX SAI

Femi Adeyemi
‍VP and Head of Strategic Product Management
‍1Finity

Gabriel Brown
Senior Principal Analyst, Mobile Networks
Omdia
(Moderator)

Ruth Brown
Principal Analyst, Mobile Networks
Omdia
(Moderator)

Lorenzo Casaccia
VP & Head of Technology Standards
‍Qualcomm Technologies

Changsoon Choi
‍VP, NW Intelligence and Innovation
‍Deutsche Telekom

Yigal Elbaz
‍SVP, Network CTO
‍AT&T
Founding Board Member of O-RAN ALLIANCE

Lilac Ilan
‍Head of Telecom Business Development
‍NVIDIA

Henrik Jansson
‍VP and Head of North America Business Development, Networks Business
‍Samsung Networks

Gabriel Foglander
‍Head of Strategic RAN Leadership
‍Ericsson

Ari Kynäslahti
SVP and Mobile Networks CTO
‍Nokia Mobile Infrastructure

Thomas Lips
‍Chair of the Board of O-RAN ALLIANCE and SVP RAN Disaggregation & Enablement
‍Deutsche Telekom