Benoit Joly has recently been appointed as VP of Technicolor’s Home Network and Applications Group, building on over 15 years experience in various marketing and business roles across the Telecom and Media sectors.

He began his career at MCI WorldCom, where he was responsible for the European marketing of network solutions that enabled telecom operators to enhance their internet access, applications and service portfolios.
He then joined Thomson in 2003, helping to create the Company’s VoIP devices strategy, before becoming involved with Video-over-IP products and systems in 2004, heading marketing and pre-sales efforts for what has become one of the world’s leading IPTV and Mobile TV solutions.

Benoit is now based in France, where he is responsible for developing and selling a comprehensive range of home network applications and technologies for broadband cable and telecom operators. This role includes coordinating Technicolor's Digital Home strategy and marketing activities and involves integrating work in user experience, applications and software architectures across the Connect Division's market-leading portfolio of Set Top Boxes, Home Gateways and Media Tablets - as well as with the additional connected devices needed to support home security, energy management and other emerging application areas.

He has a Master's Degree in Network and IT Engineering from E.S.I.E.E and an MBA from E.S.S.E.C, having majored there in Strategy and Marketing.

David Noguer Bau is the Head of Carrier Ethernet and Multiplay Marketing for Juniper Networks EMEA. He has extensive experience in Carrier Data Services with special emphasis on next generation Multiplay services and network architectures. Prior to joining Juniper Networks, Mr. Noguer Bau spent seven years at Nortel where he was a Business Development Manager specializing in the Carrier Ethernet and Broadband areas. Before Nortel he worked at Eicon-Dialogic as Technical Manager in Spain. Mr. Noguer has wide experience speaking at international Conferences. He holds an IT engineering degree from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) and has an executive MBA from EADA Barcelona.

Paul is Vice-President of Strategy at ADB, with specific focus on middleware and consumer experience. Paul concentrates on making digital television more enjoyable for consumers, while simultaneously making business easier and more profitable for pay TV operators. Paul is also ADB Group’s key representative within the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) consortium. He has been pushing forward the MHP and GEM specifications for twelve years Previously, Paul was the Chief Technology Officer at Osmosys, where he spent 5 years defining and deploying standards-based software solutions in DVB, tru2way & Blu-ray markets.

Prior to this he spent seven years driving technology strategy for Philips, working on interactive digital television, wireless home networking, personal video recording and internet services. He went to Philips from Olivetti Personal Computers where he worked on the Olivetti Envision, the first real consumer PC with Video CD playback. Paul qualified in Electronics and Telecommunications at the Southampton Institute of Higher Education in the UK.

Ronald joined ActiveVideo Networks following the acquisition of Avinity Systems, a European developer of cloud-based interactive television solutions. As CEO and co-founder of Avinity, Ronald pioneered innovative approaches that provide common interactive experiences across all CE devices, including digital set-top boxes and CI+ enabled TVs.

Prior to co-founding Avinity, Ronald was CTO/co-founder of No Wires Needed, a WiFi pioneer that was acquired by Intersil. Ronald managed development teams for the company following that acquisition and subsequent mergers with GlobespanVirata and Conexant Systems. Ronald is the holder of several patents and contributed to several IEEE 802.11 standards.

Rob van den Dam is Global Telecom Sector Leader at the IBM Institute for Business Value and responsible for strategic thought leadership in Communications. In this role he develops future agendas, industry outlooks and business value realization studies for the telecommunications sector. He has more than 15 years of expertise in multimedia, content, emerging distribution channels, mobile technology, and IPTV. He periodically give presentations or chair panel sessions on conferences, and has written or co-written numerous papers and articles on telecommunications and media, including Telco2015, five telling years, four future scenarios’, ‘Changing the Way we Communicate’, ‘Fighting for Viewers – IPTV versus Internet TV’, ‘Primetime for Mobile Television‘, ‘Cash, Credit, or Phone’ and ‘Mobile Advertising, Ads on the Move’.

Jean-Michel joined Scientific-Atlanta in 2006 as Director of Strategic Marketing & Business Development EMEA. After the acquisition by Cisco, he became in charge of the video strategy in Europe for the cable, digital media and IPTV business. His expertise enables him to help Cisco and its customers anticipate industry challenges and market transitions to capture the business evolution and consumer services innovation. Prior to joining Cisco, Jean-Michel started his career in the financial services industry with Accenture in Luxembourg and Belgium.

In 2000, he joined B2Build in Paris, a b2b e-commerce trading platform start-up. In 2001 he was appointed General Manager for Sony Network Services Europe to develop new business strategies based on new distribution platforms. Jean-Michel holds an MSc in Civil Engineering from ULg and a MBA from IAG (UCL).

As Director, Corporate Communications at Omnifone, the world’s leading independent provider of cloud-based unlimited music services for consumer electronics vendors, ISPs, automotive and mobile companies, Tim is responsible for promoting Omnifone internationally. Tim has been instrumental in launching the company’s award winning MusicStation® powered unlimited music services across 20 countries with partners HP, BSkyB, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone and Telenor. Tim has worked with Omnifone since the beginning of 2007. With over a decade’s experience in mobile, gaming and new media sectors in a variety of agency, in-house and consulting roles, Tim has worked with a wide range of brands including Microsoft, InfoSpace, HTC and Orange UK where he helped launch the operator’s first 3G handsets, music, TV and entertainment services. Omnifone is based in Island Studios, London with regional headquarters in Asia Pacific. 

Pierre Hunter, VP of EMEA at Verimatrix, is a seasoned professional with 25 years of international business experience in the telecommunications and pay-TV industries. Most recently, he was Director of Business Development at Irdeto where he developed and implemented the company’s global IPTV commercial strategy. Prior to Irdeto, Hunter was instrumental in the successful deployment of Amino Communication’s set-top box solutions in the EMEA market. His additional in senior executive positions include founder and director of a Netherlands-based pay-media consultancy, and general manager at Mindport Europe, a global solutions provider of media commerce technologies for pay-TV and the Internet. Hunter received his Bachelor of Commerce and MBA degree from University of Pretoria in South Africa. He is fluent in Dutch and Afrikaans.

Dr. Klaus Illgner-Fehns received his diploma degree in electrical engineering with an emphasize on communications engineering at Aachen University of Technology, Germany, in 1991. Subsequently he got employed as a research assistant at the Institut for Communications Engineering, RWTH Aachen, where he conducted research in the area of digital image processing, and coding and transmission of digital video. In January 1998 he earned a doctorate with summa cum laude in electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen for his thesis on "Scalable Video Coding".

The development of algorithms for processing of digital images in digital cameras and the implementation on specifically designed DSP based embedded systems on chip, as well as contributions to the design of those chips were the main topics of his work at Texas Instruments, Dallas, USA.

In July 2000 Dr. Illgner joined Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, in Munich, where he was responsible for a team developing new technologies in the field of multimedia communications in heterogeneous networks. Technologies for the utilization of networks with new service concepts, in particular including broadcast, were on the agenda. As a technical consultant he supported at management level the development of a company position on mobile broadcast and got the company involved in the relevant technical fora.

In November 2004 he was appointed managing director of the Institut für Rundfunktechink (IRT), Munich. As research institute of the public broadcasters in Germany, Austria and Switzerland the main focus is on building up strong expertise in new broadcast and media technologies but also telecommunications knowledge. IRT’s aim is to support the European broadcast community in technical issues including the economical impact on the market. In parallel he started to position the IRT internationally as a research and technology company.

Michael Lantz is the CEO of Accedo Broadband, the leading provider of applications for for IPTV and Connected TV. Michael has more than 12 years experience from emerging broadband services and TV technologies, and the overall convergence between the telecom and media industries. Prior to founding Accedo in 2004, Mr Lantz was a senior management consultant responsible for broadband services at Nordic telecom and media consultancy Digiscope. Michael Lantz holds degrees in Engineering Physics and Business Administration.

Kevin is a chartered engineer with an MBA who has become recognized as one of the global pioneers of the connected home. Formerly a group captain in the Royal Air Force, he opted for a dramatic career change when he saw how a new generation of web-based platforms could be used to monitor and control devices in the home.

He founded Intamac in 2000 to exploit the technology and launch a range of new value added services for the mass consumer market. The company has now deployed platforms with major service providers on three continents to support home monitoring, environmental management, telecare and automation.

Kevin has lectured on business management and published papers at national and international conferences. At the 2008 European Business Awards, Kevin won a Ruban d’Honneur as European Entrepreneur of the Year, while Intamac won Best New Innovation. He remains keen on sports and plays squash, golf and soccer – when anyone will have him in the team.

As member of the core team responsible for Deutsche Telekom’s group wide “Innovation Management” he is actually in charge of assessing new and upcoming technologies and the development of new products and service concepts.

Being connected with CE industry representatives and the joint development of new service ideas and concepts was always his personal passion. In 1996 he joined Deutsche Telekom’s internet service provider spin off “T-Online International AG” as on of the first one hundred employees.

Mr. Milczewsky has a quite long track record developing communication services. His first job at former “Deutsche Bundespost” was the certification of TV terminals for “Bildschirmtext”, the first interactive videotext system in Germany in the mid 80ies. He is member and delegate of the Home Gateway Initiative from its early beginnings and represented Deutsche Telekom in various standardization bodies and foras, like ETSI and DLNA.

Klaus Milczewsky is a graduate from Ludwig Georgs Gymnasium (Darmstadt, classical education high school, 1977) and holds a diploma on electrical engineering (Dieburg 1981).

Trond Neergaard is a world-class expert in broadband value added services, software and distribution in the Service Provider and Technology market from the inception of software as a service era. Trond is the Founder and Managing Partner at Cloudberry Associates and is a Member of the Board of Directors at CTAM Europe.

Cloudberry Associates is a business, marketing and strategy consultancy focusing on Telecom (Cable and Telco), Vendors/ISV and Investors/VC, specializing in Value Added Services (VAS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) to subscribers With hands-on experience and knowledge of delivering business value, combined with a pragmatic and straightforward approach really making the difference.

Most recently he held the position of Vice-President of Worldwide Sales, GM EMEA at Radialpoint and prior to that as Vice-President of the ISP business at F-Secure Corporation where he lead all aspects of F-Secure’s global ISP business. He was on the executive teams at both companies.

Peter Percosan has served as Cable Europe Labs' first Chief Technology Officer since June 2009. He began his cable career in the mid 1990s as VP Strategy at Libit Signal Processing, an early leader in the development of Docsis technology. Libit was sold to Texas Instruments in 1999. Percosan is also a partner at digital-strategy, a boutique media technology and digital service consulting firm with offices in Lausanne, Paris, and San Francisco. Percosan has extensive experience working with high-growth technology companies, and currently acts as an adviser to several early-stage companies. He is a frequent speaker on cable technology and strategy.

Rolf Uwe Placzek (1969 / German National) - CEO Educational Background
1990 – 1995 Technical University Chemnitz, Germany, Master degree in Mechanical Engineering Executive Experience
1995 – 1998 Schönefeld & Partner, Germany, Managing Partner
1998 – 2000 SKW (now BASF), MEYCO Switzerland, Deputy Head of Design and Development
2000 – 2001 SBC Telecommunications/TDC, diAx, Switzerland, Head of Mobile Data
2001 – 2006 Siemens, Switzerland, Business Program Manager, Head of Music2You (M2Y)
2006 – current Acetrax AG, Switzerland, CEO Awards Innovation Award Siemens Com 2005, for Music2You

Christopher Schouten is VP of Broadband and Media 3.0 Strategy, Irdeto, the global leader in securing and delivering premium content and digital assets. He joined the company in 2001 and has held various positions in Marketing and Product Management, and is a specialist in Broadband, Digital TV and digital media technologies, especially related to content security and user experience. Christopher focuses on enhancing the consumer experience of digital television by enabling Pay-TV operators to offer highly personalised and tailored content to each individual. Prior to joining Irdeto, he held various positions in fixed and mobile telecommunications in The Netherlands and the United States. He has a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of Iowa, where he graduated with honors. In his spare time, Christopher is an avid digital media technology enthusiast.

Anthony’s professional career spans 32 years with 15 years in the British Royal Air Force as a Telecommunications and Cryptographic Systems Engineer and 17 years in Digital Communications Systems, STB Technologies most notably in the field of Open Standards for interactive Television. He is presently the DVB MHP Commercial Module Chairman and co-author of “Interactive TV Standards – A Guide to JavaTV, MHP & OCAP” published by Elsevier.

Dr Andy Tiller, VP Marketing ip.access: Andy is VP of Marketing for ip.access, a leading supplier of picocell and femtocell infrastructure for 2G and 3G mobile networks. He is a Board member of the Femto Forum, and vice-chairman of the Marketing Working Group. Previously, Andy was CTO for ShoZu, a GSM Award-winning mobile service for sharing videos and photos between mobile phones and websites such as YouTube and Flickr. Andy was responsible for the ShoZu service roadmap, and the underlying technology. Before ShoZu, Andy was VP of Product Marketing with Geneva Technology, a provider of telecoms billing software, where he helped to create a successful strategy for the mobile billing market. Andy holds a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry from Queens' College, Cambridge.

Olivier is VP, Product Management for OpenTV’s Advanced Advertising solutions. Olivier also held Product Management and Business Development positions at OpenTV globally. He was involved with technology start-ups active in the first deployments of personalization & profiling solution aimed at the broadcast industry.

Prior, Olivier worked in advertising with Wunderman and Young & Rubicam as a consultant for account such as Ford, P&G, Erickson or IBM on large scale marketing initiatives driving strategies around television advertising, interactive marketing and Customer Relationship Management. He holds a Bachelor in Economic Science from the HEC Switzerland in 1995, a Master from Northwestern University and an MBA from the London Business School.

Kurt Scherf studies developments in home networks, residential gateways, digital entertainment, technology development in the housing market, and residential and building management and controls. Kurt is the sole author or contributing author/analyst to more than 60 research reports and studies produced by Parks Associates since 1998.

Kurt joined Parks Associates following a career in political research and multi-tenant dwelling management. He earned his BA from The University of Iowa.

INDUSTRY EXPERTISE: Home Networks & Residential Gateways, Home Networking Media (Wi-Fi, UWB, HomePlug, HomePNA, MoCA, etc.), Media Center PCs, Set-top Boxes, Networked Consumer Electronics, Consumer Storage, Media Server Hardware and Software, Consumers and Digital Entertainment, Television Services, Broadband Video, Digital Home Customer Support Issues

Stuart Sikes is the president of Parks Associates and is responsible for providing Parks Associates’ clients with a business relationship that complements their strategic marketing activities.

Stuart has served technology companies for over twenty years, designing technical service, software, and hardware solutions for companies ranging from global semiconductor manufacturers to one of the nation’s largest airlines. In his positions with companies including AT&T, NCR, OpenConnect Systems, and Intelligraphics, Stuart’s roles have included sales, product marketing, marketing communications, and executive management.

Stuart and the Parks Associates’ team have worked closely with the world’s leading semiconductor, software, telecom equipment, and entertainment companies, assisting these companies with their understanding of consumer adoption of new technologies.

Stuart holds an MBA from SMU with a concentration in strategic marketing and a BA in economics from Vanderbilt University.