Wednesday, October 11th, 10:30 - 11:00 am

Rick Mace joined Tekelec in October 2004 following the acquisition of Steleus, where he served as president, CEO and chairman of the board. Before being appointed executive vice president, Mr. Mace was president and general manager of Tekelec's Communications Software Solutions Group. Prior to joining Steleus in May 2000, Mr. Mace was President & CEO of PakNetX Corp., a privately held developer of next-generation telecommunications switching technology. He began his career at Bell Atlantic, where during his 22 year tenure, he founded and managed their Advanced Networking Group as well as one of the industry's most successful network integration businesses.

Wednesday, October 11th, 11:00 - 11:30 am

Farshid Mohammadi is VP of Business Development and Marketing Chair of IMS Forum. He is General Manager for the North America and International switching at UTStarcom where he is responsible for the business operation, product direction, strategy, and product development of next generation IP based Switching product lines including, Fixed-Mobile Mobility Management Server, Media Gateways, Softswitches, Application Servers, as well as Unified Communications Systems.

Prior to his position at UTStarcom, he was the Director of Product Management for Wireline product lines (e.g., SS, MG, and RAS) at CommWorks, a division of 3Com. Mr. Mohammadi was one of the initial executive members of Westwave Communications where he was responsible for product definition, development and direction. His career began at Bell Communications Research where his responsibilities included the definition and rollout of SS7 and AIN at the RBOCS. His last position at Bellcore was the Director of ITESF where he was responsible for technology and product definition of Internet offload and next generation switching. In that capacity he worked with a number of tier 1 and startup companies to help define their product lines and go-to-market strategies.

Mr. Mohammadi graduated from Cornell University with a master�s degree in Telecommunications and Electrical Engineering. He completed his undergraduate studies in Electrical Engineering at Syracuse University.

Wednesday, October 11th, 11:30 - 12:00 pm

Daniel Sheinbein is Vice President and Chief Technology Advisor for the Networks division of Siemens Communications, Inc. He is responsible for identifying new concepts and product opportunities, as well as helping to direct Siemens’ communication products evolution. Dan is an experienced leader in the telecommunications industry having served in AT&T for 34 years before joining Siemens. He held a wide variety of assignments AT&T, most recently as Vice President, Network Architecture and Planning. His role was to evolve the AT&T network to utilize the latest technology, all while reducing costs and realizing increased capacity and flexibility.

Dan’s impact at AT&T was significant and widespread. He was responsible for the business and technical planning of the AT&T switched and transport network, including long distance and local as well as voice and transport. His leadership role spanned from the introduction of multi-vendor DWDM and culminated in the insertion of intelligent optical switches. In the voice switching domain, Dan was instrumental in defining the concept of an intelligent network with the introduction of their 800 Service and Software Defined Network. His most recent efforts at AT&T included the planning the evolution of the switched network to VoIP. Dan was named an AT&T Fellow for his contributions to the AT&T network. He has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, holds five patents and has served as a board member of two telecommunications component companies.  

Thursday, October 12th, 8:30 - 9:15 am

Mr. Michaud brings almost 25 years of telecommunications experience, a proven track record of establishing new telecom companies, and extensive experience accelerating their growth. Recently he led sales and marketing initiatives for startups in the IP networking business, including Carrius and NexTone Communications. In 1997 he founded and became Chairman and CEO of Taqua Systems, a telecommunications switch developer sold to Tekelec for $85 million in March 2004. From 1992 to 1995 Mr. Michaud served as head of sales and marketing at Excel Communications where he grew the company six-fold in three years, becoming the leader in the programmable switch market and providing a foundation for the eventual $1.7 billion acquisition by Lucent Technologies. His career also includes positions at DSC Communications, AT&T Bell Labs, Southwestern Bell, and IBM. He holds an MBA from Washington University, St. Louis and a BS from Carroll College.

Friday, October 12th, 8:45 - 9:15 am

As chief architect of the company's product and business strategies, Bob Plaschke has brought leadership, vision and passion to Sonim. Before joining Sonim, Bob served as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Sutter Hill Ventures focusing on wireless investments. Prior to Sutter Hill Ventures, Bob was senior vice president of worldwide client services at InfoSpace, where he was responsible for the implementation of wireless data solutions for the company's worldwide group of carriers. During his tenure, he successfully brought 18 wireless operators online across the globe. Before joining InfoSpace, he was chief financial officer and vice president business development at Prio, a wireless and wireline promotion infrastructure company, which was acquired by InfoSpace in February 2000. Bob also has held management positions with Datacard, McKinsey and Anderson Consulting.

Bob is a member of CTIA Wireless Internet Caucus Leadership Council and, as a respected public speaker, he has appeared on major industry events including CNBC. Bob earned an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago and received his undergraduate degree in computer engineering from Northwestern University.