Chris A. Fonteijn, Boardmember of the Independent Regulators Group, Chairman of the Commission of OPTA, The Netherlands Independent Post and Telecommunications Authority
(1955, Den Haag), studied law in Leiden; during his years in military service, he worked in the Military Intelligence Service. From 1980, until his appointment as Chairman of the Commission of OPTA on September 1st 2005, Chris worked as a lawyer at NautaDutilh in Rotterdam, where he became a partner in 1988. He specialized in Business and Energy Law, and over the years he held a variety of positions at NautaDutilh; for several years he worked for NautaDutilh in the Middle East. During his last years at NautaDutilh, Chris was director of the Energy & Utilities Group.

Born in 1961. Degrees in economics from Indiana University Bloomington and Columbia University New York.  First came to Hungary in 1990 to start consulting company for business analysis and strategic planning.  From 1993 to 1996 was the founding Marketing and Sales Director of Westel 900 (later T-Mobile Hungary).  From there moved on to Poland to participate in launching Era GSM for US WEST International as Director of Marketing, Sales and Strategy.  From 1997 to 1999 headed up in London US WEST’s (later MediaOne) marketing and sales activities for its European mobile subsidiaries. Subsequently served at BT Cellnet as Business Marketing and Sales Director.
From September 2002 was member of Magyar Telekom’s Management Committee and Chief Officer responsible for Residential Services.  From January 2005 to June 2006 served as Chief Operating Officer leading the Wireline Services line of business (T-Com). Appointed Magyar Telekom’s Chief Executive Officer on December 5, 2006 and elected Chairman of the Board of Directors on December 21, 2006.

Pierre Tournassoud is Vice President Network and Technology Strategy of Alcatel-Lucent, working in the group's CTO organization. In this role, he is in charge of creating and promoting Alcatel-Lucent's vision of service and network evolution, focusing in particular on the Alcatel-Lucent portfolio. His goals include boosting innovation by targeting new market segments, and optimizing value across the product groups. Before taking on this role at Alcatel-Lucent in 2006, Pierre had a similar role in Alcatel where he was leader of the Network Strategy Group within the Alcatel CTO. Prior to this, he had worldwide responsibility for the Alcatel Mobile Core Business Unit, including mobile switching and NGN, as well as the GPRS and UMTS data core portfolios. His first assignments in Alcatel were in R&D management, including a specific mission for transforming the Alcatel proprietary systems into cost-effective open platforms capitalizing on IT hardware and middleware building blocks. Prior to joining Alcatel in 1992, he was a Research Scientist at INRIA (the French National Institute for Computer Science and Automation) and at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in the United States. He is a graduate of France's Ecole Polytechnique and holds a PhD in Computer Science.

Cayetano Carbajo was graduated in Madrid (ETSIT UPM) specializing in antennas and radio-communication and transmission.
He has developed his carrier starting on the Radio Department of Telefónica Móviles España on 1995 and also as Manager of International and Interprovincial Projects.
In 2000 he was appointed responsible for the Midi Telecom (Maroc) network deployment.
He got the responsibility for the network deployment, planning and operation, developing new value added services as Director of Technology for Telefónica Móviles in México 2003/06.
Since May 2006 he is Director of Technology and Planning in Telefónica S.A., managing the common technological evolution of Telefónica Group both for fixed and mobile networks.

 Niklas Carlheim-Müller
Head of Systems & Technology,
Core Network & IMS, Ericsson

He graduated in 1989 from the Technical University of Budapest with a degree in communications engineering, specialized in GSM and mobile communication, then in 2000 obtained an MBA degree at the Open University of London. He started his carrier in Matáv PKI Research Institute as mobile telecommunications researcher. Then he participated in the start-up of Westel Rádiótelefon Kft. with responsibility for network design. In the initial period of the company's operations he worked as design engineer, then as radio engineer, from 1992 as director for network operations. From 1995 he was director of operations at Westel 900 Rt., then at Westel Mobil Rt., from 2001 to 2006 Chief Officer and Service Development Director of Westel Mobile Rt. (later T-Mobile Magyarország Rt.). He played a key role in construction and development of the network, operations and selection of supliers involved in these operations, and in the introduction of new services. He contributed with his work to T-Mobile Magyarország achieving and keeping a market leader position. As of April 1, 2007 he was appointed Magyar Telekom's Chief Information Officer. From January 1, 2008 he became Chief Technology and IT Officer of Magyar Telekom.

After some years devoted to IT projects, Bernard Jarry-Lacombe joined the France Telecom Research Centre in 1976 where he has been leading the “Traffic, network architecture and optimisation department” for several years.
In 1996, he was appointed by the Network Headquarters of France Telecom, in the Directorate in charge of Network Architecture and Planning, to lead a Network architecture department, and he was responsible of elaborating the network strategy and architecture for various networks such as PSTN, Transmission, Data, Access networks for residential and business customers, corporate networks ...
He was particularly involved in the Broadband access over xDSL, solutions for triple play services, DSLAM backhauling, Wimax, FTTH, Gigabit Ethernet transport, optical cross-connect, mobile backhauling...
Since January 07, he works on his own, leading training courses on network solutions and architectures for high level technical staff.

Andrew R Valdar (known as Andy) was appointed visiting professor to the Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering in 1999. He has been employed by UCL  since October 1999 as the academic director of the BT Masters Programme - a two year part time MSc course in Telcommunications Business.  He is currently appointed as Director of another course run for BT by UCL, namely the "BT MSc" (leading to an MSc in Telecommunications Engineering").   Prior to joining UCL, Prof Valdar had a distinguished career in BT for 30 years, the last 10 of which he was General Manager of Network Strategy then Technology Strategy and he twice presented to the BT Operations Board on these matters.  His career included: undertaking the original work on planning the introduction of digital switching to BT's UK network, international standards work (original work on ISDN standards); technical aspects of regulation - including prenting to the Monoploly & Mergers Commission on behalf of BT; management of numbering strategy; setting the annual strategy for network enhancement (covering all parts of the network); setting the strategy for the deployment of new technology in the UK network, e.g: SDH transmission, SS No7 enhancement, and replacement of the small analogue exchanges; global network strategy (including working with Nynex,  MCI and AT&T in the USA); also in a non-engineering role: marketing & product mangement of private circuit services, then centrex and VPN services.  From 1977 to 1980 Prof Valdar worked in India for ITU, at the Advanced Level Telecommunications Training Centre, undertaking work on the United Nations Development Programme, responsible for course development and training on switching systems.
Prof Valdar is the author of the currently top selling text book:  "Understanding Telecommunications Networks" ( 2006 IET Telecommunications Series 52), the Chairman of the Board of Editors of the journal of the Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP), the UK reprentative on the FITCE (european federation of telecom engineers) and an active presenter at international conferences.  He is currently an external examiner for the MSc Telecommunications at the Dept Electrionic Engineering at Queen Mary University of London.