MWC23 Barcelona – Smart Mobility Summit Catch Up: Reach for the Impossible

Jeff has been leading the connectivity strategy and business development activities in the Airbus Zephyr programme for the past 2.5 years. Jeff brings together strategist, marketer and business development skills with over twenty five years’ experience progressing through customer service, technical management, product development, management, marketing, MIS, business development and senior strategic roles across APAC, EMEA and the US.

Jeff also serves as the HAPS Alliance Vice-Chair of the Marketing and Communications Working Group.

Barbara has over 20 years of experience in the mobile industry. She has been part of the GSMA Internet of Things Programme since 2014, working on several aspects of the IoT such as the development of the Mobile IoT Technologies (LTE-M, NB-IoT), GSMA IoT Security Guidelines, GSMA Drone Interest Group and looking at a variety of emerging technologies, like machine learning/AI and edge computing, for helping the mobile industry to create trusted solutions for the IoT. Before joining the GSMA Barbara worked in R&D in several areas of telecommunications, including Intelligent Networks, IMS, Service Enabling and M2M/IoT. She also participates in and actively contributed to several standards.

The GSMA Internet of Things helps operators to fully realise the opportunity in the IoT, operators must deliver secure IoT networks as well as scalable value added data services for the world’s industry and machines beyond connectivity. This is to be achieved by industry collaboration, appropriate regulation, optimising networks as well as developing key enablers to support the growth of IoT.

Jeff has been leading the connectivity strategy and business development activities in the Airbus Zephyr programme for the past 2.5 years. Jeff brings together strategist, marketer and business development skills with over twenty five years’ experience progressing through customer service, technical management, product development, management, marketing, MIS, business development and senior strategic roles across APAC, EMEA and the US.

Jeff also serves as the HAPS Alliance Vice-Chair of the Marketing and Communications Working Group.

Florence Verzelen is Dassault Systèmes’ Executive Vice President in charge of lndustry, Marketing & Sustainability since 2018. Her role is to grow the portfolio of solutions & significantly increase the revenues of Dassault Systèmes in the 12 industries it serves, in order to achieve sustainable growth and rapid business development. To this end, she focus on creating “forward looking” industrial solutions that will help all industrial players to transform through digitalization. Florence has also created the sustainability function within Dassault Systèmes, with the vision that digital solutions can help transform the industries to help them become more sustainable. She is also leading Dassault Systèmes’ service organization, transforming its business model towards “outcome based” solutions.

Before this latest appointment, Florence was working at Engie, a world leader in the energy sector – holding different positions, as Business Development Vice President, Engie Qatar CEO, Performance Plan Vice President and finally Engie Europe COO.

Florence has an extensive experience in both public & private sector, having held different positions in the European Commission and the French Administration.

She is also an experienced board member, with board position at PSR and currently at Air France; CNES, the French Space Agency and lnstitut Montaigne, the leading think tank in France. Florence is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique / Corps des Mines.

Mischa Dohler is now VP Emerging Technologies at Ericsson Inc. in Silicon Valley, working on cutting-edge topics of 6G, Metaverse, XR, Quantum and Blockchain. He serves on the Technical Advisory Committee of the FCC and on the Spectrum Advisory Board of Ofcom.

He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET); and a Distinguished Member of Harvard Square Leaders Excellence. He is a serial entrepreneur with 5 companies; composer & pianist with 5 albums on Spotify/iTunes; and fluent in several languages. He has had ample coverage by national and international press and media, and is featured on Amazon Prime.

He is a frequent keynote, panel and tutorial speaker, and has received numerous awards. He has pioneered several research fields, contributed to numerous wireless broadband, IoT/M2M and cyber security standards, holds a dozen patents, organized and chaired numerous conferences, was the Editor-in-Chief of two journals, has more than 300 highly-cited publications, and authored several books. He is a Top-1% Cited Innovator across all science fields globally.

He was Professor in Wireless Communications at King’s College London and Director of the Centre for Telecommunications Research from 2013-2021, driving cross-disciplinary research and innovation in technology, sciences and arts. He is the Cofounder and former CTO of the IoT-pioneering company Worldsensing; cofounder and former CTO of the AI-driven satellite company SiriusInsight.AI, and cofounder of the sustainability company Movingbeans. He also worked as a Senior Researcher at Orange/France Telecom from 2005-2008.

With Satellite Engineering background, Laith is specialist in space commercial and infrastructure business emerging, as well as developing government affairs advocacy, policies, and strategies. He covers regulatory compliance, international affairs, government relations and market access; and he facilitates lawful interception and maintain state security compliance.

Laith supports regulatory, commercial, and competitive intelligence on satellite telecommunications policies and processes, and he works closely with governments to ensure services compliance with local rules and regulations, as well as coordinating and securing landing rights, licenses and all sorts of telecom authorizations and approvals.

Before devoting his work fulltime to OneWeb, Laith has worked as a consultant for major telecom players providing advice and advocacy on global satellite, mobile, Internet, data and cloud regulations.

Laith has contributed to the implementation of international agreements affecting technology innovations and best practices in national regulatory processes in the region. He assisted satellite operators to introduce and manage their services by conducting a complete market research, engaging with national governments, and influencing local policies and regulations.

Laith is active in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), he participates in its conferences and events to help engage its practices internationally and in the region on issues related to telecom public policies.

Michael leads Volocopter’s global Strategy team and is in charge of global profit and loss for the company’s VoloDrone heavylift cargo drone. He is one of the bright minds who are shaping Volocopter’s vision and business model. Michael is also a member of the company’s Senior Leadership Team, which is guided in large part by his five-year tenure. Prior to Volocopter, Michael held multiple consulting and leadership positions that allowed him to sharpen his strategic thinking skills. He holds an MSc from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).