Randy C. Roberts to join Thuraya as VP of innovation
Thuraya Telecommunications Company has appointed Randy C. Roberts as vice president of innovation to oversee the mobile satellite service provider’s product development, product management and solutions engineering.
Roberts will report to Samer Halawi, chief executive of Thuraya, and will serve as a member of the company’s executive team.
Roberts is a seasoned telecommunications executive with over 25 years of experience working at mobile device manufacturers. He joins Thuraya from Siemens Enterprise Communications where he was the VP of Global Mobile Product Portfolio.
Prior to that, Roberts held a variety of leadership roles in product management and development at BlackBerry, Motorola, Nokia and AT&T.
He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Texas Tech University.
Alcatel-Lucent hires new MEA channel marketing head
Alcatel-Lucent has appointed Manish Punjabi as its new channel marketing manager for the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.
Punjabi will be based at the vendor's regional office in Dubai. He will focus on helping Alcatel-Lucent's enterprise partners transition from using one-off marketing tactics to multi-touch programs that make use of PR, social media and digital marketing.
Punjabi began his career as an intern with Alcatel 10 years ago in Velizy, France, and worked with its local partner, Al Futtaim Technologies.
Before rejoining Alcatel-Lucent, Punjabi was in charge of marketing for chip manufacturer AMD across the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. Punjabi has an MBA in Global Marketing from Thunderbird in Arizona, USA, and an engineering undergraduate degree.
Ericsson names CIO and SVP of business excellence
Ericsson has appointed Anders Thulin as SVP of business excellence and CIO for the Swedish vendor. He will also become a member of the Ericsson Leadership Team.
Thulin will assume his new roles on October 1 and head the newly formed unit, Group Function Business Excellence & Common Functions, which will incorporate IT, shared services, real estate and process and information.
He will report to Ericsson president and CEO Hans Vestberg and be a member of the Ericsson Leadership Team.
Commenting on Thulin’s appointment, Vestberg said: "We have improved our strategy execution in recent years, and now it is time to take a next step to become even better. With a strong background and knowledge in the high-tech, IT and telecom industries, Anders Thulin will further strengthen our strategy execution and governance capabilities.
“In his position as CIO, he will ensure that we implement global scale improvements across the company creating efficiency gains. He will work to leverage our global mobile enterprise services and capabilities which will also be beneficial for our customers."
Prior to joining Ericsson, Thulin was a senior partner at McKinsey & Company, where he has gained more than 20 years of experience in implementing business excellence across diverse industries, including high-tech, IT and telecom.
He holds a degree in Economics and Business Administration from Stockholm School of Economics, including MBA studies at the Western University, Ivey Business School.