Telecom Infra Project Announces New Chairman Amid Board Restructure
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) announced Rob Soni, AT&T’s VP of RAN Technology as its new chairman following Yago Tenorio’s departure from Vodafone. Soni, who only recently joined the TIP board, steps into the role Tenorio had held for the previous five years. In its statement announcing the change, TIP thanked Tenorio for his “dedication to advancing Open RAN and other TIP initiatives, and for the lasting impact he has had on the industry in accelerating the adoption of open and disaggregated networks”.
The change is noteworthy given AT&T’s recent commitment to Open RAN. The initiative, announced at the end of 2023, is driven by Soni who’s responsible for all aspects of AT&T’s RAN architecture and infrastructure, including baseband units, radios, antennas and all ancillary components. In addition, his team oversees certification and development for RAN hardware, software and features as well as CORE and service strategy.
The TIP board also named Caroline Chan, VP in the Network and Edge Group at Intel Corporation, and currently TIP’s longest serving board member, as its new President. This appears to be a new position on the TIP board. Commenting on the appointment, Kristian Toivo, TIP’s Executive Director, noted that “We are thrilled to have Caroline take on this new role as the President of TIP along with our new Chairman, Rob Soni of AT&T”. He went on to say that “her vision for network transformation and ability to bridge collaboration across diverse industry players will help TIP accelerate its mission of deploying open and innovative telecom solutions.”
Finally, two further changes were made with new representatives for existing board members Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica. Thomas Lips, Senior Vice President, Group Technology at DT replaces Kaniz Mahdi. The former SVP TAI & Group Chief Architect left the German operator for Amazon Web Services. From Telefónica, Cayetano Carbajo Martin, SVP Core, Transport and Service Platforms replaces Juan Carlos Garcia, Telefónica’s outgoing SVP for Technology Innovation and Ecosystems.
