Mobile Europe announces the winners in the Trailblazer, Gamechanger and Above and Beyond categories
Mobile Europe’s CTO of the Year Awards 2023 again attracted an extraordinarily high standard of entries. Our congratulations and thanks to everyone who entered.
The Awards were presented by Nastasi Karaiskos of the Awards’ sponsor, Rakuten Symphony, after a roundtable on the topic of Why is telecoms such a tricky business? The lively discussion was a hybrid of an in-person and virtual conversation by many of those who were shortlisted (see below). We will be publishing a roundup of the arguments in due course!
Without more ado…
The Award for Trailblazer CTO of the Year 2023 goes to Yusuf Kıraç of Turk Telekom – there were so many outstanding examples of pioneering thinking and robust execution that it is almost hard to know where to start with the reasons the judges chose this entry. Obviously the contents of all the entries are confidential, but just to give you a flavour without breaking that confidentiality they include innovations in commercial private networks, GPS, RIC, vRAN, being the first in the world to deploy Software Defined Network Enabled Broadband Access (SEBA) and to contributions to TIP and AI.
The Award for Gamechanger CTO of the Year 2023 goes to Miguel Santos, CTO, of MÁSMÓVIL, the Spanish regional operator. We often think that innovation and transformation are the province of big operator groups, but the judging panel was immensely impressed by what MÁSMÓVIL has achieved, in a relatively short space of time and with few people. While expanding by acquiring other smaller operators, its technology and business strategy has been and is creative, pragmatic and Agile, from the hybrid network management model to building its full IT product, MasStack, across national and regional brands.
The judges also honoured Kyrylo Honcharuk, CTO of Ukrtelecom for an Above and Beyond Award, although his entry would have been a hot contender in its own right for a set Award. The Above and Beyond Award is given at the judges’ discretion, to recognise outstanding achievement in extraordinary circumstances.
Keeping infrastructure going in the midst of war is in itself a great demonstration of bravery, determination and resilience. Beyond this, the judges were impressed by the ongoing innovation and the careful thought applied how best to serve families to help them communicate with loved ones and keeping businesses going. Enabling ‘business as usual’ has a big impact on the lives of many was well as the economy. Honcharuk was at pains to stress that what has been achieved is a huge team effort
Some idea of the immensity of the task Ukrtelecom is facing is on the day of the awards thousands of people in Ukraine were being evacuated after the Nova Kakhovka dam across the Dnipro River was blown up in southern Ukraine. The country’s government blamed this disaster on Russia attempting to slow down the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Ukrtelecom’s three storey building was almost completely immersed.
This year’s short-list:
The Gamechanger Award is to recognise a CTO (or equivalent job title) who excels at carrying out the core business but not as usual – creating efficient and effective infrastructure and operations and business models that make use of technologies such as AI, analytics, automation, open platforms and APIs.
- JSC Ukrtelecom, Kyrylo Goncharuk (Ukraine)
- Kyivstar, Volodymyr Lutchenko (Ukraine)
- MASMOVIL, Miguel Santos Fernandez (Spain)
- Mobily, Mohammed Alatawi (Saudi Arabia)
- Orange Egypt, Ayman Amiri
- SIRO (Ireland), Suzanne Tracy
- TIM, Elisabetta Romano
- Virgin Media Ireland, Monika Nowak-Toporowicz
The Trailblazer Award recognises the achievement of a CTO (or equivalent job title) whose company offers services beyond connectivity or is pioneering new technology, business and operational models.
- BT, Howard Watson (UK)
- NOS, Jorge Graca (Portugal)
- Türk Telekomünikasyon, Yusuf Kıraç
- Vodacom Group (South Africa), Dejan Kastelic