OnRelay's CEO Ivar Plahte shortlisted as the WCA 2007 Most Influential Person in Telecoms
29 May 2007
OnRelay’s CEO Ivar Plahte has been shortlisted for the World Communications Awards 2007 Most Influential Person in Telecoms Award.
Ivar has pioneered the mobile PBX (M-PBX). The global enterprise voice market is currently undergoing a major disruptive change from hardware to software based systems, from desk phone to mobile terminals, and from use of public mobile networks as an alternative to private fixed networks. The MBX patent (Plahte et. al) resolves the key technology challenges to enable the new M-PBX generation of office phone systems.
The WCA 2007 Most Influential Person in Telecoms shortlist:
Allen Timpany , CEO, Vanco
Arun Sarin, Chief Executive Officer, Vodafone Group
Ben Verwaayen, CEO, BT
Bill Gates, Founder and Chairman, Microsoft Corp
Carl Henrik Svanberg, CEO, Ericsson
Cesar Alierta, President, Telefonica
Dayanidhi Maran, Telecom Minister, India
Dr. Saad Al Barrak, Deputy chairman and managing director, MTC
Ed Whitacre, Chairman and CEO, AT&T
Helmut Leopold, Head of Platform and Technology Management, Telekom Austria AG
Ildar Zhuravlev , Partner, Ernst & Young
Ivar Plahte, CEO, OnRelay
John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems
John Legere, CEO, Global Crossing
John Pluthero , Executive Chairman , Cable & Wireless
Josep A. Aliagas, CEO, Arena Mobile
Larry Page, Co-founder, Google
Lee Hsien Yang, CEO, SingTel
N Srinath, CEO, VSNL
Niklas Zennstrom, Co-founder, Joost TV
Patricia Russo, CEO, Alcatel-Lucent
Phuthuma Nhleko, President & CEO, MTN Group
Sol Trujillo, CEO, Telstra
Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman – Bharti Group, Bharti Airtel
Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner, EU
About Ivar Plahte’s background:
At his former assignment as Director of IP Telephony at Telenor, Ivar created and was the general manager of Telenor’s ‘Telecom over IP’ business unit, which quickly became a highly internationally recognised and publicised IP Telephony Service Provider. His cross functional team produced several world-first launches and was among the first public operators worldwide to establish a voice over IP based revenue stream. Ivar’s assignment included managing Telenor’s pan-european enterprise VoIP services for their 10 ISP subsidiaries, as well as all consumer and carrier VoIP services for Telenor corporate.
Previously, Ivar was Ericsson’s Global Product Manager for IP Services, where he established Ericsson’s market entry strategy for IP services, initiated Ericsson’s first-mover IP telephony soft-switch product line, initiated worldwide product management and R&D organisations for IP services, and lead US & European partnering negotiations within the IP services and IP telephony sectors.
Ivar holds a BSc in electrical engineering and an MSc in computer engineering and computer science from the University of California at Santa Barbara.