Agenda
09:00
Registration and refreshments
Refreshment and networking
10:00
Welcome and introduction to the day
Richard Thompson, Director of Partners, TalkTalk Business
Ruth Kennedy, Director Carrier & SI, TalkTalk Business
Richard Thompson
Director of Partners
TalkTalk Business
Ruth Kennedy
Director Carrier & SI
TalkTalk Business
10:10
The connectivity market opportunity
Charles Dunstone, Founder & Chairman, TalkTalk
Connectivity is always evolving and providing resellers and wholesalers with new services to meet customer demand. With both Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk, Charles founded businesses that have been incredibly successful in the connectivity market. In this introduction he'll share his thoughts on the current market opportunity.
Charles Dunstone
Founder and Executive Chairman
TalkTalk
10:25
What do businesses need from their suppliers?
Kristine Olson-Chapman, MD, TalkTalk Business
Behind every technology is a customer looking to overcome a challenge. The key test for suppliers is marrying the knowledge of a prospective customer with the right solution.
To delve into what a modern business needs from connectivity, and what makes a reseller successful, Kristine will be joined by guests whose businesses are implementing solutions into very different markets. From Retail to Public Sector, from the UK to Global business:
• Rufus Grig, CTO, Maintel
• Gary Marven, CEO, MLL Telecom
• Wiljan van Delst, Area VP of Carrier Management, Verizon
Kristine Olson-Chapman
MD
TalkTalk Business
Rufus Grig
CTO
Maintel
Wiljan Van Delst
Area VP for International Carrier Management
Verizon
Gary Marven
CEO
MLL Telecom
11:10
How to embrace non-bullsh*t innovation, as connectivity changes
David Rowan, Founding Editor, WIRED UK
Following Kristine’s discussion on what customers want, guest speaker, David Rowan will present a showcase of some of the most innovative B2B tech companies in the world. Focusing on the technology that will disrupt industries and the essentials for technology providers to adopt.
David Rowan
Founding Editor-in-chief
WIRED UK
12:00
Lunch Break
13:00
Connectivity market digital insights
Katy Eckersley, Industry Manager - Telecoms, Google
Tristan Bentall, Industry Manager - Media, Telecoms & Entertainment, Google
In this session Katy and Tristan will share insight developed by Google into the Telecoms market search trends. They'll present the key things businesses search for online and how to ensure your organisation receives greater online traffic and leads.
Katy Eckersley
Industry Manager - Telecoms
Google
Tristan Bentall
Industry Manager - Telecoms, Media & Entertainment
Google
13:30
Learn from the churn
Phil Haslam, Chief Networks Officer, TalkTalk
Nick Hill, Insight Manager, TalkTalk Business
With the right customer data, businesses can often identify what programmes will allow them to increase the profitability of their services. Using TalkTalk's Consumer division as a case study, Phil and Nick will share how TalkTalk has used customer service data to identify some of the the biggest commercial and operational opportunities in the business and then design programmes to deliver big financial returns. Nick will also outline how your business can get involved in the programme to use network data for your own sales and operations.
Phil Haslam
Chief Networks Officer
TalkTalk
Nick Hill
Head of Insights
TalkTalk Business
14:00
Break
14:30
Science from Fiction: Using robotics and automation to deliver operational excellence
Dan Richardson, COO, TalkTalk Business
Keri Smith, EMEA Director, ISG
Big data, machine learning, robotics and automation are some of the disruptive technologies that are helping businesses around the globe achieve operational excellence and faster growth.
However, navigating these complex technologies can be a minefield. What should your business really be focusing on and what should you be avoiding? In this session, Dan Richardson and Keri Smith share their robotics and automation journeys, how they have used technology to make operations more efficient, and what pitfalls they have learnt along the way.
Dan Richardson
COO
TalkTalk Business
Keri Smith
EMEA Director
ISG
15:00
Using the network to drive customer experience advantage
Gary Steen, MD Technology, Change and Security, TalkTalk
Colin Evans, EMEA Business Development Director, Juniper
The future of networking points to a fully automated, self-driving network which eliminates the need for complex programming and the management tasks associated with a high-performing network. Self-driving networks will configure, monitor, manage, defend and analyse how your network is performing, all with very little human intervention.
In this session, Gary Steen, TalkTalk’s Managing Director for Technology and Change, and Colin Evans, EMEA Business Development Director at Juniper, will explore how you can use deep telemetry data to create an autonomous network that will adapt to your needs. They’ll share how TalkTalk Business and Juniper are working together to apply this data to reduce network costs and improve capacity, and therefore, customer experience.
Gary Steen
MD, Technology Change and Security
TalkTalk
Colin Evans
EMEA Business Development Director
Juniper
15:30
Break
16:00
Fibre future
Tristia Harrison, CEO, TalkTalk
Full Fibre (FTTP) is perhaps the next great leap for the connectivity market. Offering consumers and business unparalleled performance and service. It also presents resellers and wholesalers with a connectivity platform to help their customers realise their wider digital potential. Ahead of Guy's panel debate with key infrastructure providers that are building that FTTP and 5G future, Tristia will outline TalkTalk's perspective on the current FTTP landscape and opportunity.
Tristia Harrison
CEO
TalkTalk
16:10
The new connectivity landscape
Guy Miller, Director - Fibre for Everyone, TalkTalk
Guy is joined by an esteemed panel of experts from the telecommunications industry to discuss the challenges of rolling out new connectivity variants, including FTTP and 5G. The panel will discuss the common challenges, opportunities and how to make it a reality.
- Katie Milligan, Openreach
- Neil McArthur, FibreNation
- David Sangster, G.Network
- Gareth Williams, Gigaclear
Guy Miller
Fibre for Everyone
Director
TalkTalk
Neil McArthur
Chief Executive
FibreNation
David Sangster
Managing Director
G.Network
Katie Milligan
MD Customer, Commercial & Propositions
Openreach
Gareth Williams
Chief Executive
Gigaclear
16:55
Event Close
Kristine Olson-Chapman, MD, TalkTalk Business
Final comments about the day, leading to the drinks reception.
Kristine Olson-Chapman
Managing Director
TalkTalk Business
17:00
Networking Drinks
TalkTalk Speakers
Charles Dunstone
Founder and Executive Chairman
TalkTalk
Charles is the founder of The Carphone Warehouse and created TalkTalk in 2002. He was appointed Chairman of TalkTalk in 2010 and became Executive Chairman in May 2017.
Charles has directed the development of TalkTalk to become one of the leading fixed line telecommunication businesses in the UK. Sir Charles is currently Chairman of Royal Museums Greenwich and was previously Chairman of Dixons Carphone PLC.
Tristia Harrison
CEO
TalkTalk
Tristia is Chief Executive Officer of TalkTalk. Prior to this Tristia was the Managing Director of TalkTalk’s consumer business. Tristia joined The Carphone Warehouse Group in 2000 and has held a number of senior management and executive positions in The Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk Group. She joined the PLC Board in 2014. Tristia is Non-Executive Director at Next PLC and is also a Trustee at Comic Relief and national charity Ambitious about Autism.
Kristine Olson-Chapman
Managing Director
TalkTalk Business
Telecoms can be a complex and fast paced industry, but in Kristine’s role as Managing Director of TalkTalk Business she is on a mission to ensure that the customer is at the heart of every decision we make.
With a career spanning 20+ years in three very diverse sectors - FMCG (Unilever), Finance (AMEX) and Telco (TTB) - Kristine is a champion of customer-driven decision making, whilst understanding the importance of effective business partnering. She believes in the power of best practice, knowledge sharing and continual development.
Gary Steen
Managing Director, Technology, Change and Security
TalkTalk
Gary is the Managing Director of Technology, Change & Security at TalkTalk, responsible for our Network, Information Technology, Security and Group programme delivery.
With over 25 years’ experience working in telecommunications, he has a track record of delivering major IT and Network implementation and transformation projects for companies such as Vodafone, BT, O2, Vodafone in the UK and Telstra, Sprint and France Telecom internationally.
Ruth Kennedy
Director Carrier & SI
TalkTalk Business
Ruth joined TalkTalk Business in 2011, having previously been with Eircom as UK Wholesale Manager. With 18 years of Wholesale and Telecoms experience, in 2018 she took on the role of Director for Carrier and SI’s at TalkTalk Business, where she is now focused on developing and enhancing the Wholesale Data and Voice offering to expand and evolve Carrier & SI channels.
Richard Thompson
Director of Partners
TalkTalk Business
Richard is responsible for helping our Partner community capitalise on TalkTalk Business’ innovative Next Generation converged Voice and Data services.
He's been part of the TalkTalk Business team since joining as a graduate 16 years ago in Partner Sales as an Account Manager and went on to fulfill a variety of roles in business and commercial strategy, before taking on his current role as Director of Partner Sales.
Guy Miller
Director - Fibre for Everyone
TalkTalk
Guy’s career has seen him work in all aspects of the communications industry, from customer to reseller to wholesaler and now carrier. Through this journey, he has gained a breadth of knowledge, vital in helping TalkTalk operate with the end customers and partners in mind.
He is now Director of Fibre for Everyone at TalkTalk, where he is responsible for the launch of full fibre (FTTP) and SOGEA to customers across TalkTalk Business and Consumer.
Phil Haslam
Chief Networks Officer
TalkTalk
Phil has over 20 years experience of the telcoms domain with international experience in Europe and the US before joining Opal Telecom and then TalkTalk.
He’s played a number of roles across the growing TalkTalk organisation, leading transformation across operations, IT and networks. Having been instrumental in TalkTalk’s early days as a value minutes provider and the growth of LLU, he now is responsible for the scale and performance of TalkTalk’s network, which today carries over 4 Tbps of traffic and is ever growing.
Dan Richardson
COO
TalkTalk Business
Dan joined TalkTalk Business in 2009 to lead the integration of the Tiscali UK B2B acquisition. Having held a number of roles on the TTB Operations Board, Dan moved to focus on TalkTalk Group activity including: Completing a number of acquisitions; Delivering the Mobile strategic roadmap; Leading the Group Change function. Before re-joining the TalkTalk Business leadership team and taking the role of Chief Operations Officer in 2018.
Nick Hill
Head of Insights
TalkTalk Business
Nick is Head of Insight at TalkTalk Business. With over 15 years experience in working in telecommunications, he has seen the huge transformation in technology, running parallel with a similar transformation within data & insight capability.
With experience across all areas of the communications market, Nick’s current focus at TalkTalk Business is in the application of big data and marketing automation to deliver the significant opportunities it presents to the organisation.
Guest Speakers
David Rowan
Founding Editor-in-chief
WIRED UK
His prolific experience as a successful technology journalist and editor has enabled David to gain a huge insight into emerging trends, and in particular, those technologies that influence businesses, our culture and the economy.
Having had the unique opportunity to travel the world and connect with leading global brands at the forefront of technological innovation as well as key influencers affecting change, David is clued up on the hottest apps, gadgets and tech-related developments, before they’ve even been released. As well as discussing emerging trends, David is able to provide wisdom on technology that has the potential to impact every aspect of our lives, and not just at corporate level.
Wiljan van Delst
Area VP for International Carrier Management
Verizon
Wiljan is responsible for Verizon’s spend with third party providers outside the U.S.A.
Based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Wiljan leads a team of professionals located across 30 countries in EMEA/ APAC/ LATAM and Canada who handles procurement and vendor management with over 600+ global telecommunications and providers/vendors in 100+ countries.
Rufus Grig
CTO
Maintel
Rufus Grig is Chief Technology and Strategy officer for Maintel, one of the UK’s leading providers of cloud and managed communications services - where he is responsible for business strategy, products and marketing.
Rufus joined Maintel in May 2016 as part of the acquisition of Azzurri Communications, where he was CTO. He has over 20 years’ experience in communications technology, predominantly in contact centre and unified communications and he has a keen interest in the impact of technology on the user and customer experience.
Gary Marven
CEO
MLL Telecom
Gary puts values and behaviours at the heart of MLL Telecom’s strategy to ensure the business is not only great to work with but great to work for. During his period as CEO MLL has pivoted its business model to be a cross technology network solutions provider to the Public sector and Fixed/Mobile Telecom operators .
Gary has extensive knowledge of the media and telecoms industry having previously spent 11 years with the BBC primarily as Chief Operations Officer of the Factual and Learning Division responsible for £320m of TV and Radio production and then heading up a pan BBC digital transformation project.
Katy Eckersley
Industry Manager - Telecoms
Google
Katy is an Industry Manager at Google, working as a specialist in the Telco sector. She works with marketeers and their agencies to help develop their digital marketing strategies across all digital touch points, with a focus on search, display and video.
She also helps brands stay on the front foot with the latest consumer and industry trends and insights and looks at ways to bring different media platforms together, both in planning and measurement. Before Google, Katy worked at media agencies, helping brands to plan and buy their digital media.
Tristan Bentall
Industry Manager - Telecoms, Media & Entertainment
Google
Tristan leads the charge for a number of UK’s largest brands in the Media and Telco/ISP space. A media planner by trade, with 14 years worth experience, Tristan made the switch to Google a little over two years ago.
Keri Smith
Area VP for International Carrier Management
ISG
Keri Smith leads ISG’s Automation and RPA Practice in EMEA. He has accountability for the design and delivery of all RPA and Cognitive automation projects as well as constantly improving working practices and capabilities to best meet client needs.
Keri is a former consultant and Transformation Director, with notable experience in digital and service transformation. In his 20 years of experience he has worked across many large programmes delivering performance / productivity improvement, target operating model design, process redesign and culture change. His industry experience spans financial services, media / publishing, chemicals, utilities, manufacturing across Europe, Asia and the Americas. He has held consulting and leadership positions at IBM, Celerant, Autotrader, United Utilities and ThomsonLocal.
Colin Evans
EMEA Business Development Director
Juniper
Colin Evans leads Business Development for the Service Provider segment at Juniper Networks EMEA, which is responsible for the introduction of new Technologies/Solutions and architectures across the EMEA region.
The team is focused across the entire Juniper portfolio for Service Providers including Routing, Cloud, Software and Security Solutions; in particular focussing on the latest developments in Telco Cloud, Software-Defined Networks (SDN), 5G/IoT, DataCentre Fabrics, SDN/NFV/SD-WAN and Virtualisation, Cloud Security and related Network Automation. The team also builds and drives solutions for Service Provider infrastructure such as Core/Edge/Aggregation Routing, BNG and NMS/Orchestration.
Colin’s has worked for Juniper for seven years and previously held senior roles at Cisco, Alcatel (Nokia), Newbridge Networks and Nortel.
David Sangster
MD and Co-Founder
G.Network
David is the co-founder and COO of G.Network. G.Network is a connectivity provider building a brand new fibre to the premises network across London.
Katie Milligan
MD Customer, Commercial & Propositions
Openreach
Katie joined BT in 2004 after graduating from the Business School at the University of Strathclyde. She has held a number of roles across the BT Group, joining the Openreach division in 2009, where she has embarked on various commercial, product and programme delivery roles.
Katie is responsible for the entire Openreach’s £5bn product portfolio, defining and delivering new products and plays a key role in managing our relationships with Openreach’s 600 customers. She is accountable for the creation of a number of significant business cases underpinning Openreach’s strategic network investments into rolling out fibre across the UK.
Neil McArthur
Chief Executive
FibreNation
Neil is an Engineer and investor, he lives in the north of England & is one of the original founders of the Talk Talk group a FTSE listed UK telecoms company.
Neil is a fellow of both the institutes of engineering & technology & mechanical engineers. He is a Member of the Order of The British Empire for services to engineering & has a Doctorate for services to engineering & charitable works. Founding his own engineering business in 1980’s followed by the telecoms business Opal in 1996.
He is founder & chairman of the Manchester technology Trust, he involves himself in promoting Greater Manchester as a place for technology business. He now divides his time between Talk Talk, the Hamilton Davies trust, Manchester University & promoting technology & enterprise in Manchester.
Gareth Williams
Chief Executive
Gigaclear
Gareth Williams joined Gigaclear in February 2019 as Chief Executive Officer, following 17 years (11 as Chief Executive) at Interoute, one of Europe’s largest independent fibre networks. With a wealth of experience in telecoms and IT behind him, Gareth will be working closely with the board to guide Gigaclear through the next stage of its development as it works to deliver full fibre broadband to communities across Britain.
Under Gareth’s leadership, Interoute evolved into one of Europe’s largest Cloud Services platforms, with revenues growing from €188 million to €710 million. Gareth left Interoute having led the sale of the company to GTT Communications Inc. for €2.3 billion. Prior to becoming Interoute CEO, Gareth was President of Global Sales at the company, having spent the previous 15 years in telecoms and IT.
The best ideas, to grow your business