Shane Fitzsimmons
Shane Fitzsimmons was appointed as the inaugural Commissioner for Resilience NSW from 1 May 2020. This appointment followed a distinguished career with the NSW Rural Fire Service of over 35 years, serving as both a volunteer and salaried member.
He is currently the chair of the NSW Telco Authority Board, the State Emergency Management Committee (SEMC), the State Recovery Committee (SRC), Board of Commissioners (BOC), the National Emergency Medal Committee (NEMC) and the NSW Connectivity Innovation Network (CIN). Shane has also been a Director on the Board of the NSW Government Telecommunications Authority since 2012.
Shane has been awarded the Rural Fire Service Long-Service Medal for more than 30 years, the National Medal in recognition of more than 35 years, and the Australian Fire Service Medal (AFSM).
Most recently, he was awarded an Officer (AO) in the General Division of the Order of Australia as part of the 2022 Australia Day Honours list.
John Castro
Optus
John Castro leads the performance and strategy of the Optus Wholesale & Satellite businesses and is responsible for Product, Marketing, Sales, Operations and Service for this key Optus business unit.
In his role as Vice President, Optus Wholesale & Satellite, John Castro leads the performance and strategy of the Optus Wholesale & Satellite businesses and is responsible for Product, Marketing, Sales, Operations and Service for this key Optus business unit.
John is also responsible for all of Optus’ Space and Satellite networks including the largest fleet of satellites in Australia and New Zealand, and the build and launch of Australia’s newest geostationary satellite, Optus 11.
John joined Optus and the Singtel Group in March 2009 and has held many leadership positions since, including Business Manager to the SingTel Group Consumer CEO in Singapore. In addition to his current Optus role, in 2019 John was appointed as a Board Director to Bridge Alliance, which is the leading mobile alliance serving consumers and enterprises in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.
Sarah Goss
Ericsson
As Head of Innovation, Ericsson Australia & New Zealand, Sarah Goss is a member of Ericsson’s local executive team, responsible for company-wide strategy execution and innovation.
Prior to her current role, she led Ericsson’s government and enterprise practice for Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia, focusing on digital transformation in industries such as utilities, transport and public safety.
Sarah was a founding director of HealthTech startup, Umps, where she remains a shareholder. She is also Chair of Ericsson’s Diversity & Inclusion Council, member of the Industry Advisory Committee for RMIT School of Management, and Advisory Board member for In2Science, which provides STEM peer mentoring in low socio-economic schools.
Robert Joyce
Nokia
Robert Joyce is the Nokia CTO for the Oceania Region and is accountable for promoting Nokia’s technology leadership and supporting all of Nokia’s customers and stakeholders in the region.
Robert has over 25 years of industry experience in Mobile Telecommunications having worked for a number of operators and vendors around the globe. Notable projects that Robert has been involved with include designing the network for the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Qatar and launching the World’s first 5G Network in 2018 also in Qatar.
He has published numerous academic papers on mobile communications and holds a PhD in “Self Organising Mobile Networks”.
Joanna Knox
Telstra
Joanna Knox is the Executive for Product Excellence and Incubation in the Product & Technology team at Telstra. Product Incubation includes the Telstra Labs, where Telstra validate, explore, and incubate new product solutions for and with customers. Product Excellence is the product lifecycle management disciplines, including Product Architecture.
Previously, Joanna was Telstra’s Chief Risk Officer from 2017 to 2021. In this core governance role for Telstra, Joanna drove programs to uplift Telstra’s risk and compliance effectiveness, and implement an agile@scale operating model for risk. Joanna led the Crisis Management team and resilience risk management, including responses to natural disasters and Covid.
Prior to joining Telstra, Joanna was a management consultant with Bain & Company for 10 years.
Yago Lopez
TPG Telecom
Yago is the General manager of Technology and Innovation in TPG Telecom, leading the future looking planning across the Networks and IT stack to support TPG leadership in the market.
A Graduate of the University of Oviedo, Spain, majoring in Physics, Yago has over 15 years’ global experience in Telecommunications across multiple technical and commercial leadership roles.
Yago is currently the General manager of Technology and Innovation in TPG Telecom, leading the future looking planning across the Networks and IT stack to support TPG leadership in the market. Prior to this Role his career has been focused on delivering cost effective innovative solutions across wireless technologies covering all aspects from strategy to deployment, Including 4G and 5G market launch, Network Sharing agreements and Large scale roll outs.
Ray Owen
NBN Co.
Ray Owen is Chief Technology Officer at NBN Co. He was appointed NBN Co’s Chief Technology Officer after a successful career with Nokia as the Managing Director of Nokia Oceania.
As NBN Co’s Chief Technology Officer, Ray is responsible for the technology evolution of a nationwide fibre, Fibre-to-the-Node, Fibre-to-the-Curb, HFC, Fixed Wireless and satellite network.
Ray joined NBN Co in November 2017, bringing over 25 years of extensive experience in the telecommunications sector and technologies across Australia based in various locations across Singapore, Vietnam and the UK.
Ray holds senior roles at Nokia and Motorola, including Head of Technology for Asia Pacific and President and General Director for Motorola Vietnam as well as board positions across wireless start-ups in Vietnam, the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association and is currently an advisory board member for the University of Technology in Sydney.
Elyssa Rollinson
BAI Communications
Elyssa Rollinson is the Chief Commercial Officer at BAI Communications Australia. Prior to joining BAI, she worked with PwC and in the UK for BBC Technology and Group4 Securicor.
In her current role, Elyssa is responsible for supporting strategy development and execution and for engagement across the broadcast, telecommunications and government sectors.
Having a strong belief in the value of collaboration, a key area of focus is to bring the insights that BAI has gained internationally to help drive better connectivity outcomes here in Australia.
Zhi Soon
NSW Telco Authority
Zhi has had a distinguished career in public policy in Australia and internationally. He currently serves as the Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at the NSW Telco Authority, which leads on the NSW Government’s Connectivity Strategy. Prior to this, Zhi has had a range of roles across state and federal government in Australia as well as in the UK. This includes serving as a senior executive at the UK Behavioural Insights Team, the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership and roles in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Prime Minister’s Office. He has also worked as a management consultant and served on a range of boards and committees, including the NSW Board of Studies.
Michael Stein
Motorola Solutions
Michael Stein brings extensive Director and senior executive experience, skills and demonstrable leadership in the information technology and communications arena with strong governance, strategic, commercial and management depth. Michael has a unique blend of skills and experience from tech start-ups to Global Fortune 500 companies.
Michael is currently a Director and Australian Country Board Member at Motorola Solutions. Prior to this, Mike held senior executive roles with KPMG Consulting, Alcatel-Lucent (Nokia), Storability (Oracle), Avaya and Ericsson.
Jane Want
NSW Department of Customer Service
Jane is experienced in leading transformation and industrialisation of underperforming programs to deliver best-practice service offerings, designed around the needs of business customers. Through her work in the university and telecommunications sectors, Jane has specialist knowledge in commercialising engineering technologies and innovation.
Daniel Wright
NSW Telco Authority
Daniel Wright has more than 20 years’ experience in both the private and public sector and has held senior executive roles in digital strategy, sales, and operations in several large international customer-facing businesses.
In 2019, Daniel joined the NSW Telco Authority to successfully lead the development of the business case submissions for the Critical Communications Enhancement Program and played a key role in the development of the NSW Government 2020 Operational Communications Strategy.
Daniel now leads the newly established Product Management function at the Telco Authority, responsible for working with the Connectivity Innovation Network and industry to develop innovative products for Emergency Service Organisations, wider government agencies, as well as the citizens of NSW.