Communications Infrastructure and Services Council

Lucie Smith

Director of Corporate Affairs, Mova UK

As Director of Programmes at Mova, Lucie is responsible for engagement and communications for the Shared Rural Network, a £1bn programme to improve 4G mobile coverage in rural areas across the UK, and delivery of Restore TV, a programme providing support to viewers who experience TV interference as a result of new mobile services being launched. Lucie has over 15 years’ experience within the tech and telco industries, and has held UK, regional and global roles. 

Chris Cheeseman

Head of Spectrum Policy, BT

Chris works in BT’s Networks division where he leads on spectrum policy and related regulatory issues for BT/EE. He has in-depth experience of wireless communications and the associated national and international spectrum issues. He has participated in international work on spectrum harmonisation in ITU, CEPT and other industry groups and leads with Ofcom and Government on a wide range of spectrum and regulatory issues for BT, including participation in Ofcom’s spectrum auctions and regulatory consultations related to wireless and spectrum.   Chris joined BT as a graduate in 1985. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the UK Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET). 

Seán Keating

CTO, UK and Ireland, Boldyn

Seán has worked on wireless networks for over 25 years.  He has delivered projects across four continents. Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Australasia.  This involved building infrastructure for mobile operators, governments, investors, real estate companies, offshore wind developers and large industrials. 

As CTO for the UK and Ireland, Seán leads an innovative technology team creating industry-leading technology for our customers, underpinning Boldyn Networks’s growth ambitions.  

Before Boldyn Networks's acquisition in 2021, Seán was CEO of Vilicom.  In this role, Seán executed a strategy to expand the company into new verticals, supporting digital transformation and launching Europe’s first cloud platform to deploy mobile and private networks faster and more efficiently.    

Seán holds an electronics engineering degree from Dublin City University and an MBA from Smurfit Business School.  He has completed a year-long leadership development programme with IMD Lausanne. 

Henry Parker

Head of Public Affairs and ESG, Cellnex

Henry has joined Cellnex following a number of roles focusing on telecommunications and technology regulation across the UK, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. He is a former Head of Telecoms and Spectrum Policy at techUK, and managed the organisation’s response to the first Digital Economy Act in 2010. Since then, he has managed public affairs for EE following its acquisition by BT Group, helping to accelerate the UK's 5G and fibre broadband deployment, managing stakeholder relations around the Emergency Services Network rollout, leading on the Universal Service Obligation delivery, and helping to launch the Shared Rural Network initiative.  

At the GSMA, he managed public policy activity across 23 Asia-Pacific markets from Hong Kong, securing significant policy reforms through collaboration with ASEAN, APEC, and other regional bodies. Prior to that, he managed Gatwick Airport’s public affairs and public policy functions on separation from BAA. Most recently, at Logically AI, he has expanded his focus to address emerging challenges in technology policy, particularly around AI governance, cybersecurity, and online content regulation. He holds an Advanced Diploma in Political Communications from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and a master's degree from King's College London. 

Andrew Palmer

Consulting Director, CGI

Andrew works for CGI as a Telecoms Subject Matter Expert, providing pre-sales consultancy and business development support within the Space, Defence and Intelligence business unit. 
He is an experienced Pre-sales Consultant and Principal Solution Architect with significant achievements and a strong leadership track record gained from over 35 years experience in the IT and Telecoms industry. He combines technical and commercial expertise across all project lifecycle aspects from requirements capture through to business case definition, work package development to contracted sale and successful delivery. 
 
His depth of knowledge is across a wide range of business areas and technologies, including IPTV, Mobile TV, Media Delivery and Management, Unified Messaging, Enriched Communications, Service Layer Enablers, Enterprise Applications, Presence, IMS, OSS/NMS, Internet Technologies, Hosting, Managed Services and Network Software. 

Dr Mark Grayson

Fellow, Cisco

Mark Grayson is a Cisco Fellow in Cisco’s Global Technology and Standardization Group, where he currently has broad responsibility for supporting Cisco's 5G strategy, including defining the role of Wi-Fi based access in 5G environments, chairing the WBA’s OpenRoaming program that defines a roaming federation of private wireless networks, leading Cisco’s multi-vendor RAN virtualization efforts, being co-chair of the O-RAN Alliance’s Fronthaul Working Group, as well as supporting Cisco’s enterprise team defining systems for supporting 5G enterprise use cases.

He has over 30 years of experience in the wireless industry, ranging from the development of military HF systems, cellular handset RF/DSP design, the definition of mobile satellite communication architectures, architecting service provider Wi-Fi solutions, the evolution of traditional cellular systems through to the creation of the latest virtualized RAN solutions.

He holds a first class Honours degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the University of Birmingham (England) together with a PhD in Radio Communications. Mark has been granted over 200 patents in the area of mobile communications and is the co-author of IP Design for Mobile Networks (2009) and Building the Mobile Internet (2011), both published by Cisco Press

Emma Shearer

Senior Government Affairs Manager, CityFibre

Emma is the Senior Government and Public Affairs Manager at Full Fibre operator, CityFibre, where she has led on parliamentary engagement and policy development for the past 4 years. She has a deep understanding of telecoms policy issues having previously worked for the secretariat of industry trade association the Internet Services Providers Association. During her time in agency, she also advised clients from a wide spread of tech markets, including cyber security and online marketplaces.  

Stephen McConnell

Chief Network Architect, Cloud Gateway

Chris Watson

Global Head of Technology, Media and Communications, CMS CMNO

Chris Watson is one of the world’s leading technology law experts. He is Chair of the CMS Technology, Media and Communications group and leads an international team of over 600 lawyers. He focuses on cross-border and international commercial and regulatory/competition and financing matters in TMC, particularly in areas where competition and regulation overlap, and on EU law arising in cross-border and complex transactions. Chris has advised regulatory and competition authorities around the world on codes. 

Chris is included as one of a handful of “Global Elite Thought Leaders” in Who’s Who Legal: Data 2020. He has also been ranked for many years in the Hall of Fame for IT & Telecoms, most recently by Legal 500 2025, and Band 1 for Telecommunications by Chambers and Partners 2025. His recognition as a Who’s Who Legal “Global Leader” in the categories of Data - Information Technology, and Data - Telecoms & Media also goes back for many years. He has notably been a leader in the evolution of structures for digital infrastructure finance. Chris is described by clients and contacts as "exceptionally bright", boasting an "amazingly international practice". Sources told Chambers and Partners: "He is very knowledgeable on telecoms regulation and competition law, and one of the nicest people you could ever meet."  He is past Chair and current Advisory Board Member of the IBA Communications Law Committee. He is bilingual and dual qualified in English and French law. He has advised the following in relation to digital infrastructure work:  ING Bank on numerous financing of various forms of digital infrastructure; The World Bank on drafting, existing and analysing digital identity legislation and programmes for numerous African and several other countries; and CityFibre, the UK’s largest alternative provider of wholesale fibre network infrastructure, on a partnership with Vodafone to deliver ultra-fast Gigabit-capable full fibre broadband to up to 5 million homes and businesses across the UK by 2025. 

Jamie Hayes

Chief Sales and Commercial Officer, Cornerstone

Jamie Hayes, CSCO Cornerstone Networks UK is a senior operating and visionary executive with a proven track record in strategic, transformational change management and day-to-day operations management. Formerly at Boldyn Networks he was responsible for the development of new capabilities, including the public sector business. Prior to this, Jamie worked with the team at BT in their Wholesale business driving their ambition to be at the forefront of technology, and to empower people and industries to reach their full potential, going beyond the limits of today. There, he led BT's Enterprise - Wholesale mobile network operators segment with a leadership philosophy of “show, don’t tell,” prioritizing customers above all with £500Mn P&L. Formerly at Ericsson in global leadership roles in the US with $800Mn P&L and up to $7Bn total deal size. He also took leadership roles into the Middle East and European businesses, and with earlier career experience built in Hutchison Whampoa's Three UK and a series of other start-up businesses, he has more than 15 years senior leadership experience in the IT and Telecoms sectors. He is married with two teenage girls and spends time outside work with business mentoring and coaching at "Be the Business" and "One Million Mentors", and a youth mental health charity "Young Minds", as well as being a qualified welfare officer and safeguarding lead for England Athletics. 

Dritan Kaleshi

Director of Technology - 5G and Digital Infrastructure, Digital Catapult

Dritan is the Director of 5G Technology and Digital Infrastructure at Digital Catapult, with over 30 years of experience in communication networks, distributed systems, and interoperability. He leads the Future Networks and Digital Infrastructure programmes, driving innovation in advanced communication systems and their adoption in enterprise networks in the UK. Dritan is a founder of SONIC Labs and the UK Telecommunication Innovation Network (UKTIN), where he shapes the UK's future R&D capabilities in networking systems.   

His work focuses on national R&D coordination, advancing digital infrastructure, and promoting 5G/6G network architectures, orchestration, edge computing, and IoT. Dritan has published 75+ papers, holds three patents, edited two international standards, and regularly speaks on digital infrastructure and communications innovation. He has represented the UK in international standardisation bodies and provided technical advice to industry and government.   

Previously, Dritan led a research team at the University of Bristol, combining network research with industrial collaboration in areas like smart energy, cities, and digital health. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol.  

Nina Spanovic

Head of Network Solutions Customer Unit UK and Ireland, Ericsson

Nina is the Head of Network Solutions for Customer Unit UK and Ireland at Ericsson. Her role and the role of her team is to support Ericsson’s customers, Customer Service Providers (CSPs), in identifying optimal deployment solutions and defining network evolution strategies that foster growth and innovation. She has been a part of Ericsson for 7 years, working closely with CSPs in the UK and previously across the wider market area. Nina holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the School of Electrical Engineering, Department of Telecommunications, in Belgrade, Serbia. 

Fiona Cayley

General Counsel, Gigaclear

Fiona joined Gigaclear in May 2016 as sole in-house counsel, becoming General Counsel in January 2019. Fiona trained and qualified with a leading national firm based in Bristol, specialising in litigation.  After a career break and prior to joining Gigaclear, she was sole in-house counsel at ULS Technology plc. 

Gigaclear designs, builds and operates a full fibre broadband network in rural areas of England.  Since joining, Fiona has seen Gigaclear grow from a company of 67 people to almost 800, with its FTTP network expanding out from Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds to connect 600,000 rural premises across 26 counties.  She now has a team of 5 covering a wide ranging legal and regulatory function and has more recently has added policy and public affairs to her responsibilities as part of Gigaclear’s leadership team.  

Eric Brown

Director, Grid Scientific

Eric Brown is an independent consultant in energy systems, working through his company Grid Scientific Limited. In his work he focusses on projects and initiatives that address the challenges and opportunities of energy system transformation in pursuit of Net Zero. He is also Professor of Practice in Energy Systems in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Strathclyde. Eric is the former Chief Technology Officer at Energy Systems Catapult, having been part of the team that established the organisation. He remains engaged with the Catapult as Executive Adviser. Eric chairs the National Energy System Operator’s Technology Advisory Council. He became involved in the energy sector after having gained many years’ experience in the telecommunications industry. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Energy and Technology and of the Energy Institute. 

Dr Peter Couch

Chief Executive Officer, JRC

Dr Peter D Couch is Chief Executive Officer at Joint Radio Company working with the Energy Network Operators to establish the optimum regulatory regime to facilitate the Smart Grid future. An innovative, highly driven strategic thinker with 20+ years’ experience of enhancing enterprise value in regulated businesses within the Energy, Technology, Media and Telecommunications sectors.  

 
At JRC Peter is responsible for all Management and Operational activities supporting the Operational Telecommunications needs of the UK Energy Network Operators and works closely with key stakeholders in DESNZ, Ofgem, DSIT and Ofcom to ensure that the UK Energy sector has the appropriate spectrum rights and regulatory interventions to facilitate 'Smart Grid' developments.  

Andrew Smith

Strategic Partnerships Lead, National Physics Laboratory

Andrew received a first class BSc degree in Physics from Loughborough University in 1989 before joining NPL. His >35 year career at NPL includes three roles:  

1) research scientist for 14 years – NPL lead role in developing femtosecond photoconductive pulse generation and electro-optic sampling for novel metrology applications in the communications areas. Authored >25 publications and conference papers, PhD awarded from University College London, managed a world-leading fast pulse calibration facility, and led several related research projects;  

2) worked as Group Leader for 16 years in electromagnetics and 5G areas - responsible for all aspects of a technical group (typically 15+ staff)  -  managing complex portfolio of projects, people manager, business development, and health and safety; 

3)  working in NPL Partnerships establishing key relationships and projects with industry, academia and UK government. Andrew worked on developing new policy ideas (such as the Future Networks Initiative), convening industry, inputting to various committees, and also undertook a 18 month secondment to the DCMS 5G policy team. He was pivotal in helping DSIT (DCMS) and NPL establish the new UK Telecoms Lab (UKTL), now with a growing complement of over fifty new staff focussing on telecoms security. He is the strategy lead for future comms in the Security and Resilience area.  

Will Woodroofe

Head of Policy, Openreach

Luigi Ardito

Senior Director, Government Affairs, Qualcomm

Dan Warren

Director, Communications Research, Samsung

Dan Warren is Director of Communications Research at Samsung Research UK.  He leads a team of researchers and Standards representatives working on cutting-edge mobile telecoms technology innovation, in the fields of Beyond 5G, 6G and the application of Artificial Intelligence.  Dan applies his broad experience in the industry across technical, commercial, strategic and regulatory topics to steer Research towards relevant and commercially viable solutions.  Dan is currently a Board member of 6G-IA, the advisory Board of UKTL, and is a member of a number of External Advisory Boards for academic research projects. 

Prior to joining Samsung, Dan held senior roles at Capita, GSMA, Vodafone and Nortel, and holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Brunel University. 

Gerard Donohue

Group CTO, Telent Technology Services

As CTO at Telent since early 2015, Gerard provides extensive knowledge of the current and emerging technologies trends required to deliver digital transformation initiatives such as Industry 4.0 and beyond.

As part of his remit, Gerard analyses these trends and insight, building a technology strategy roadmap as part of the CTO office. This ensures that Telent offers services that deliver the tangible business benefits and innovation required to sustain its existing clients and attract new customers.

Currently, he is engaged with technologies such as ubiquitous connectivity (Fixed, Mobile (public/private) and Satellite) connected things (sensors, connected people, vehicles), sustainability and OT cybersecurity to build future solutions and services in the CNI industries. With a constant eye on new technologies from current and emerging vendors, ensuring how they offer a solution to a problem, how they complement or replace existing technologies and solutions built for specific industries and re-purposing these for other new market verticals for telent is a primary focus.

As part of his role, Gerard has also been engaged as technical programme lead for a number of high profile and complex projects wins.  These include the transition and transformation programme for the National Road Telecommunications Service for Highways England and the design package for ICT for Hinkley Point C, the next generation nuclear power station being built in Somerset.

Gerard has over 35+ years’ experience in the ICT and Telecommunications market starting out as a field service engineer.  His knowledge has been gained across a broad range of technologies, from maintaining mainframes, building and operating client server environments to, designing secure IP communication networks from Enterprise to carrier grade networks.

George Robinson

Head of Government Affairs, Three

Olivier Raynaud

Senior Manager – Regulatory and Government Affairs at Verizon, Verizon

Olivier Raynaud is a Senior Manager in the Regulatory and Government Affairs team for the UK, Ireland, and the Nordics at Verizon. His responsibilities cover public policy, regulatory compliance, and government relations for these jurisdictions. He also works on network security, foreign direct investment, and sustainability across the European region. 

Before joining Verizon in 2021, Olivier spent two years in the regulatory team at a global digital infrastructure company, focusing on telecoms regulation. He has a background in law and economics, with an LLM in Transnational Law from King’s College London and a Master’s in Business Law, Markets, and Regulation from Sciences Po Paris. 

Kate North

Public Affairs Manager - South, Virgin Media O2

Kate is the Public Affairs Manager for the South of England at Virgin Media O2. Kate began her career in Local Government, spending 10 years working in economic development, digital leadership and infrastructure deployment. Kate is now responsible for Virgin Media O2’s public affairs engagement for the South of the UK, covering both fixed and mobile connectivity. In her 8 years at Virgin Media, and latterly O2, Kate has worked on fibre network expansion, fibre upgrade, electric vehicle charging, small cell deployment and mobile infrastructure investment. 

Chris Parkinson

Senior Government Affairs Manager , Vodafone

Chris is responsible for Vodafone UK's advocacy on telco market conditions, public service digitalisation and private sector uptake of digital tools. He has been at Vodafone for eight years, with prior experience in the construction industry and in Westminster.

Gareth Alston

Director, Government Affairs, One Web

Gareth is Director of Government Affairs at global satellite operator Eutelsat OneWeb (formerly OneWeb), where he leads on policy, regulatory, and licensing issues with the UK government and supports broader market access and business development globally. He is also responsible for securing all launch and in-orbit operations licences for OneWeb’s satellite constellation. 

Previously, he served at the British Embassy in Washington D.C., where he led on UK transport and infrastructure policy across the United States. Prior to this, he held a range of policy and security roles across the UK government, including at the Cabinet Office, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Department for Transport (DfT), and Ministry of Defence (MOD).