The 5G 50 to Watch
Last year, just before The Big 5G Event, we compiled the 5G 100 – a list of the people we deemed to be the most influential in the wide world of 5G products, technologies and services. This year we're opting for a smaller list that embraces a slightly broader point of view.
We did something similar in the wired broadband space already. For more on that effort, please have a look at The Broadband 50 to Watch .
Included in this list are many of the obvious industry influencers – the top telcos, big gear makers and companies delivering 5G services to millions worldwide. We've also included a few folks we feel are compelling and just might move the industry forward, though they may not yet be market leaders or even have a single 5G subscriber.
Of course, this wasn't just a weekend thing we assembled in isolation (though we are back to practicing rigorous social distancing, obviously). The folks weighing in on this list included veteran industry journalists like Light Reading's own Mike Dano and Iain Morris. We also had the benefit of getting suggestions, ideas and feedback from Omdia and Heavy Reading analyst colleagues, including Gabriel Brown, Dario Talmesi, Remy Pascal, Matthew Reed, Nicole McCormick, Sarah McBride and Ramona Zhao. Light Reading contributor Rob Pegoraro helped write the bio captions for the Top 10 and Informa's Francesca Greane managed the project from end to end.
We hope you'll appreciate this list as a conversation starter and you'll let us know who didn't make the list but are on your radar as folks who are moving the industry forward.
What follows below is the entire 5G 50 to Watch, unranked and listed alphabetically by last name. On the next page, we have the Top 10 list, ranked and filed for your reading pleasure:
Table 1: The 5G 50 to Watch
| First Name | Last Name | Job Title | Company |
| Haithem | Alfaraj | Senior VP of Technology & Operations | STC |
| Nawaf | Algharabally | CTO | Zain Group |
| Tareq | Amin | CTO | Rakuten |
| Enrique | Blanco | Telefónica Global CTIO | Telefónica |
| Danny | Bowman | Chief Mobile Officer | Charter Communications |
| Caroline | Chan | VP and GM, 5G Infrastructure Division, Network Platform Group | Intel |
| Wanshi | Chen | Chair, 3GPP RAN Plenary | 3GPP |
| Paul Kyungwhoon | Cheun | Head of Networks Business | Samsung |
| Alex | Choi | Senior Vice President Research and Technology Innovation | Deutsche Telekom |
| Ashraf | Dahod | President & CEO | Altiostar |
| Dame Melanie | Dawes | CEO | Ofcom |
| Ray | Dolan | CEO | Cohere Technologies |
| Erik | Ekudden | CTO | Ericsson |
| Joseph B. | Evans | Principal Director for 5G, Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering | U.S. Department of Defense |
| Marc | Ganzi | CEO | DigitalBridge |
| Ibrahim | Gedeon | CTO | Telus |
| Shawn | Hackl | VP of 5G Strategy | Microsoft |
| Adolfo | Hernandez | VP, Telecom IBU | Amazon Web Services |
| Gyung-Pyo | Hong | EVP, Institute of Convergence Technology | KT |
| Fredrik | Jejdling | EVP and Head of Business Area Networks | Ericsson |
| Yang | Jie | Chairman | China Mobile |
| Mo | Katibeh | Senior Vice President | AT&T |
| Pardeep | Kohli | President and CEO | Mavenir |
| Bikash | Koley | Vice President and Head, Global Networking; Head, Technology and Strategy, Telecom Cloud | |
| Kyle | Malady | CTO | Verizon |
| Durga | Malladi | SVP & General Manager 4G/5G | Qualcomm |
| Kishen | Mangat | VP of 5G business development | Cisco |
| Gordon | Mansfield | Vice President Converged Access & Device Technology | AT&T |
| Shyam | Mardikar | Group CTO | Reliance Jio |
| Nick | McKeown | SVP and GM, Network and Edge Group | Intel |
| Neil | McRae | Managing Director and Chief Architect | BT |
| Takehiro | Nakamura | VP, 5G R&D | NTT Docomo |
| Seizo | Onoe | Strategic Advisor | NTT Docomo |
| Nicola (Nicki) | Palmer | Chief Product Development Officer | Verizon |
| Steve | Papa | Founder & CEO | Parallel Wireless |
| Jong-Kwan | Park | SVP and Head of 5GX Labs | SK Telecom |
| Neville | Ray | President of Technology | T-Mobile |
| Jessica | Rosenworcel | Acting Chairwoman | FCC |
| Kelly Bayer | Rosmarin | CEO | Optus |
| Marc | Rouanne | Chief Network Officer, EVP | Dish |
| Channa | Seneviratne | Executive Director - Network and Infrastructure Engineering | Telstra |
| Mike | Sievert | President & CEO | T-Mobile |
| Santiago | Tenorio | Head of Group Network Architecture | Vodafone |
| Tommi | Uitto | President, Nokia Mobile Networks Group | Nokia |
| Arnaud | Vamparys | SVP Radio Networks and 5G Group Chairman | Orange |
| Margrethe | Vestager | EVP, A Europe Fit for the Digital Age | European Commission |
| Johan | Wiberg | Group CTO | Vodafone |
| Ziyang | Xu | CEO | ZTE |
| Jason | Zander | Executive Vice President, Microsoft Azure | Microsoft |
| Ren | Zhengfei | Chairman | Huawei |
Contributing sources: Light Reading, Omdia, Informa Tech, Gray Whale Gin | |||
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