Keith Kidd, Verizon, NTAF President
kkidd@ntaforum.org
Keith Kidd is a Director in Verizon’s Network and Technology Labs with responsibilities for the organization’s Automation strategy as well as testing of Enterprise class equipment utilized by Verizon’s customers. Thirty years in the industry has exposed Mr. Kidd to all facets of IT work, from data center operations to software development.
During this time, Mr. Kidd has remained a strong advocate for automation. He was an early adopter of tools that facilitated reducing the test cycle and speeding the time to market for new products and services. Mr. Kidd pioneered the use of automation tools in the Internet sector as a start-up business, Within this framework he applied techniques that enabled the same test tool environment to be moved between test and production environments so that new code could be tested in a true production environment without increased costs and overheard.
In his present role with the Labs, Mr. Kidd has used his influence and considerable experience with the vendor community and his own organization to leverage open standards, as well as those published by key vendors, to create a common structure for automation within the multi-lab Systems Integration & Testing environment. Mr. Kidd is a strong proponent in adhering to open standards as a means of reducing the burden of automation on all parties. Such standards ultimately increase the value of the tools and will enable the automation industry to prosper in the future through broader adoption.
B.S. Information Systems Virginia Commonwealth University; MS – Management New Jersey Institute of Technology
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Todd Law, Spirent Communications, NTAF Vice President
tlaw@ntaforum.org
Dr. Todd Law's professional experience includes over 18 years in the networking industries, with leading employers such as Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, Nortel Networks, and most recently Spirent Communications. Network test has been his focus for the past 14 years, and he has specialized in automation aspects of network test for the past five years. During that time, he has driven automation strategies that span from traditional script-based techniques, to next-generation automation tools which bring orders of magnitude in automation efficiency. Most recently, Dr. Law has also been instrumental in the formation of the Network Test Automation Forum, or NTAF, whose mission is to standardize the mechanism by which various test solutions communicate with one another. |
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Jitin Dhanani, Ixia Communications, NTAF Treasurer
jdhanani@ntaforum.org
Jitin Dhanani is Business Development and Alliance Manager at Ixia. He is responsible for Ixia’s automation product and strategy as well as business development strategies and activities. He has been in the network test and automation industry for the past 10 years in various faculties from engineering to product marketing and new business development.
In his business development role, he works closely with Ixia’s business unit leaders and executive staff and interfaces with Ixia’s business partners and affiliates to develop and execute on Ixia’s expansion strategies.
Mr. Dhanani is a strong proponent of open industry adopted standards enabling automation and believes automation should be a key business goal, especially in the telecom arena. In his present role as the Alliance Manager for Ixia, he has been a key leader and instrumental in launching and executing successful industry wide endeavors to promote standards based approach to enable vendor agnostic test automation.
In roles prior to Ixia, Mr. Dhanani has served as Automation Product Manager at Advent Software, leader in software solutions for Investment Management and Project lead at Spirent Communications. Mr. Dhanani is also an entrepreneur and is a partner in a Strategy consulting firm in India.
He has an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Oxford University, UK; Masters in Computer Science from USC, USA; B.E in Electronics & Communications from NIT, India. |
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Bruno Giguère, EXFO, NTAF Secretary
bgiguere@ntaforum.org
Bruno Giguère was nominated Member of Technical Staff for EXFO in 2006 and as such isan
advisor to the CTO office. In this role, he is instrumental in analyzing market dynamics and implementing corresponding
technical strategies for the Transport and Datacom product portfolio. He is EXFO’s representative to many standard
organizations including the Metro Ethernet Forum, the International Telecommunication Union and the Network Test
Automation Forum. Mr. Giguère is also the Canadian National Study Group Chairman for ITU-T Study Group 12. Prior
to this nomination, Mr. Giguère held product management and system engineering positions both at EXFO and Avantas
Networks (acquired by EXFO in 2001). From 1992 to 2000, he also worked for Agilent Technologies, Wandel & Goltermann
and fonorola. Over the years, Mr. Giguère has acquired an excellent knowledge of the test and measurement, telecom
and datacom markets, more specifically in TCP/IP, transport technologies, Ethernet (10M to 100G), network synchronization
and Ethernet-based services. He has also presented multiple technology seminars and webinars and authored or co-authored
numerous application notes, magazine articles and technology reference guides. Mr. Giguère holds a bachelor’s degree
in Electrical Engineering from the École de technologie supérieure in Montréal, Canada. |
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Kris Raney, BreakingPoint Systems
kraney@ntaforum.org
Kris Raney, an accomplished Software Engineer, currently serves as the Manager of Software
Engineering at BreakingPoint Systems based in Austin, Texas. Kris is one of the original architects of the BreakingPoint
product family, having been with the company since it's inception in 2005. Kris has more than 15 years of industry
experience, specifically in security and telecommunications, having held positions at Mirage Networks, BMC Software
and Alcatel. Mr. Raney holds a Computer Science degree from Texas A&M University. |
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Steve Thomas, BT
sthomas@ntaforum.org
Steve Thomas is the Tools Architect at BT. He is responsible for a wide ranging portfolio of tools used throughout the business to facilitate the global delivery of converged systems by BT. During his 16 years with BT, he has held roles in Test and IP Network Operation before taking responsibility for leading major strategic test automation programmes. Steve has over 25 years of IT experience, covering development, test, support, management and strategy in the shipping, chemical, government, nuclear and telecoms sectors. Steve holds a BSc(Hon) Degree, is a professional member of the BCS and a Chartered IT Professional. |
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Madhusudan Nanjanagud, Cisco
mnanjanagud@ntaforum.org
Madhusudan is well recognized in the Networking Industry for immense contributions over the past 16 years with special focus on Service Provider Network Solutions. As a Principal Engineer at Cisco Systems, Madhusudan is responsible for leading technical teams in strategizing and execution of end to end Cisco solutions. As part of Cisco Development Organization (CDO), he is responsible for providing the strategic direction for Core Routing Business Unit and Mobility Internet Technology Group as it relates to designing and deploying solutions with innovation and customer success. He has been instrumental is designing, development and deployment of Cisco Core product families like MGX/RPM, GSR , CRS-1/3 and Next generation products to enable growth for Cisco’s customers. Madhusudan regularly speaks at various Industry forums like NANOG.
Prior to joining Cisco, Madhusudan worked as Global Networking Solution Architect at AT&T Managed Internet Services group and was responsible for the design and deployment of AT&T Common Backbone networks.
Academically, Madhusudan earned his Masters in Systems Engineering from BITS, Pilani University, India and Bachelors of Electronics Engineering from Bangalore University, India.
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Gordon Eddy, Empirix
geddy@ntaforum.org
Gordon Eddy is the Director of Product Management for the Enterprise Business Unit at Empirix,
Inc. Over the past ten years, Gordon’s primary responsibilities have been to bring new, innovative network and service
assurance solutions to the VoIP/NGN/IMS market place. He joined Hammer Technologies in 1999, one year before that
company became part of Empirix, Inc. Prior to his arrival at Hammer, Gordon worked at Teradyne in a variety of roles
ranging from test engineer to senior product manager. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of
Massachusetts-Lowell and MBA from Bentley College in Waltham, MA. |
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Torbjorn Nyman, Ericsson
tnyman@ntaforum.org
Torbjörn Nyman is currently heading the Practice Lead R&D within Project Delivery in the Ericsson Group IT and Test Environments organization. This position includes managing tools development and tools provisioning groups in Montreal, Canada and in Budapest, Hungary. Torbjörn is based in Linköping Sweden, and is through his position also supporting the Engineering Service Delivery organizations within Ericsson. The Ericson Engineering Service Delivery organizations are responsible for the set-up of the test labs as well as the engineering development environment for Ericsson's entire R&D on a worldwide basis.
Torbjörn has 25 years experience in SW development with a focus on integration and testing since more than 20 years. Torbjörn has worked within the Swedish defence industries in various positions until he joined Ericsson in 1996. Torbjörn holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics with specialization towards telecommunication from the Linköping University. |
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Lars Friedrich, JDSU
lfriedrich@ntaforum.org
Lars Friedrich is currently Vice President and General Manager of JDSU's Lab & Production Business Unit. He has
responsibility for a number of optical and digital telecom test instrument product lines, among them the MAP, ONT,
Hydra, and TestPoint platforms. Prior to joining JDSU, Dr. Friedrich was with ADVA Optical Networking AG, the German
Network Equipment Manufacturer, in a number of product management and technology strategy roles. Dr. Friedrich holds
several US and European patents in the area of optical transmission and has authored over 20 papers, given numerous
talks at industry events, and authored or co-authored two book chapters. | |
