George Woodward
President and CEO, Trilogy Networks Inc.(May 2013 - Till Now)
George Woodward began his career in IT and has been a driving force behind the evolution of the wireless industry since 1989. He is viewed as a significant thought leader and visionary in the technology evolution of rural America. A founding member of the Mobile Marketing Association, and an original member of the Competitive Carrier Association, he sits on the Board of the Rural Wireless Association. Mr. Woodward is also a founding member and Director at the Rural Cloud Initiative; a 70-member coalition focused on delivering Hyperscale Cloud capabilities deep into rural America and eliminating the Digital Divide.
Selected by then Chairman Ajit Pei of the FCC, Mr. Woodward serves on the congressionally mandated Precision Agriculture Task Force to use Advanced Technology to solve the escalating global food crisis. Likewise, he was also chosen by Chairwoman Rosenworcel to Co-Chair the 5G Open RAN Security Group within the Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council, CSRIC VIII.
As President and CEO of Trilogy Networks, Mr. Woodward is developing the technology and deploying the infrastructure to extend the world’s largest cloud service providers across 1.5 million square miles of rural America. Trilogy’s Edge Compute and Private 5G solutions are enabling the Digital Transformation that is solving for the multi-trillion-dollar opportunities in; Data-Driven Agriculture, Food Security, and Energy Independence, protecting our Nation’s Security. Mr. Woodward and his company are dedicated to eliminating the Rural Digital Divide and providing technology equity to all Americans.
Kevin Ober
Managing Director, 5G Open Innovation Lab(Feb 2020 - Till Now)
Kevin Ober started his Venture Capital career investing for Vulcan Capital the late Microsoft founder Paul Allen’s Family Office. Ober then founded Divergent Venture Partners with partner Rob Shurtleff and raised and invested 4 funds at Divergent. Ober is now part of the 5G Open Innovation Lab in Bellevue WA and runs the labs’s fund platform.
Keith Sutton
CTO, Telco Service Line, Microsoft(Jan 2022 - Till Now)
Keith Sutton has been a leader in the telecommunications industry for three decades. He has led international R&D and business management from 2G through 5G systems with expertise in Core, Radio, and Cloud solutions. In 2022, Keith joined Microsoft as the CTO of the Telecommunications Service to power the digital transformation of the telecommunications industry with Microsoft’s world’s best people and hyper-scale cloud technology.
Sona Venkat
VP and Head of Product(June 2021 - Till Now)
Sona Venkat is an experienced technology executive who has held senior leadership roles at Comcast, Microsoft, SAP and Oracle. Currently, as Vice President, Engineering and Head of Cloud Product and Customer Success at Comcast, Sona helps drive Comcast’s cloud vision, product management, financial operations, and customer success.
Sona was previously General Manager, Business Development at Microsoft and a key member of the leadership team responsible for the cloud transition and growth of Microsoft’s Business Applications and Business Intelligence portfolio to a multi-billion-dollar cloud business.
Sona spent over 13 years at SAP across a variety of cross functional leadership roles including most recently, as SVP of Corporate Strategy and Head of Market Intelligence where she was was instrumental in defining, evangelizing, and rolling out SAP’s cloud strategy globally as well as shaping its future product and technology portfolio. While at SAP, Sona was part of the team that helped launch a six-year high school in Queens, N.Y to help develop the next generation of talent in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
Sona holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and a BBA in International Business, magna cum laude, from the George Washington University. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two sons.
Bharath Krishnaswamy
SVP, Tach Mahindra(July 2021 - Till Now)
Bharath Krishnaswamy is Senior Vice President and heads the Pacific Northwest Geo for Tech Mahindra. His charter involves overseeing a large and growing P&L with key Enterprise customers and Hyper-scalers Hqrd in Seattle. Bharath leads a team of 5500 associates worldwide to build and deploy end to end Digital Transformation solutions, involving Cloud, 5G, AI, Modern Engineering and related technologies. Bharath has over 22 Years of leadership experience in the Enterprise consulting world across industries. He is a HBS alumina and part of Forbes Business Council. He also is a visiting faculty at the UW School of Business. Bharath is based out of Redmond, WA.