Five new Outstanding Contributors chosen for their dedication and leadership in the Forum’s unique Collaboration Program; latest additions to distinguished list announced at its interactive Action Week in Morristown, NJ 

MORRISTOWN, NJ — July 23, 2014: TM Forum announced today that five new individuals have been named as Outstanding Contributors at the Forum’s Action Week, held July 21-25 in Morristown, NJ. Now in its sixteenth year, the Forum’s Outstanding Contributor award recognizes individuals who have contributed significantly to the Forum’s Collaboration Program which provides a platform for diverse members from around the world to share knowledge and collaborate to continuously enhance the Forum’s Frameworx suite of best practices and standards.

TM Forum’s newest Outstanding Contributors announced at Action Week in Morristown are:

Tayeb Ben Meriem, Ph.D., Orange — Tayeb has been a sustained contributor to the Forum’s programs and projects particularly in interfaces and architecture through numerous liaison activities, including the Next Generation Mobile Network (NGMN) management group, and the multi-SDO, 3GPP, and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) network functions virtualization (NFV) liaison activities. He is an active contributor to the Forum’s Zero-touch Operations and Orchestration Management (ZOOM) program in NFV operating support system (OSS) futures and management architectures, and proactively supports TM Forum at IEEE GlobeCOM.

Stephen Fratini, Ph.D., Ericsson – Steve has been an active member of the Forum since 1996. He initiated the industry standard known as Multi-Technology Operations Systems Interface (MTOSI) in 2003, and has led the Forum’s Integration Program, which is based on the Information Framework (SID) and covers application programming interfaces (APIs) for business and OSS integration, since its inception in 2008. He is co-editor of the Service Problem Management Business Agreement; contributor to the initial Resource Alarm Management and Performance Management Business Agreements; the main author of the Resource Provisioning Business Agreement; contributor to the Ordering Business Agreement; and contributor to the Inventory Technical Reports. Within Ericsson, Steve plays a key role concerning innovation for software-defined networking (SDN) and NFV management.

Elaine Haher, Ericsson – Elaine provides significant contributions to the Forum’s Open Digital Program in terms of API development work and to the Forum’s digital health Catalyst projects, including the Digital Health: Curing the Complexity Catalyst project demonstrated at TM Forum Live! Nice 2014. She has also been leading the Catalog Management team for several years, and together with Cisco, works on aligning efforts with the Forum’s Information and Integration Frameworks and Open Digital direction overall, implementing new RESTful API technology and documenting it for wider audience.

Geoff Ibbett, Revenue Risk Management Solutions – Geoff has been a main force behind the Forum’s new Revenue Assurance Maturity Model which was developed over the prior 18 months and delivered as part of Frameworx 14 The new model was created through compilation of over 700 questions and is a significant evolution and contribution to the Forum’s Revenue Assurance Best Practices. In addition, Geoff was an active contributor to the Catalyst project last fall at Digital Disruption 2013 where the maturity model was tested. This is his second Outstanding Contributor award as a result of his continued hard work and dedication to the Forum.

Cécile Ludwichowski, Orange – Cécile has been a significant contributor to the Forum’s metric model iteration. She took the initiative of taking on the task of comparing the Information Framework model to other industry models, worked with another member on aligning the model with scenarios developed by that member and simplified the presentation of key concepts in the model. In addition, she was the primary contributor to the Loyalty Program work added in Frameworx 14 and volunteered to participate in the development of the test model. Her leadership was evident as she took on the role of primary metric guidebook editor and support role for model development.

“Congratulations to our newest Outstanding Contributors. Their dedication to the Forum’s Collaboration Program is integral to our members’ success in the digital economy,” said Nik Willetts, chief strategy officer, TM Forum. “The Forum’s foundation is built on its strong community of talented members—all brought together through our unique agile Collaboration Program and events like Action Week. Their hard work and collective genius fuels the development of solutions for tomorrow’s problems, today, ultimately creating the best practices and standards that help to create a vibrant, open digital world.”

TM Forum announced the Outstanding Contributors at Action Week during a ceremony on Wednesday, July 23. Presented by TM Forum’s Strategy and Adoption Subcommittee, the award distinguishes individuals who go above and beyond to contribute significantly to the work done in the Forum’s Collaboration community.

TM Forum’s Outstanding Contributors are nominated and selected by the Forum’s executive team and Collaboration Program leadership, and announced at the Forum’s Action Week events twice per year. Hosted by the Forum’s Collaboration Program, Action Week is a members-only, interactive event where industry thought leaders come together to share ideas, challenge conventional thinking and define the best practices to tackle today’s business issues.

About TM Forum

TM Forum is a global industry association which helps its members transform and succeed in the digital economy. The collective experience and interests of our member community, comprised of more than 85,000 experts from 1,000 global enterprises, service providers and technology suppliers drives everything we do, from thought-provoking research and publications, to practical guidance, tools and best practices, hands-on events, and training for business and IT leaders.

Through three key programs – Agile Business and IT, Open Digital Ecosystem, and Customer Engagement – we provide a unique platform for our members to connect and collaborate with individuals and groups from around the world to solve key challenges and rapidly innovate to deliver new services, improve business agility, partner for success, reduce cost and risk, and enhance customer value and loyalty. To learn more about the Forum and join our digital journey as a valued member and collaborator, please visit www.tmforum.org.

Global TM Forum Media Contact
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