Nominee Questionnaire

Please provide a short bio for voters to get to know you. 

A: I‘m the CEO of Render Networks, which makes the AI software that operators and General Contractors use to build and operate fiber and electric networks across the U.S. I have spent 25 years in telecommunications and have worked on most sides of it: for operators, for network vendors, in research, in cloud and AI, and now in management software. Before Render I was General Manager for Global Industries at IBM, running a multi-billion dollar business, and before that I spent 12 years at Nokia, four of them on the leadership team of Nokia Bell Labs. The work has taken me to living in ~20 countries and traded in more than >50 emergent and advanced economies. 

I started out as a soldier in the British Army, serving as an infanteer as part of 5 Airborne Brigade and the UK’s Rapid Reaction Force, which significantly shaped my outlook on performance and leadership. I later took a master’s degree in Strategy & Organizational Leadership at the University of Oxford, but most of what I know about leadership I learned in the field, and I still trust the view from the field over the view from the slide. I’m married with four children, which means I will be working forever… I’m a rugby fan, a mountaineer, and I raise money for charities that support veterans’ mental health. I believe good organizations run on trust, tempo and a shared refusal to accept mediocrity. 

Please summarize why you consider yourself an excellent candidate for the FBA Board of Directors? 

A: The fiber industry spent the last five years winning the argument for major investment. It will spend the next five proving it can build what has been and will be further funded, and that is a much harder problem with the advent of competing access technologies, AI offering equal opportunity and disruption, massive demand to serve AI and data centers and major challenges in the technology and services value chain. These problems also directly compete with the other utilities for the same crews, materials and capital. 

I believe I am unusually well placed to help members through that. I have worked for or alongside every kind of company in this association: operators, network equipment vendors, contractors, software providers and investors. I spent four years on the leadership team at Bell Labs and ran a Global Industries business at IBM and work with AI every day, so I understand AI as a technology and not as a slogan. 

That is what I would bring to the Board: a commercial, technical and operational view of how to build sustainable value while navigating massive complexity, Most importantly I have a strong preference for practical answers that members of any size can use. 

Describe your current position and functional responsibilities to your company. 

A: As CEO I am responsible for Render’s strategy, performance and people. I lead the executive team, answer to our board and investors, and decide where we put our capitlal and our engineering effort. In my first year we acquired mPower Innovations, which took Render beyond fiber construction into operations and asset management for electric utilities and broadband providers in more than 40 states. 

I spend most of my time with customers, which are the FBA’s members: operators, electric cooperatives, municipal utilities, software and hardware vendor partners and the contractors who build for them. I speak regularly at industry events, including Fiber Connect, Metro Connect, TMT Finance and Broadband Nation Expo. These activities keep me honest about what the industry needs to succeed. 

What was your previous position, and how long did you hold that position before transitioning to your current one? 

A: Before Render I spent about two and a half years at IBM, most recently as General Manager for Global Industries, responsible for a multi-billion dollar global business. Before IBM I spent 12 years at Nokia in senior sales and strategy roles, including four years on the leadership team of Nokia Bell Labs. 

Do you have any experience as a member of a Board of Directors? If so please provide name of the entity and number of years of which you served. 

A: I have not served as an elected director of a trade association before, and I would rather say so plainly. My governance experience comes from working with boards at close quarters: as CEO I sit on Render’s investor-backed board, and at Nokia Bell Labs I spent four years on the global leadership team. I am an advisor to a Croatian based venture capital firm, where I advise their board and the CXOs of the portfolio companies. I held a very close working relationship with the Director General and leadership of the GSMA and was the key note at multiple of their boards including the GSMA Annual Board Meeting. While at Nokia and IBM I also sat on ‘top-to-top’ boards of the largest operators in the world. Consequently I know what a board needs from its members: preparation, candor and follow-through. 

How many years has your company been a Fiber Broadband Association Member?

A: Render Networks has been a Premier Member of the Fiber Broadband Association since January 6, 201  

How many years have you participated in Fiber Broadband Association activities? 

A: Since joining Render, 18 months ago I have been active in the community. I have built a strong network and been invited to speak at FBA committee meetings and attended regional and national events. Also in the last 2 years since joining Render, we have been awarded back-to-back first place in FBA award categories. 

Please indicate any Fiber Broadband Association Committees or working groups you have participated on including position and years served. 

A: None to date. I have been invited to speak at different committees on the topic of AI and change management. 

Please list any Fiber Broadband Association Contributions (activities supported, assets developed, documents drafted, webinars presented, etc.) 

A: I have spoken at Fiber Connect and have FBA committees on how AI will change network technology deployment, management and the organizations that do it. 

Render’s work with fellow members has been recognized by FBA in each of the last two years. In 2025 we received the Light It Up Award with Connect2First and Irby Utilities for bringing fiber to underserved communities across 18 Arkansas counties. In 2026 Render and ADB Companies received the Constellation Award for our work together on large-scale fiber deployment. Those awards belong first to the operators and crews who did the building, but they show the kind of collaboration between members that I would want to encourage from the Board. 

Please provide a short overview of your experience with telecommunications, fiber optics, and FTTH technologies. 

A: I have worked at nearly every stage of a network’s life. Early in my career I deployed networks in remote and emerging markets e.g. Eastern Europe back in 2000 and emerging markets like Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. At Nokia I worked on network strategy and technology with leading operators around the world, and at Bell Labs alongside the researchers who shape what networks become. At IBM I worked on how cloud and AI change the way technology and AI cooperate and how operators run their business in the AI-era. 

At Render I am closest to FTTH construction itself. Our customers are the operators, cooperatives and contractors building fiber across the U.S., so I see how networks are designed and scoped, how thousands of field tasks are sequenced, how quality and as-built records are captured, and how a finished build is handed to operations. I also see the constraints up close: crew capacity, productivity, rework, poor data, and the time it takes for invested capital to become a network that earns revenue. 

Please describe the goals you would like to accomplish during your term as Fiber Broadband Association Board Member. 

A: I would concentrate on three things that underpin how FBA members can navigate enormous technological challenges whilst achieving their strategic goals and maintaining their values: 

First, make execution a first-order subject. The industry has the funding. What it lacks is a shared view of what great technology deployment and operation performance looks like. I would like FBA to help members measure and compare how they build: productivity, rework, and the time from capital committed to customer connected and delighted. 

Second, help members get practical about AI. AI will change how networks are designed, built and operated, and the hard part is changing how people work, far more than choosing the technology. Large operators have teams for this but many FBA members do not. I would work to give smaller operators and contractors plain guidance they can act on. 

Third, bring fiber and electric closer together. Broadband, data centers and the grid now draw on the same labor, materials and capital, and many cooperatives and municipal utilities are building more than one of them. FBA should be where that conversation happens, on workforce above all. 

Beneath all three sits the reason any of it matters. A rural community that gets connected, or a region that can host the AI economy, gains far more than the original business case ever predicted. I would want the Board to keep that in view.

Please describe the level of commitment (in terms of time and effort) that you intend to make to the Association during the three-year term. 

A: I will treat this as a working role for the full three years. I will attend every board meeting having read the papers, join at least one committee in my first year, and be present at Fiber Connect and the regional events. I have Render’s full support for the time this takes. 

My standard is the one I hold my own team to: turn up prepared, say what I think, do what I said I would, and listen to people who know something I don’t. 

Please use this space to include any additional information you feel is important to share with voting members.   

A: I am a relative newcomer to FBA and I am not going to pretend otherwise. What I can offer is a fresh pair of eyes backed by a long and varied career in this industry, and a view from the part of the industry where plans meet the ground. 

No company builds a network alone, and no part of this industry will get through the next five years alone either. Operators, contractors, vendors, policymakers and communities will have to share what they are learning, including the things that went wrong. I would be proud to help FBA be the place where that happens.