Femi Ogunbiyi is a Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager at BT Group, a role held since 2021. He has had a broad career in public policy and public affairs, including in Government where we worked at the Department for Transport on rail policy and at the COVID-19 taskforce at the Cabinet Office. He has previously held public policy roles at trades bodies, including the Rail Delivery Group and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.

Kerry Smith is a Public Policy Manager at Virgin Media O2, where she works across public policy and regulatory issues affecting the communications sector. Her work spans online safety, network and cyber security, infrastructure regulation and digital markets, with a focus on the interaction between legislation, regulation and operational delivery. She has experience engaging with government, regulators and industry stakeholders, and contributing to policy development and consultation processes across a range of digital and infrastructure policy areas. Kerry holds an MPA in Digital Technologies and Policy from University College London.

Bea is Partner and Events Manager at ISPA, responsible for managing ISPA’s events portfolio from planning through to delivery, alongside event marketing and supporting partners with their deliverables.

She studied a law LLB at the University of Exeter, before deciding that events were a lot more fun. These days she channels that same attention to detail into wrangling logistics, managing deadlines, and making sure no deliverable gets left behind.

Chris Stening is a master at driving focus and energy to build world-class businesses. With over two decades of experience, he has led the launch, growth, and scaling of multimillion-pound challenger brands, making him the go-to expert for founders and leaders ready to take their enterprises and leadership to the next level.

Chris possesses a rare ability to cut through business noise, ensuring laser-focused strategies that turn ambitious goals into reality. He understands that the challenge isn’t finding opportunities—it’s navigating them effectively to deliver tangible, transformative results.

Renowned for energising and elevating business performance, Chris brings unparalleled clarity, precision, and execution to every partnership. His deep expertise in strategic focus and decision-making makes him an indispensable ally for any leader.

Clients consistently work with Chris to help them launch, energise, and scale their businesses while enhancing their leadership impact, driving them to unprecedented levels of success.

Gita is the Founder Director of GOS Consulting, specialising in economic regulation and commercial strategy in electronic communications. She has more than 35 years’ experience including 12 years in senior management and director roles before becoming a consultant. Gita provides consultancy and expert witness services. She has worked for fixed and mobile operators, service providers, governments, regulators, suppliers and investors worldwide. Gita works with a number of UK and international stakeholders and is actively involved a wide range of policy and regulatory matters.

James has over a decade of experience in the telecoms industry during which time he has worked as an analyst, consultant, and policy advisor. He has broad knowledge and experience across spectrum, digital policy, M&A, and operator strategy.

Prior to joining Assembly, James was a lead analyst at the GSMA and before that a competition policy manager at Ofcom where he was project manager for the team advising the CMA and EC on the BT/EE and O2/Three merger reviews. He also led a market review of the 070 number range, and took the lead on various workstreams within the regulator’s Openreach quality of service project. James has a BSc in Economics and a LLM in International Competition Law and Policy from the University of East Anglia.

Rob is managing director and publisher of industry media owner, Total Telecom. As well as providing insight into telecom industry in the UK and across the world, Total Telecom organise a range of industry events including the award winning Connected Britain – the leading annual gathering of those shaping Britain’s digital future. Rob brings a broad range of experience derived from more than twenty years of working in the ICT sector.

Since joining the telecoms industry in 2000, Meredith Sharples has delivered customer‑centric transformation and launched innovative propositions across the UK and international markets.

In 2014, he led Vodafone UK’s entry into fixed broadband, designing the customer proposition that underpinned its rapid early growth, he then went on to lead one of the largest ISPs in the UK.

Having recently returned to Europe from the Caribbean, he now leads Satellite Connect Europe, delivering Direct‑to‑Device mobile broadband from Low Earth Orbit satellites to standard smartphones across European operators.

Brian has worked with some of Europe’s largest ISP’s to bring innovative products to market like Mobile Broadband, Fixed Broadband, WiFi, VoIP and IPTV. He specializes in product design with an emphasis on developing award winning product and user experiences. In the past decade he has positively influenced policy advancement at industry level, run industry groups, technology conferences and also advised on the design of a number of well known consumer devices. Brands Brian has worked with span from BT, Telefonica, TalkTalk, O2, UPC and Dell. He occasionally appears in publications online or in the broadsheets.

Jolanta Stanke has 14 years experience in telecoms, broadband and technology research. She joined Point Topic as Senior Editor in 2009 and became Research Director in 2015. Jolanta’s main areas of work are research and analysis of broadband market trends, including availability, take-up and pricing both in the UK and globally, as well as recruiting and training an international research network of highly skilled broadband analysts.

Previously, Jolanta worked and led on a number of research projects focusing on entrepreneurship, start ups, high tech sector and public policy while working at Kaunas University of Technology, UCL, Cambridge and Oxford Universities. A Cambridge graduate in Economics and a Fulbright scholar, she has an MBA and PhD in Management Studies