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.

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.

An industry pioneer, with over two decades leading the change within the broadband industry, Dana was awarded a CBE for her services to the digital economy in Honours list in 2018.

As one of only a handful of female trailblazers for the telecom industry, she made it her mission gest challenge of poor network speeds in 2004 with the launch of Be Unlimited and again in 2011 when she co-founded Hyperoptic, residential gigabit broadband network (offering unprecedented 1Gbit/s symmetrical speeds at a time when the average download speed was just 6.8Mbit/s).

Fast forward to today, she remains at the helm of Hyperoptic which passes over 1.73 million premises across the UK, serving more than 340,000 customers. Tobak’s leadership has seen the company scale while maintaining impeccable standards of service, ensuring that the customer has remained at the heart of everything they do. This customer-first mindset has resulted in Hyperoptic receivingWhich? Great Value endorsementin 2024 rating on Trustpilot. This achievement, particularly in a market saturated with competitors, and passion for innovation, strengthened by the experience of her team who, much like Dana, are committed to creating a great place to work for their teams.

Dana’s impact extends beyond broadband. She is deeply invested in nurturing the future generation of tech leaders. Through active participation in community outreach programs and engagements with local schools and panels, Dana shares her insights and experiences, igniting the flames of innovation in young minds.

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 2000, when he joined the telecom industry, Meredith has achieved remarkable success at driving customer-centric transformation and innovative new propositions within the UK and worldwide.

In 2014, Meredith spearheaded the successful launch of Vodafone’s fixed broadband market entry in the UK, leading to rapid growth and the launch of an innovative customer proposition that laid the foundations for the current growth.

Today, Meredith is Regional CEO for Digicel, bringing fixed and mobile solutions to consumers and businesses across Bermuda, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and Turks & Caicos.

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.