Former BT CTO boosts Huawei's global credentials

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Former BT CTO boosts Huawei's global credentials

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 1 October, 2009

Huawei has been on an aggressive campaign in the past two years, to reduce its dependence on its home market and reposition itself as a truly global provider, competing on advanced technology credentials as well as low prices. It has been remarkably successful, scoring a range of LTE trials, edging into tier one carriers in Europe, and hovering on the edge of the US big time (with its Clearwire deal). Now it has enhanced its international hi-tech image further by appointing a high profile global CTO, Matt Bross, who oversaw British Telecom's ground breaking 21CN network program.

Bross is the first senior global operator executive to join Huawei, and will bring valuable experience of how multinational carriers conduct next generation network projects - as well as his reputation and range of contacts round the world. Bross left BT in July, citing "personal reasons", and returned to his native US, where he will be based in his new role, which starts on October 1.

His first priority is expected to be to ease Huawei's path in north America, where despite some inroads, the firm still lacks presence with the big four carriers (except at Sprint via its Clearwire contract). Former Bross associates questioned how far the outspoken executive would fit into the shadowy culture of Huawei, where CEO Ren Zhengfei has famously not given an interview for 10 years. But this may well be one of the objectives of hiring the BT man - to start to change Huawei's public image, and create new lines of communication with western partners and operators, some of which have struggled to deal with the supplier's still heavily Chinese approach. By contrast, ZTE has so far been more aggressive about hiring non-Chinese executives and creating a global image.

Huawei EVP Ken Hu, in a statement, called Bross a communications technology visionary and said: "He is also a business leader with a strong spirit of innovation and will help Huawei better understand customer requirements to create more business value." The statement continued: "Bross will focus on identifying global telecommunications industry and network architecture trends. He will also support the company's efforts in delivering the latest products and solutions for north American customers."

At BT, Bross has not been replaced, and the telco has restructured, merging the unit that its CTO headed up, Innovate, with BT Design. CIO Al-Noor Ramji has taken on some of the responsibilities of the former CTO.