Chris Adams - Chief Executive Officer
Chris began his career in retail where he had a variety of differing
management roles. He entered the telecoms market when he joined
Interoute in 1999 where he played a key role in developing the
emerging wholesale business. He was instrumental in setting up and
growing numerous European PTT relationships, which continue to
thrive today. Chris joined WaveCrest in 2003 to become European
Sales Director where his responsibilities spanned Continental
Europe, including breaking into the more recently liberalised
Eastern European locations. Chris’ role broadened in May 2005 when
he took responsibility for all commercial functions within the
wholesale division. In July 2006 he accepted the opportunity to
become Chief Executive Officer, and was instrumental in closing the
deal with Sistema. He holds an Honours degree in Business Studies.
Rhys Williams - Group CTO & Head of Strategic Development
Rhys brings more than 20 years of telecom technology experience to the
management team and has led the technical operations at WaveCrest since
the company was formed in 2001. In that time WaveCrest has transitioned
from a TDM based carrier with 16 legacy switches to a state of the art,
SIP based, next generation operator. Prior to WaveCrest Rhys was a founding
member and CTO of EDC where he was responsible for the design and implementation
of a multi node, international Carrier Class VoIP network which entered service
in 1999. Previously Rhys spent 10 years at GEC-Marconi Communications in research,
development and system design where he specialized in mobile radio networks.
Rhys holds an honours degree from Brunel University in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
Joe Rothstein - Senior Vice President Commercial Operations
Joe started in the telecommunications industry in the reseller
business, running the provisioning, customer care and order
management departments of a corporate, residential and calling card
reseller. He moved to Storm Telecommunications in 1998 as senior
billing executive, becoming the department manager and implementing
the processes and procedures of the billing department, which became
a feature of the company. He has initiated and managed major
projects on revenue assurance, data validation, system integration
and fraud prevention. Joe has an honours degree in Philosophy.
John Kirkpatrick - Chief Financial Officer
John has twenty years experience in finance with leading blue chip
container shipping firm P&O Nedlloyd involving all aspects of
finance including major capital investment appraisal and detailed
evaluation of tenders leading to ship orders. He was Far East
regional Financial Controller overseeing finance for both profit and
cost divisions with turnover in excess of US$700m. He also served as
Group Corporate Finance Project Manager leading business systems
implementation of Hyperion and bespoke integrated commercial and
financial systems. He moved into the telecoms industry in 2001 as
Finance Director of Interoute Telecommunications (UK) Ltd. and, when
the wholesale business was acquired by WaveCrest, led the system
implementation and integration of the new group.
Tim French - Vice President Network & IT Systems
Tim entered the telecommunications industry in 1996 at a retail &
calling card service provider, working predominantly on billing
systems. In 1998 he moved to Storm Telecommunications to work on
their wholesale billing system, later becoming IT Systems Manager
responsible for the smooth operation of the back-office IT systems.
At WaveCrest, Tim became responsible for the whole IT organisation
and, in September 2004, was promoted to his current position. He has
extensive experience of billing systems implementation, upgrade and
migration, systems development and systems integration. Tim holds an
honours degree in Environmental Science & Technology.
Graham Packer - Vice President Corporate Services
As founding member of EDC, a VoIP carrier acquired by WaveCrest in
2002, Graham has been with WaveCrest since its inception. Graham has
over twenty five years communications industry experience both in
the UK and overseas in various business development and management
roles. After leaving Technical College Graham joined GEC-Marconi
Communications, spending 14 years with them in a variety of Sales,
Marketing and Project Management roles for both military and
civilian communication systems at home and overseas. This was
followed by a period with a well known international mobile services
provider in an export management role, following which he joined a
major Canadian communications systems provider, with a lead role in
the set up, operation and management of their overseas subsidiary
based in Cyprus.
Caroline Gardiner - Head of HR
Caroline has 10 years experience in Human Resources, and is a
Graduate of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.
Caroline started her HR career at Legal & General, one of Britain's
top 50 FTSE companies, working mainly in HR generalist roles within
the company, with some focus on compensation and benefits. In the
summer of 2001, Caroline moved to join Interoute in a generalist
role, and then became part of the WaveCrest team in the early part
of 2003. Now as Head of HR, Caroline is responsible for all HR
activity across the Company, which involves providing support,
advice and guidance to Management regarding Employee Relations,
Employment Law, Policies & Procedures, Performance Management,
Diversity & Equality and Training & Recruitment.
