Telcentris, Creator fo Voxox, Adds Pertti Johansson former Qualcomm President and Motorola GM Development as EVP of Global Business
September 12, 2012
Highly accomplished, entrepreneurial senior executive with more than 35 years of telecom and wireless operations, technology and business expertise to lead company's international mobile initiatives
SAN DIEGO – August 7, 2012 – Telcentris Inc., a leader in cloud communications and the creator of VoxOx® and VoxOx In Business, today announced that the company has appointed Pertti Johansson as its executive vice president, overseeing global business development. In his more than 35 years of leadership experience in the technology field, Johansson has generated billions in sales, leading geographically diverse organizations throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. He has held senior leadership roles at Qualcomm Incorporated and Motorola Corporation, having served for more than a decade at the latter. Johansson's new role will focus on developing and deploying the company's international mobile strategy by collaborating with major mobile operators on VoxOx co-branding opportunities to deliver customized services to their user base.
In the past few years, mobile operators around the world have increasingly experienced competition and revenue erosion caused by the popularity of over-the-top services, such as Skype and lesser known messaging apps. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services have displaced a significant amount of operator voice revenue while messaging services have reduced significant SMS and MMS revenue streams once walled off from outside competition.
"We've recently been involved in discussions with leading mobile operators all over the world in order to forge partnerships that will help combat the threat of over-the- top applications and instead provide a solution that allows them to proactively retain their user base and as much revenue as possible," said Bryan Hertz, CEO of Telcentris. "Pertti's long-standing relationships with mobile operators worldwide make him invaluable in leading these discussions. We are excited to have him join the executive team."
Most recently, Johansson held senior management positions at Powerwave Technologies Inc., a global supplier of cellular coverage, where he was responsible for Latin America sales, and Monitise Group, a leading mobile banking services provider, where he oversaw wireless activity to develop new services, solutions and partnerships. Previously, Johansson served as president, Europe/MEA at Qualcomm. In this position, Johansson was the chief executive, strategist and main driver for Qualcomm penetration into the European, Middle East and Africa markets. There he led strategy, business development and operations for the region, overseeing early expansion of Qualcomm's WCDMA (UMTS) networks.
Earlier in his career, Johansson spent more than 15 years at Motorola Corporation, where he pioneered and led Motorola's international cellular network success in global strategy, sales, marketing, implementation and operations throughout the world. During the first 12 years, he built Motorola's international cellular network business from four customers to 120, growing annual revenues from 50 million to five billion dollars. He also initiated the company's cellular business in China, developing strong local partnerships and growing operation to 400 people and revenue to one billion dollars per year. He also negotiated and sold the first wireless network contracts in Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, as well as lobbied for deregulation and privatization of cellular in India on behalf of the company. Before Motorola, he spent more than a decade at ITT Corporation, a $40 billion conglomerate, in various engineering, marketing and management positions for fixed line switching and transmission solutions.
Johansson graduated from the Helsinki Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, specializing in telecommunication. He has served on more than a dozen boards of directors globally between 1999 and the present, and still maintains his position on four of these boards, including an active position on the Africa Broadband Forum, which promotes broadband development in Africa and assists new and established operators to gain knowledge about best practices and solutions.
"I am looking forward to taking the company's mobile strategy to the next level," said Johansson. "With the advent of smartphones and popularity of mobile VoIP and rich messaging technology, there's significant interest from operators in regaining the ability to better monetize their user base. The VoxOx strategy provides some unique solutions for operators and will allow them to participate in the fast changing consumer behavior rather than being disrupted by it. I'm thrilled to be at the helm of this initiative."
For more information on the Telcentris management team, please visit www.telcentris.com. To learn more about VoxOx, please visit www.voxox.com.
About Telcentris®, Inc. Telcentris is an innovator in cloud-based unified communications and VoIP solutions for consumer, business and wholesale markets. For consumers, Telcentris delivers VoxOx, a free service that integrates voice, text, chat, fax, social networking and more. For businesses, Telcentris provides VoxOx In Business – a complete suite of VoIP business phone solutions that are more cost effective, efficient and easier to manage than traditional phone systems. Through a wholesale division, Telcentris also offers turnkey VoIP solutions and carrier services. The foundation of the company's offerings is its award-winning unified communications platform in the cloud that enables the company and its customers to build powerful, scalable applications and services. Founded in 2006, Telcentris is headquartered in San Diego. For more information, please visit www.telcentris.com.
