Ruckus Wireless Steps up European Expansion to Capitalize on the Growing Demand for Better, Smarter Wi-Fi
Strategic Industry Appointments Bolster EMEA Team to Help Meet Demand for Reliable Wireless Connectivity Driven by Surge in Mobile Internet Services and Applications
SUNNYVALE, CA / EMEA, SEPTEMBER 27, 2010 – Ruckus Wireless™ the smart mobile networking company, today announced the expansion of its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) operations with the appointment of seven industry executives to its European team:
- Michael Paparella, Regional Sales Director for Southern Europe
- Vincent Larue, Regional Technical Director for Southern Europe
- Bryan Hall, Regional Sales Director for UK&I
- Graham Owen, Regional Sales Manager for the Middle East
- Michael Fletcher, Regional Sales Manager for Africa
- Robert Krumm, Regional Technical Manager for Africa
- Arnaud Lehung, Director of EMEA Marketing
The strategic appointment of these senior level additions grows the EMEA team to almost 20 representatives across the entire region. The expansion reflects the dramatic growth of Wi-Fi within European markets driven by the migration to higher speed 802.11n technology and the continued demand for smarter Wi-Fi to meet new enterprise and carrier requirements for longer range, highly reliable and multimedia-ready wireless, as well as to provide solutions that meet the expectations of the market when it comes to 3G data offload.
Since 2006, Ruckus Wireless has realized a 50-fold growth in revenue in the EMEA region with over one million Smart Wi-Fi units shipped into EMEA across all product lines. In the most recent quarter, new 802.11n technology represented 73 percent of AP unit shipments. Between 2006 and 2009, Ruckus achieved an 83 percent compound annual growth in revenue within the region alone.
“Across all of our business, the EMEA region continues to dominate,” said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. “Having gotten our start in this market selling in-home IPTV systems to the world’s elite broadband providers, we have since expanded our position to include wireless LANs, wireless broadband access and Wi-Fi for 3G offload for mobile operators. There’s no question that the demand for better Wi-Fi reaches far and wide with Europe, the Middle East and Africa.”
Due to the simplicity and robustness of Ruckus Wireless Wi-Fi solutions, it is gaining solid ground and attracting many businesses in the EMEA region, especially across the education, hospitality, healthcare, public and service provider sectors. Ruckus’ growth throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa has come from a wide range of highly diverse carrier and enterprise customers such as Deutsche Telekom, Fastweb, T-2, Swisscom, Belgacom, CESI, Helenswood School, Mandarin Oriental Group, Belmabra (group Belambra), city of Bourges, city of Asnières, Womad Festival and many others.
The newly expanded European team will not only help boost Ruckus’ sales, but also enable the team to deliver a higher level of support to enterprises and service providers across EMEA, helping them build ubiquitous high-performance, reliable and easy-to-deploy wireless networks that specifically cater to their business needs.
New Appointments
Ruckus Wireless has appointed Michael Paparella as the Regional Sales Director. Having joined Ruckus Wireless in 2006 as APAC Sales Director, Michael recently returned to Italy to fulfil his new role which involves managing all business and channel activities across Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Turkey and Israel. Michael has more than 20 years of international sales and marketing experience all around the world which he gained from working with companies such as Allied Telesyn and Com21. He has a degree from Loyola University of Chicago.
Assigned to support Michael Paparella and Andrew Bartram (Regional Sales Manager for Benelux, France and North Africa), Vincent Larue is the new Regional Technical Director. Vincent brings more than 15 years of experience in wireless and networking from Netinary, Bluesocket, and Ericsson. Vincent has a Master of Science degree from Institut National des Telecommunications (France) and from the University of Bristol (UK).
Based in the UK, mobility sales specialist Bryan Hall joins the EMEA team to focus on scaling channel business across the UK and Ireland. With more than 25 years experience in the wireless industry – most recently at HP and Colubris – Bryan will take responsibility for enterprise sales operations across this region with the goal of expanding Ruckus’ presence into key markets such as healthcare and hospitality.
Graham Owen reinforces Ruckus Wireless’ Middle East team as Regional Sales Manager. Having spent the majority of his career covering this market, Graham has held various sales positions in companies such as Emirates Airlines, Avaya, Minerva and most recently at Motorola Wireless Broadband Solutions.
Based in South Africa, Michael Fletcher joins Ruckus Wireless as a Regional Sales Manager for Africa. Michael brings 15 years of IT experience in business development and sales at Motorola, Belkin and ECS. During this his career, Michael also established his own consultancy company which successfully helped major telecommunications players to develop new services. Michael has an MBA from Oxford Brookes University.
Assigned to support Michael Fletcher for the African region, Robert Krumm has joined Ruckus Wireless as Regional Technical Manager. Also based in South Africa, Robert brings more than five years of experience to Ruckus Wireless from MTN and Dimension Data. Robert is a member of many IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) societies, including the Antennas and Propagations body. Robert has a Master of Engineering degree in Telecommunications.
Finally, based in France, Arnaud Lehung joins Ruckus Wireless as the Director of Marketing to lead all marketing activities and drive the ecosystem partnership development in the EMEA region. Arnaud brings 15 years of business development and marketing experience form Juniper Networks, Nokia Enterprise Solutions, Cegetel, France Telecom and Apple Computer. Arnaud has a degree in Sales and Marketing from ESG (Ecole Superieure de Geston).
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