SIP Forum Names George Cray of iconectiv and Richard Wikoff of Comcast as New Members of Board of Directors, and Announces Re-Election of Other Members
Industry luminaries to continue the SIP Forum's history of thought leadership and technical expertise surrounding the evolution of STIR/SHAKEN and other IP communications technologies and services
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass., April 26, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The SIP Forum announced the recent election of George Cray, Senior Vice President – Product at iconectiv; and Richard Wikoff, Principal Engineer at Comcast, to the SIP Forum Board of Directors. Additionally, the Forum re-elected Mary Barnes, Senior Product Manager at TransUnion; Martin Dolly, Lead Member of the Technical Staff at AT&T; Phil Linse, Director of Public Policy at Lumen; Christopher Oatway, Associate General Counsel at Verizon; Chris Wendt, VP of System Engineering at Somos; and Clark Whitten, Principal Engineer at Cox Communications, to new terms on the SIP Forum Board of Directors.
The elections were held during the SIP Forum's 2022 Annual General Meeting on March 16, 2023. Each member of the Board of Directors serves a two-year term.
The election of Cray and Wikoff, and re-election of Barnes, Dolly, Linse, Oatway, Wendt and Whitten, all prominent industry thought leaders, complement the SIP Forum's already prestigious Board of Directors, which also includes John Ayers, VP, Corporate Development and Government Affairs for First Orion; Hala Mowafy, Strategic Advisor at Ericsson; Greg Rogers, Head of Global Policy and Regulatory Affairs for Bandwidth Inc.; Harold Salters, Consulting Advisor at CTIA; Richard Shockey, SIP Forum Chairman and Principal, Shockey Consulting; and Marc Robins, SIP Forum President and Managing Director, and Program Chair for the industry association's conferences, including SIPNOC, the STIR/SHAKEN SUMMIT and KYC SUMMIT.
"As a telecommunications executive committed to goals that advance our industry, I have had the privilege of designing, developing and leading teams supporting the introduction of new networking technologies and services throughout my career. I have had the opportunity to interact and interwork on a global basis and have gained valuable insights into the communications landscape, which continues to go through significant shifts.," said George Cray. "While new technologies and communications platforms continue to revolutionize the way brands and consumers connect and engage with one another, they also give rise to unforeseen challenges. The SIP Forum continues to contribute significantly to address these issues, and I take great pride in joining the board in that mission."
George Cray is the Senior Vice President – Product for iconectiv. He leads a team of product managers responsible for iconectiv's platforms and several industry registries which includes the STI-PA for US STIR/SHAKEN, the CTIA US shortcode registry, and the FCC iTRS registry to support the hearing impaired. George and his team also contribute to industry advancements through the FCC NANC, CTIA CyberSecurity WG, as well as numerous ATIS committees and GSMA working groups, among others.
George began his career at Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) and has over 30 years of experience providing product, sales and service solution strategies to telecom network management firms and top tier service providers. George had expanded roles starting in systems engineering and growing to lead global product line management, sales and marketing organizations over his career. He previously held leadership roles at JDS Uniphase (now Viavi Systems) and Bellcore/Telcordia, now known as iconectiv.
Also elected to his first term as a member of the SIP Forum Board of Directors, Richard Wikoff is a Principal Engineer at Comcast, where he drives efforts to deploy new features and improve network efficiency in Comcast's Communications Solutions group, working extensively on voice features. Richard serves as an Alternate to the FCC Disability Advisory Committee, contributing on communication-related efforts such as conferencing and real-time text (RTT). He has 12 years of experience at Comcast and holds 2 patents in SIP session routing, with other applications in process.
Prior to Comcast, Richard wrote specifications at Sonus (now Ribbon Communications) for SIP features in support of their worldwide client base. Richard contributed to PacketCable Business Services specifications.
"I bring value to the Board with my experience in building and deploying SIP solutions. After observing the evolution of SIP usage, I look forward with the SIP community to accelerating changes in the future. I hope to help the SIP Forum press forward both to expand the scope of interoperable services and to drive fraud prevention. I anticipate supporting the SIPNOC and SIPit conferences as uniquely valuable industry events," said Mr. Wikoff. "I look forward to serving on the SIP Forum Board of Directors and supporting the SIP community."
Together, Barnes, Cray, Dolly, Linse, Oatway, Wendt, Whitten and Wikoff, along with other members of the SIP Forum and its Board of Directors, will leverage their years of experience and expertise to advocate and champion new IP communications applications and technologies such as STIR/SHAKEN to advance IP communications capabilities.
For more information about current members of the SIP Forum Board of Directors and their backgrounds, please visit https://www.sipforum.org/about/board-of-directors/.
About the SIP Forum
The SIP Forum is a leading IP communications industry association that engages in numerous activities that promote and advance SIP-based technology, such as the development of industry recommendations; interoperability testing events including SIPit, and special workshops, educational activities, and general promotion of IP communications standards, services, and technology for service provider, enterprise and governmental applications. The SIP Forum is also the producer of the annual SIPNOC conferences (for SIP Network Operators Conference), focused on the technical requirements of the service provider community, the STIR/SHAKEN SUMMIT, and other industry events. Other important Forum initiatives include maintaining working groups in SIP trunking, security, SIP and IPv6, and IP-based Network-to-Network Interconnection (IP-NNI) and the SHAKEN Call Authentication Framework. For more information about SIP Forum initiatives, please visit: https://www.sipforum.org.
Media Contact
Marc Robins, SIP Forum LLC, 203-829-6307, [email protected]
SOURCE SIP Forum LLC
Share this article