CENGN Announces Appointment of Jean-Charles Fahmy as New CEO

OTTAWA, June 5, 2018 /CNW/ - The Board of Directors of the Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN) is pleased to announce the appointment of Jean-Charles (JC) Fahmy as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) effective June 4, 2018.

"We are thrilled to have Mr. Fahmy as CENGN's Chief Executive Officer. We've selected a very strong business leader with deep global industry experience, who is poised to lead CENGN as it accelerates its mission to enable commercialization of innovation in Canada's NGN and ICT sectors," said CENGN's Chairman Mike Scott.  

CENGN was funded in 2014 with $11.7 million under the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) CECR (Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research) program. Its mission is to drive commercialization of innovation in Canada's next generation of networking (NGN) and information and communications technology (ICT) sectors, by providing services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and by creating a viable Canadian ecosystem with industry, academia, government, and financial communities, that will provide the support these SMEs need to be successful and scale. 

In January 2018, the Ontario Minister of Research, Innovation and Science, granted $63.3 million to launch the Next Generation Network Program (NGNP), to be jointly delivered by CENGN and the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE). This program will facilitate the development of a NGN testbed that connects Ontario's Regional Innovation Centres, industry and academia. CENGN will equip innovators and companies across the province with new capabilities to collaborate on the creation and commercialization of new and disruptive products, processes, and services.

"With the exponential pace of change, innovation has never been more important for Canada. CENGN's CEO must be capable of accelerating innovation and helping SMEs disrupt in this digital transformation age," said Mike Scott.

"JC is a strong leader who can translate vision and strategy into world-class execution. He has a proven track record of achieving exceptional results guiding technology organizations to harness innovation, create value, and accelerate business performance. He has the ability to connect with employees, customers, and partners to drive results and achieve excellence. JC's vision, strategy and execution track record is exactly what CENGN needs as we enter our next chapter, which I am confident will be even more impactful and exciting than our last." said Scott.

Fahmy has over 25 years of global leadership experience in the networking industry. He was most recently Vice President, Product Management and Business Development at Coriant. Prior to that he held several senior leadership roles at Nortel Networks, BTI Systems, and as Operating Executive in the Telecom practice at Marlin Equity Partners, a leading Private Equity Firm.

"I am incredibly excited to be joining the CENGN team", said Fahmy. "I am passionate about the strength and potential of Canadian NGN innovation. Through its technology platform, its services, and its talented team, CENGN has a tremendous opportunity to make a significant positive impact on the Canadian ICT sector, and help technology SMEs and startups commercialize their innovation and grow."

For more information on JC Fahmy, visit https://cengn.ca/jc-fahmy.

About CENGN:

Canada's Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN), is a consortium of large multinational companies, academic institutions, and research leaders that work with small and medium Canadian companies to accelerate the commercialization of next generation communications solutions. CENGN is a not-for-profit company funded by the Canadian Government's Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) through the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) Program and the Ontario Government's Next Generation Network Program (NGNP), as well as its industry members. The organization's members include: Bell Canada, Cisco, EXFO, Huawei, Invest Ottawa, Juniper Networks, Mitel, Nokia, Ribbon Communications, Rogers, TELUS and Wind River. CENGN's mission is to create a viable Canadian ecosystem that facilitates commercialization in the next generation of networks by providing services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), industry, academia, and government.

CENGN's internationally recognized multi-vendor infrastructure is built on open source as well as commercially available software and hardware. CENGN's technology areas of focus are: Data Centre and Cloud Infrastructure, Internet of Things (IoT), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and Software Defined Networks (SDN), among others. The organization is at the leading edge in the development and deployment of wired and wireless technologies that are utilized by applications such as cloud, wireless 5G, autonomous vehicles, broadband internet and cybersecurity. 

SOURCE Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks

For further information: Rick Penwarden, Marketing Manager, 613-963-1200 ext. 329, [email protected]