List of associate partners

founder and managing director of the Regulaid consultancy network, was director of the Netherlands telecommunications and post regulator OPTA and played an important role in establishing the Independent Regulators Group and the European Regulators group. Hans has a broad hands-on regulatory experience and especially focuses on liberalisation policy, institutional and managerial aspects and regulatory strategy.

Harm Aben is a very experienced telecommunications executive and management consultant with a strong background in telecommunications policy, regulation, strategy, business development and pricing. Harm was an executive board member of Romtelecom, the incumbent carrier of Romania, where he had responsibility for regulatory affairs, national and international carrier services and transformation. Before this he had been active in telecommunications for over 15 years through positions with KPN Telecom, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ovum Consulting. At Ovum, Harm was Director and Leader of the Global Telecoms Regulatory Practice, based in the UK. Through his positions in consulting Harm has advised a variety of customers, mostly in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean.

is a practising lawyer in Madrid, partner of Avego Abogados, with specialisation in regulation and competition law. She has worked both in the private and public sectors, has wide international experience and has participated in several training projects and public events as speaker. She has been working in Italy as Director of regulatory affairs at Telecom Italia. She has also served at the Spanish regulator (Comisión del Mercado de las Telecomunicaciones – CMT) as Director of International Affairs. In parallel to her work at the CMT she was elected by the Presidents of the European regulators as the first Secretary to the Independent Regulators Group (IRG). She started her professional career as an associate lawyer at the Brussels office of the American Firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld L.L.P. She speaks Spanish, English, Italian and French.

is a telecommunications engineer with a broad experience in commercial business aspects in telecommunications consultancy. He has worked with several regulatory authorities, as well as private market players involved in regulatory affairs, in Europe and throughout the world. His experience includes policies and strategic analysis, investment analysis, business planning and tendering or auction procedures.

is an experienced electrical engineer  who worked in the Dutch incumbent operator KPN´s fixed and mobile businesses, and in the telecoms branch of various ICT companies. He became an independent consultant in 1998. He has since then broadened and deepened his expertise with extensive consultancy experience in telecommunication industries working both for fixed and mobile operators and telecoms regulators in Europe, the USA and developing countries. His main areas of expertise are: Mobile Communication network technology (GSM, GPRS, UMTS, HSDPA, WLAN, LTE) , MVNO wholesale access, Number Portability, Numbering and Domain Management.

is an economist with financial specialization. After working for large accounting and IT firms Petr specialized as a senior consultant in the telecommunications industry focusing on regulatory issues, financial analysis and controlling, analysis of processes and activities. His key experience is in the area of product tariffing in the regulatory environment using Activity Based Costing, Building Block Costing and Long Run Incremental Costing methodologies. Petr has performed costing analyses in many countries for the purpose of tariffing regulation on behalf of regulators or regulated operators. He is an expert in data collection, cost modeling and developing unit tariffs based on the model results.

has more than 20 years of experience as a top level regulatory expert in the electronic communications markets. After a career as expert financial analyst she became a policy and regulatory expert at the Netherlands Ministry of telecommunications and then moved to the independent regulatory authority OPTA. There she worked in leading expert and management roles related to regulation and dispute resolution in interconnection, access, broadband and broadcasting markets, as well as a strategy advisor and part of the ‘chief economists team’. She played a pivotal role in developing OPTA’s frontrunner policies related to local loop unbundling, and expanded this position in the complicated challenges of regulating the cable TV networks in the Netherlands. In recent years until 2012 Christa was Assistant Secretary General and Executive Director of the Regulatory Authority of Qatar, before becoming an independent consultant and joining Regulaid as an associate partner.

has in-depth operational experience of telecommunications operational processes with both incumbent and new entrant operators in several countries, with regard to PSTN, ISDN, xDSL, VoIP, mobile 2G and 3G, cable and broadcasting. His regulatory experience focuses especially on broadband: unbundled local loop, collocation conditions and cost, service level agreements and reference offers.

is a qualified attorney and solicitor with extensive experience in strategic legal, regulatory and commercial support to clients in the information and electronic communications industries in developed as well as developing countries. In the last 12 years Kerron has held the position of director at Edward Nathan (Pty) Ltd (SA), was a senior solicitor in the Royal Mail (UK) legal department, and a senior solicitor in private practice at Denton Wilde Sapte (UK) for 4 years. She has also worked as in-house legal counsel for one of the mobile telecommunications operators in South Africa. She has advised governments and operators on licensing and regulatory frameworks for telecommunications, broadcasting, satellite, media and postal sectors; on the privatization of telecommunications operators; on commercial and corporate transactions in new technology, media and communications ventures; on acquisitions and disposals. She has worked in over 25 countries including Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Western Europe, the UK, the Bahamas, and throughout Africa including South Africa.

worked for the Irish telecoms regulator ODTR (now ComReg) in several high ranking management positions. With his accountancy and strategy background Michael focuses especially on regulatory accounting, accounting separation and organisation capacity building. He has assisted in setting up newly established regulatory organisations in several countries.

is an economist with 20 years experience as a regulatory expert in the electronic communications sector, during which time he has worked with operators in the UK and Ireland and, more recently, has worked as an independent consultant. A member of the start-up team at Ireland’s Esat Digifone (now O2 Ireland) he had lead responsibility for regulatory affairs, international roaming and interconnection, in which role he negotiated the country’s first ever interconnection agreement with the incumbent operator. He subsequently served for a number of years on the company’s Senior Management Team, first as Interconnect and Regulatory Director and then as Strategy and Business Development Director. Since becoming an independent consultant, he has advised operators and national regulators in Ireland, Europe and further afield on a range of issues in the communications sector and he has also consulted on issues in the broadcasting, energy and postal sectors.

holds a PhD in telecoms science and is a very experienced expert in telecommunications regulation, business planning and operations. After working for Deutsche Telekom and Nokia, he became a consultant in 1997 advising regulators and operators worldwide on a broad range of economic and technical regulatory problems (e.g. licensing, cost modelling, interconnection) as well as commercial strategy issues.

is a regulatory economist with a very substantial experience, previously as a consultant and board member of Ovum, and now as an independent consultant. He has worked for a wide range of operators, new entrants and regulators around the world on policy and regulation matters, such as interconnection arrangements, number portability, corporate strategy, regulatory policy, pricing and market entry. He has also spoken at many conferences and carried out training courses.

was secretary of the Netherlands ICT market players organisation and in that capacity worked closely with ministry, regulatory authority, operators and service providers on a wide range on regulatory issues, developing a particular expertise with regard to information security, quality of service, certification, prevention of telecom and internet fraud, and dispute settlement.

is a highly experienced expert in telecommunications technology and regulation. After working as deputy Technical Director of the British regulatory authority Oftel, as an international consultant John has advised the European Commission, governments and regulators, operators, banks, law firms and others all over the world, on a wide range of telecoms regulatory issues and has drafted various regulations for different countries as well as many ETSI standards. He currently specialises in VoIP and NGNs, interconnection, number plans and number portability and quality of service, and chairs an ECC group of regulators on these subjects.

is a highly experienced business economist with in-depth knowledge of postal and telecommunication regulations, both on national and international level. She has extensive hands-on regulatory experience. She worked for the post and telecommunications ministry, the Dutch NRA (OPTA) and as head legal and regulatory affairs for a start up postal operator. As senior consultant she advised the ministry and companies on postal and telecom regulatory issues.

was journalist at the leading Dutch financial newspaper and Manager of Competition and Regulatory Affairs of KPMG Economic Consulting. He has substantial experience of public policy issues involved in market liberalisation, competition and regulation, and has advised government, regulators and private companies on competition issues in telecoms as well as in other markets.

served as an electrical engineer in the military and then as senior regulatory officer in the Netherlands telecommunications ministry with regard to radio frequency spectrum policy, telecoms and broadcasting regulatory policy, satellite policy, spectrum planning and valuation/pricing and licensing allocation policy (auctions, competitive tenders). As a private consultant, he has assisted governments, regulators and private companies around the world.

are from the United Kingdom. Claire is a very experienced telecoms regulatory consultant, with both very broad experience and specialised expertise in areas as dispute resolution, consumer affairs, universal service, quality of service and numbering. Initially working in the regulatory and commercial departments of BT during its privatisation and closely working with the UK regulator (Oftel/Ofcom) since its inception, Claire now works all over the world in regulatory consultancy. Robert Milne is an expert on network design and next generation networks formerly working as Chief Network Architect with Nortel.

is a highly experienced regulatory expert with specialization in internet security, anti spam policy and enforcement, and cybercrime. He also has detailed expertise of rights of way. Before becoming an independent expert, Wout worked for the Netherlands regulatory authority OPTA for many years on the above subjects as well as interconnection disputes and other regulatory issues. As a trained mediator, Wouter is also a skilled expert on alternative dispute resolution.

gained extensive expertise in regulatory policy development and enforcement and the interface with competition law in the field of electronic communications during 15 years spent with the UK national regulatory authorities, initially Oftel and subsequently Ofcom. During this time, he directed several Market Reviews which defined the UK regulatory rules in several fixed and mobile wholesale markets . He worked closely with the UK Government during several sets of negotiations on the European Regulatory Framework and Roaming Regulations. He has also devoted a considerable portion of his time to regulatory co-operation through BEREC (and its predecessors). He led several major activities for BEREC, most recently chairing the BEREC Expert Working Groups (EWGs) on Remedies and International Roaming, both of which have drafted for publication a number of significant BEREC Common Positions, Opinions and Reports on current regulatory issues. Throughout this period, Jim was also responsible for international co-operation and liaison with the European Institutions. He regularly spoke at international conferences and took on representational responsibilities for BEREC, in particular participation in hearings of the European Parliament.

is an expert on both competition and telecommunications law, who has substantial experience working for European and national governments and regulatory authorities as well as market players from the telecommunications, media and IT sectors. This entails policy advice, drafting of legislation, drafting regulatory decisions and representing clients in courts on every aspect of telecommunications regulation and competition law including market definition and analysis, market dominance and mergers.

Patrick Ooms has worked with the Dutch Postal and Telecommunications Regulator (OPTA). As a competition lawyer he was the liaison officer between the Dutch competition authority (NMa) and OPTA. As a senior civil servant he represented the Netherlands in Brussels in several competition dossiers and enforcement regulations. Next to economic market regulation he has in depth knowledge on consumer protection and the reduction of administrative burden

holds a PhD in law and is a barrister. He has an outstanding experience in law, in the policy environment and in the practical implications of legal work. He served the Dutch Council of State, was responsible for the production of legislation (in particular in the telecommunications sector) and was involved in national and European litigation procedures. Recently as a consultant for legal related affairs and as an administrator of companies, he was active in various fields of the telecommunications industry as well as in broadcasting infrastructure sector.

has extensive experience in setting up and running regulatory functions in aviation, transport and finance. She was head of legal and regulatory affairs of the Dutch national airport Schiphol, has set up a Transport Regulation Chamber at the Dutch Competition Authority, and worked for the Dutch Central Bank in preparing the new legislative structure of prudential supervision in the Netherlands. She has both a legal and an economic background, holding a phd. in economics (analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of governance structures).

is an experienced telecoms consultant who has advised more than thirty governments and regulatory authorities in the Americas, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Edgardo has worked on more than fifty international projects, accumulating extensive expertise in policy, economic, legal and regulatory issues, including universal access/universal service, interconnection, sector liberalization, price regulation, competition regulation/antitrust, and dispute resolution. Formerly, Edgardo was senior economist in the highly regarded international telecoms practice of a large law firm, and also worked for the UNDP and Bell Canada. Edgardo is fluent in English and Spanish and has a good working knowledge of French.

is a highly experienced senior expert in network design and radio planning of wireless networks. In recent assignments, he worked on all technical aspects surrounding wireless telecommunications systems including WiMAX, FWA, WiFi, Third and second generation mobile systems and Digital Video Broadcasting systems. He held various expert and management positions in a broad range of companies varying from mobile operators, broadcasting transmission operators, producers of radio equipment to consultancy companies and governmental organisations.

has worked with both incumbent and new telecoms operators in various European countries in operations and in operations support systems in the field of provisioning, service assurance and network administration. As a consultant, his experience in regulatory projects focuses on broadband: regarding a reference offer for unbundled local lop, collocation, service level agreements etc.

has an extensive experience in managing financial and wholesale business activities within the telecommunications industry, at both a strategic and an operational level. At KPN Mobile in the Netherlands he managed carrier services, including P&L responsibility for all inter-operator negotiations for the KPN Mobile Group. Building upon earlier financial roles, this provided him with a very broad international contact network and also an extensive knowledge of regulation in the mobile sector. Erik is now active as an independent consultant on the commercial aspects of wholesale telecommunications, with a focus on roaming, interconnects, wifi, MVNO’s and service provision. Erik has advised start-up MVNO’s, vendors, regulators and operators in the mobile industry on interconnect negotiations, pricing strategies, portfolio development and roaming business optimization.

has over 33 years of experience as a professional telecoms engineer of which 10 years as UK regulator Oftels Director of Technology. His expertise covers the regulatory framework as a whole, combining technical expertise with economic, legal and accounting aspects of regulation and with detailed knowledge of issues such as interconnection, interoperability, numbering and number portability, carrier preselection, broadband access and network resilience.