With a combined experience of several hundred years in wireless communications and ASIC design, as well as extensive experience in early stage technology companies, Magnolia’s team possess the necessary experience and dedication to execute its strategy.
The following is a partial list of the experience that exists within
the company.
Osmo Hautanen, CEO
Haim Harel, President
John Poirier, COO & VP Engineering
Justin Thesiger, VP Sales and Business Development Europe
John Scott, VP Sales and Business Development North America
Sherwin Wang PhD, VP System Testing
Debbie Weissbard CPA, CFO
Strategic Investor
Chris Bruke
Osmo Hautanen, CEO. Mr. Hautanen is a recognized leader in the technology, telecommunications and private equity community with strong experience in managing and organizing operations for major international companies, as well as start-ups. Prior to being named as the CEO, Osmo was nominated as a board member in Magnolia where he provided strategic guidance to the company. Mr. Hautanen will use his extensive management experience and execution know-how to take Magnolia to the next level of commercialization.
Prior to joining Magnolia, Osmo served as the CEO of Fenix LLC, the holding company for Union Pacific Corporation’s extensive portfolio of technology assets, as well as CEO of Denver-based Formus Communications, an international wireless communications company. He also was President of Americas for Philips Consumer Communications group, a joint venture between Philips Electronics and Lucent.
As an 18-year veteran of Nokia, Osmo built a new division for Personal Communications Services in 1994, which lead Nokia’s dominance in the North American handset market. He also served in multi-discipline roles within Nokia and was a member of their Management Board.
Mr. Hautanen holds a BSEE from the Technical College of Varkaus in Finland, as well as a MBA in international business from Georgia State University. He is fluent in Finnish, German and English.
Haim Harel, President.. Mr. Harel is a world-class technologist and innovator in wireless communications, and holds a proven track record as a serial entrepreneur. Prior to founding Magnolia Broadband in 2000, Mr. Harel founded Wireless Online in Los Altos, California in 1995 and served as Chairman and CEO until 1999. He has successfully managed dozens of engineers in numerous R&D projects in RF, Microwave, Digital Signal Processing and Software, and has a successful record in developing commercialized products.
In 1991 Mr. Harel founded and served as President & CEO of NEXUS Communications (NASDAQ: NXUSF), a technology company based in Israel that developed an urban radio-location system. Prior to founding Nexus, Mr. Harel was Vice President in Fibronics Ltd., a pioneer in data communications, and before that, a Business Unit manager for in the Electronic Warfare division of Tadiran, Israel, where he managed $30M worth of export projects, delivering sophisticated airborne Elint systems.
Mr. Harel is a graduate of the Technion University and the Tel-Aviv University with a BsEE and MsEE, respectively, and is the author of multiple patents in the communications field.
John Poirier, COO & VP Engineering. Mr. Poirier, an industry veteran, has spent almost 25 years developing wireless systems for many technologies including Cellular, Bluetooth, WLAN, Satellite Radio, LMR, and SATCOM. John has led hundreds of engineers, domestically and internationally, across most engineering and manufacturing disciplines, to architect, design, develop, and produce high quality products. His teams have successfully delivered more than one hundred million products to top tier customers.
Before joining Magnolia Broadband, John held senior leadership roles at RFMD, Agere Systems, and Lucent.
John holds a BSEE from the University of Lowell in Massachusetts, as well as an MSEE from the University of Massachusetts.
Justin Thesiger, VP Sales and Business Development Europe, COO & VP Engineering. Mr Thesiger overseas our sales and business development efforts in Europe and is responsible for driving the demand through the European Operators to the OEM’s and Chipmakers. Before joining Magnolia, Justin worked as a European Account Director for Palm Europe and was responsible for establishing relationships with Vodafone and then subsequently Telefonica O2 and Hutchison 3G. Justin also served a number of years in various commercial roles within Orange dealing with Nokia, SonyEricsson, Samsung, LG, Motorola, HTC and ended up working directly for France Telecom managing the introduction of 3G devices across all Orange Group countries.
He has a over 12 years experience working in the European Mobile Telecoms market and has a wealth of knowledge and detailed understanding of both the European Operators and the OEMs.
Mr Thesiger lives in London with his wife and three children.
John Scott, VP Sales and Business Development North America. Mr. Scott overseas our sales and business development efforts in North America and is responsible for driving the demand through the North American Operators to the OEM’s and Chipmakers. Before joining Magnolia, John worked as Head of North America for Option Wireless and was responsible for establishing relationships with Cingular (AT&T Mobility), T-Mobile, Rogers Wireless, Sony, and Panasonic. John was responsible for closing MSA’s with several of the above-mentioned companies, which resulted in growing Option’s business from the ground to $90M in less than four years.
He has over 16 years experience in sales, business development and marketing and has held senior leadership roles at Option, DataFortress and Band-X.
John holds a B.S. degree in Communications from Michigan State University. He lives in Atlanta and is married with two children.
Sherwin Wang, PhD, VP System Testing. Dr. Wang has 20 years experience and strong expertise on the wireless and fiber optic communication systems and semiconductor devices. Sherwin plays a major role in the testing & validation of the Magnolia's technology. Prior to joining Magnolia Broadband, he was the Vice President of RF Integrated Corporation, a start-up company for GaAs Power Amplifiers, and the general managers of Wireless LAN Power Amplifier business group. Sherwin also worked in Bell Labs in the area of semiconductor laser development and wireless network systems. He worked as a system engineer and tier-4 customer support on CDMA wireless network and base station. Dr. Wang received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and is a senior member of the IEEE.
Debbie Weissbard CPA, CFO. Debbie has been an employee
of Magnolia since inception. In her role, Debbie is
responsible for all financial matters in the company including, the
preparation of monthly and annual financial statements, monthly budget
analysis and corporate financial transactions.
Ms. Weissbard has more than 20 years experience in the financial field
with particular focus to early stage telecommunication companies. She
also has extensive experience in international financial transactions
as well as transitioning the financial needs of a private to public
corporation
Debbie holds MBA degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Strategic Investor
Chris Burke. Chris Burke has spent 27 years in the Telecommunications industry since graduating from a degree in Computer Science. Until September 2004 Chris was the Chief Technology Officer for Vodafone UK Ltd. In that capacity Chris was responsible as CTO and CIO for all Vodafone UK technology, product architecture, design, procurement, development, deployment, support and operations. As CTO of one of Vodafone’s leading operating companies Chris also had responsibility for Northern European Technology initiatives as well as sitting on the Global Information Technology and Technology Management Boards for Vodafone Group.
Previous to Vodafone Chris was CTO and CIO with Energis (a UK fixed line carrier) as part of the executive team which led Energis through IPO and into the FTSE 40. As CTO/CIO of Energis Chris was responsible for technology and product architecture, design, development, deployment, and support. Energis is best remembered as the first national SDH carrier, carrying BBC television and radio broadcast over ATM, and the network and technology behind the breakthrough Internet Service Provider Freeserve.
After graduating University Chris spent his first 15 years in Research, Development, Operations and ultimately Sales in Northern Telecom. During Chris’ time in Nortel he worked in North America, Europe, and Asia mostly on the large scale Digital Switching platforms, but also on the Intelligent Networking range of products.
Presently Chris splits his energies between: board level leadership, Venture Capital, and advising Carriers/Vendors/Investors. Chris is the Chairman of Connectivity Ltd, Board member of Dialog Semiconductor DLG.F, Board Member of One Access (Carrier Router), on the Board of Searidge (Air movement software and services). In the recent past Chris was Chairman of the recently sold Ubiquity Software UBQ.L (SIP Application Servers and Service Creation Environment) to Avaya, was Lead Independent Director of March Networks MNW.L (Network Enabled DVR Hardware and Software), Tatara Systems (Converged Network Control Hardware/Software), a deal sourcing Venture Partner to VantagePoint Venture Partner, and an Advisor to Highland Capital.
