Broadband Forum appoints Burke
September 10, 2018
Technology marketeer Geoff Burke has been appointed by the Broadband Forum as the standards organization continues to expand its scope of work.
Taking on the role of Chief Marketing Officer, Burke brings a wealth of experience to the Broadband Forum team, including deep events expertise, extensive experience in the connected home market, and broad knowledge of carrier-grade Wi-Fi requirements. His initial areas of focus will see him continue to grow BASE, the Broadband Forum’s highly successful workshop series, work closely with the Forum’s newly formed Connected Home Council, and drive innovative projects such as Cloud Central Office (CloudCO).
“The industry is moving at an incredibly rapid pace, with virtualization technologies, the impending commercialization of 5G and explosion of IoT technologies,” said Kevin Foster, Chairman of the Broadband Forum. “In all of this, open standards play an important role in ensuring operators can take advantage of new applications and software while utilizing their current infrastructure. Geoff’s role will be key in driving this strategy forward and we are very pleased to have him on-board.”
Prior to joining the Broadband Forum team, Burke held various senior leadership roles at Calix for 14 years, including most recently Senior Director, Corporate Marketing. He also played a key role in pioneering the IPTV market as Marketing Director at Next Level Communications, led strategy consulting engagements at The McKenna Group and KPMG, and held various management roles at Oracle Corporation.
The Forum’s Q3 meeting – which is taking place this week in Montreal, Canada – gave Burke a chance to meet his new colleagues and see first-hand the developments taking place within the Forum, with projects such as Open Broadband initiatives, CloudCO and USP being worked on by members.
“I’m thrilled to be joining the Broadband Forum at what is an incredibly exciting time,” said Burke. “The potential of USP in enabling the connected home is enormous. Based on the unprecedented success of its predecessor, TR-069, which is rapidly approaching nearly 1 billion installations globally, I have every confidence that this will become an important standard for the industry. The Forum has a strong history of developing widely-adopted standards that catalyze mass deployment and I look forward to playing a leading role in the future of the Forum as it continues to innovate and evolve.”
The Broadband Forum’s Connected Home Council will bring together players in broadband access, smart home, in-home networking, Wi-Fi, and consumer electronic to advocate for a standardized, secure, easy-to-deploy, and monetizable connected home/business.
“With the recent release of our User Services Platform (USP) standard which evolves TR-069 for the connected home era, the Forum is entering a critical time and we are delighted to bring in someone of Geoff’s caliber to help drive this work forward,” added Robin Mersh, CEO at the Broadband Forum.