With over 25 years experience in various technical, governance and R&D roles in the telecoms, retail and IT Infrastructure sectors, Vanessa has developed a diverse toolset. Vanessa spent her early career as a contractor, consulting for nearly every telco as well as major retailers in North America. As she honed her technical and leadership abilities, she left the consulting arena to become a respected technology leader in both fortune 100 and startup organizations. Having done business in the Americas, APJ and EMEA, Vanessa is well versed in the specific concerns and requirements of each of those regions.
Now at Converge Technology Solutions (www.convergetp.com) as the Global CTO – Cloud, Vanessa is focused on spearheading leading innovative solutions and programs that address the current and upcoming markets; leveraging commercial hardware and software as well as Open Source technologies. By bringing together a vast ecosystem of partners Vanessa has been able to focus on solving the problems of tomorrow, today. She is now a frequently sought after keynote speaker at industry events, as well as contributor to technical and thought leadership publications.
A member of Women of Openstack, Women in Comms and IEEE, Vanessa is active in leveraging her position to showcase and champion women in tech fields. As a passionate advocate of Open Source Software, Vanessa has also spent considerable time in various open source communities, as the Chair of the Technical Steering Committee of Open Source Mano, a member of the Layer 123 NFV advisory board, a Linux Foundation Board Member, and founded the VNF Onboarding open source community.
As an active entrepreneur, Vanessa continues to sit on various boards as both a director and an advisor. She currently holds a Board of Directors seat for EcoTank Canada (www.ecotankcanada.com) and sits on the board of governors for the Canadian Telecom Summit.
Vanessa attended the University of Toronto where she majored in Computer Science and Astro-Physics. Vanessa currently makes her home in Toronto Canada, where she enjoys spending her free time playing hockey, tennis and fishing.