MVNO pioneer Alexander joins Viacloud

Industry veteran Tom Alexander, who launched the world’s first MVNO, Virgin Mobile, has returned to the UK telecoms space as non executive chairman at UK mobile virtual network aggregator (MVNA) Viacloud.

Alexander, who was also previously CEO of EE, joins an executive team that includes some heavy hitters. Chief executive Emanuele Angelidis is the former CEO of Italy’s Fastweb, Greece’s On Telecoms and the UK’s Bulldog Communications. CCO Tim Stone was previously director of business development & wholesale at Vodafone UK and CFO Richard Schafer has held various senior finance roles at Vodafone UK and 3UK.

This leadership team was put in place earlier this year when Viacloud, which is owned by Bahraini investment firm Stratum, moved from a technology development programme into its commercial phase, Angelidis told Telecoms.com. Viacloud has developed a platform that integrates with EE’s radio access network that can support up to seven million customers on a range of MVNOs. The firm will announce its first MVNO customer within the next few weeks, Angelidis said.

“I’ve been particularly interested in Viacloud as the company is now very well placed to help enable new MVNOs to address the mobile market,”  Alexander said in a statement. “MVNOs have been extremely important in developing the consumer market over the past few years and this will continue through to the next phase, especially in the growth of mobile data and 4G. Consumer brands, content players and segmented routes to market are all key.

Ahmed Alumran, a managing partner at Stratum, called the appointment “a tremendous endorsement of our business,” adding that Alexander will be “instrumental – along with the executive management team – in fully realising the commercial potential that exists for Viacloud.”