Bonn Conference: 11-12 June 2019

RAG comes back to the telco and city that were popular hosts in 2017

 

Overview

Our 2019 European conference will see RAG return to Bonn, Germany, and the head office of hosts Deutsche Telekom. The conference is scheduled for Tuesday 11th and Wednesday 12th June. All talks will be given in English. Risk and assurance professionals who work for telcos or regulators may attend for free.

Deutsche Telekom last hosted RAG during the Summer of 2017, and that event attracted expert speakers and attendees from all across Europe. We expect an even larger turnout for this year’s conference.

 

Agenda

The conference will cover fraud management, revenue assurance, cost management, margin assurance, other kinds of business assurance, enterprise risk management, security and credit risk.

Each day the formal agenda will begin at 9.15am. Attendees are encouraged to arrive well in advance, because the program of sessions will start on time! Breakfast pastries and coffee will be available from 8.15am, so there is no reason not to come early and network with peers. The agenda will conclude at approximately 5.30pm each day. Attendees are welcome to stay for the networking buffets provided at the end of each day.

Unlike other conferences we want to avoid promising speakers until we are confident they can take part, so we share the draft agenda online and update the schedule every time a new speaker is confirmed. Look below for the latest version of the draft agenda or open it in a new window by clicking here. Click on a speaker’s name to read their biography or look here for a complete list of of all confirmed speakers. Continue reading below for an outline description of the sessions listed in the agenda.

 

Day One: Tuesday 11th June

  • A high-powered panel will discuss key choices for embedding governance, risk and controls (GRC) within telcos. The panellists will include: Patrick Gill, Chief Risk Officer and Company Secretary of Millicom; Ingrid Azzopardi, Group Internal Auditor for Maltese operator GO; and Marius Sagatavičius, Head of the Prevention Team at Telia Lithuania.

  • Kenneth Mouton is an entertaining and humorous public speaker, and the audience is bound to enjoy his views on “The Life of an RAFM Vendor”. His role as Head of the Revenue Assurance & Fraud Management Business Unit at SIGOS, and his decade of experience with delivering solutions, means Kenneth knows all about the joys and woes of supplying technology and services to telcos around the world.

  • Tony Sani will launch a new RAG project that will use a blockchain ledger to address the growing problem of wangiri fraud. Tony is a member of the RAG Steering Committee in addition to being an RAFM executive with considerable international experience.

  • All RAG conferences include a panel that focuses on strategic trends in fraud, and this year the emphasis will be on the impact that cheap internet voice calls is having on the scale of fraud and the countermeasures being adopted by telcos. The RAG Bonn panel of anti-fraud experts will include: Peter Coulter, Executive Director of Fraud and Risk Management at AT&T; Morgan Ramsey, Vodafone Group Products & Services Fraud Manager; Xavier Lesage of Araxxe; Michaël Houis of FraudBuster; and Bryan Rowe of Six Degrees.

  • John Haraburda, Principal Solutions Engineer Director at iconectiv, will draw on his extensive knowledge of working in fraud management and revenue assurance whilst describing the latest techniques to mitigate operational risks.

  • Our cybersecurity panel will feature a range of security experts, including Lanre Rotimi, Global Cyber Security Process Manager at Vodafone, and David Rogers, Chair of the GSMA’s Fraud and Security Group. The panel moderator will be Vernon Kitay, a highly-qualified risk, governance, assurance, data protection and information security practitioner who currently serves as the Virtual CISO of a series of clients.

  • Robert Teichmüller, Head of Deutsche Telekom’s Global Carrier Fraud Management, will talk about his business is combatting international voice fraud, including the recent completion of a project to implement an automated big data solution that monitors on 24/7 basis.

  • Dr. George Bolt is an inventor who has patented innovations in the management of fraud. He is a founder of Neural Technologies, and continues to assist them as a special advisor. George will give a presentation entitled “Planning for Machine Learning in your Digital Transformation”.

  • Michael Ruppel is the program manager for 5G in Deutsche Telekom. Michael will give a presentation about 5G and share his advice on the risks associated with its rollout.

  • A second panel will continue the conversation about fraud issues by addressing wholesale fraud in more detail. The central question will be whether the industry is now damaging its own reputation by continuing to allow systemic frauds to be perpetrated on a large scale, even whilst these frauds are becoming more apparent to end users. The panellists will include Malick Aissi, Vice President of Business Assurance and Risk Management Services at Tofane Global, which recently acquired iBasis, making their combined business the third largest wholesale voice carrier in the world.

  • Adam Falus, Senior Head of Fraud Management at T‑Mobile Czech Republic, will talk about how his telco has integrated machine learning into its network firewall.

  • Geoff Ibbett of Symmetry Solutions is the leader of RAG’s innovation program, and he will brief the audience about plans to turn the RAG Revenue and Cost Risk Catalogue into the basis of an industry benchmark for assurance coverage.

  • Artem Smirnov will draw upon his years of experience shaping the revenue management strategy of MTS Group to explain the reasons why the industry needs to change its current assurance practices in order to create ecosystems that are more robust and flexible.

  • Kostadin Taneski of A1 Telekom Austria will give a brief update about the free revenue leakage risk modelling software his team released in June 2018.

  • Michael Lazarou and Tony Sani will present the roadmap for RAG Learning, our online training platform. They will also discuss plans to extend its reach within and beyond the 65 countries where students have already enroled. Michael is the volunteer coordinator of RAG Learning as well as working as the RAFM Manager of MTN Cyprus.

Day Two: Wednesday 12th June

  • Gina Pesheva of Deutsche Telekom will give a presentation that reflects on the current state of work in business assurance. Entitled “Business Assurance in the Driver Seat”, she will share her experience of being the person who drives assurance forward with the consent and approval of all stakeholders. Gina is an expert in RA and billing, and a member of the RAG Steering Committee.

  • The revenue assurance strategy panel will debate the changes that department heads will need to make in order to cope with the wave of industry transformation over the next five years. Amongst the strategic thought leaders will be Sha’ad Hossenbaccus, Global Revenue Assurance Manager for the Millicom Group. The panel will be moderated by Paul Davies, an experienced RA manager who has worked for Vodafone, Virgin Media, Cable & Wireless and Orange.

  • Atul Jain founded TEOCO in the mid-90’s with an investment of just $2,000. Now TEOCO supplies network analytics and other solutions to over 300 communication service providers and OEMs worldwide. Despite the demands of running a successful international business, Atul makes time to be a regular participant in RAG conferences. He is guaranteed to challenge the way the audience thinks about tackling problems and finding solutions, which is why he is one of RAG’s most popular speakers.

  • Andy Rawnsley, Chief Architect at Gamma Telecom, will speak about nuisance calls and what he is doing to tackle them in collaboration with the NICC, the UK interoperability forum, and others.

  • Jan de Zwart of T-Mobile Netherlands and Eddie Heldoorn of Tele2 Netherlands will give a joint presentation explaining how they maintained the assurance of revenues whilst their telcos merged.

  • Professor Bernhard Sick of the University of Kassel and Arnd Baranowski, CEO of Oculeus, will share some highlights from their collaborative research into SIP-enabled anti-fraud methods.

  • A panel of leading technologists and consultants will discuss the most vital principles to follow when automating revenue assurance and enhancing business processes. The panellists will include Jeremy Paynter, Senior Revenue Assurance Manager at Inmarsat, and Hakim Akayour, Head of Operations & Analytics for the RA function at BT Group. The panel moderator will be award-winning consultant Rene Felber of EY.

  • The RAG tradition is to close each conference with a ‘Wise Heads’ panel, where industry veterans will share their opinion of what were the key takeaways from the conference. RAG Chief Exec and Commsrisk Editor Eric Priezkalns will moderate the discussion.

 

Location, Evening Entertainment and Hotels

The conference will be held at the head office of Deutsche Telekom. The address is: Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 140, 53113 Bonn. A map is shown below.

The nearest airport is Cologne-Bonn (CGN), which is called Köln-Bonn in German. A taxi from CGN will take approximately 20 minutes to arrive at DT’s head office. It is also possible to fly to the airports at Frankfurt/Main or Düsseldorf. All of these airports are connected to Bonn by train.

Travellers from neighbouring European countries may find it as quick and convenient to catch a train to Cologne Central Station, and then to take another train to Bonn.

Olof-Palme-Allee is the nearest train station to Deutsche Telekom’s offices. It is a 5-minute walk from DT, in a straight line along Friedrich-Ebert-Allee. Olof-Palme-Allee station is also marked on the map.

Deutsche Telekom’s advice for drivers and train passengers can be downloaded from here.

The following hotels are also marked on the map.

Attendees booking their hotel room by 28th May can take advantage of a discount at the Bonnox and Maritim hotels by quoting “RAG Conference” when they book. The discounted rate for the Maritim is EUR108.20 per night (plus EUR4.80 for breakfast), whilst the discounted rate for Bonnox is EUR82 per night (plus EUR9.00 for breakfast). Both the Bonnox and Maritim are within walking distance of the conference venue.

As well as providing lunch and refreshments during each day, there will also be evening gatherings where attendees will have food, soft drinks and the opportunity to network.

  • The evening of June 11th will be spent enjoying an al fresco buffet beside the pond in Deutsche Telekom’s elegant courtyard.

  • On the final night of June 12th, attendees are welcome to join us at GinYuu, a restaurant serving Asian food which is just a short walk down the road from Deutsche Telekom.

 

Brochure

We always recommend you check the most recent version of the conference agenda by visiting this website. However, the printable PDF conference brochure can be seen below, or download a copy by clicking here.

 

Free Registration for Telcos and Regulators

Managers and staff employed by telcos or telecom regulators may participate in RAG Bonn for free, so long as they register using the email address associated with their employer. Academics who engage in relevant research may also register for free. Registrations are managed via Eventbrite; click the button below to begin. Please complete all the fields to register.

Registration - RAG Bonn - June 2019

 

Attendance Options for Sponsors and Invited Guests

Sponsoring businesses may send their representatives to RAG Bonn. If your business is interested in participating in RAG events then please make your initial query through our contact form.

RAG allocates a limited number of complimentary seats for freelance consultants, subject matter experts, and other industry leaders. To maintain a balanced audience, these seats will only be made available to specific named individuals. Invitations will be emailed in due course. If you wish to be added to the guest list you should contact a member of the RAG Committee, or else ask the host or one of the conference sponsors to forward your request.

One of the most important aspects of our conferences is what we call the ‘RAG Spirit’. We want attendees to feel relaxed and have the freedom to talk openly about the challenges they face. To protect the RAG Spirit, we reserve the right to decide who may attend on a case-by-case basis.

 

About Our Host and Sponsors

RAG is a not-for-profit enterprise, and telcos and regulators may attend our events for free, as do many specially invited experts. That means we rely on the generosity of the businesses that host our meetings and pay for everything from our web server to the coffee we serve attendees. We would like to thank the following businesses for contributions that have made this conference possible.

The Hosts

Deutsche Telekom

Gold Sponsors

iconectiv, Neural Technologies, SIGOS, Subex, Symmetry Solutions, TEOCO, WeDo Technologies

Silver Sponsors

Araxxe, FraudBuster, GBSD Technologies, LATRO Services, Oculeus, Six Degrees

Bronze Sponsors
Biaas, Hitachi Vantara, Mobileum, Trustonic

If you would like to host a future RAG event or if you want to learn about sponsorship opportunities then please get in touch. We will be glad to hear from you!

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