Carl Roberts is feeling energized.
The senior ICT govt and advisor to a myriad of C-suite groups—who can also be the most recent addition to TeleGeography’s roster of Most popular Companions—not too long ago chatted with the TeleGeography staff about his time within the trade and the fixed adjustments which were an energizing pressure in his profession.
Certainly, change got here up fairly a bit in our dialog.
The relentless technological enhancements in telecom tools. The general tempo of trade growth. Change is definitely the one fixed on this planet of know-how—one thing Carl famous as a constant piece of recommendation he shares together with his shoppers.
However eager about change as an energizing pressure—one thing that makes know-how and telecommunications endlessly attention-grabbing fields to work in—has been a constant theme in Carl’s resume, from his early days with IBM to his present work with Hadaara Consulting, the place he gives strategic recommendation to a broad spectrum of company shoppers, telecommunications operators, startup corporations, and entrepreneurs.
Learn our full dialog under.
How did you get into the know-how and telecom area? Have been you at all times fascinated by know-how and communication?
I bought into this area fairly accidentally!
I used to be employed by IBM’s attorneys to work on what was, on the time, the biggest antitrust case in European historical past. There, I bought what can solely be described as a captivating “crash course” on laptop and software program applied sciences, personally working with, and studying from, most of the immensely gifted people who devised, designed and constructed the legacy programs that laid the foundations of data know-how.
As soon as immersed on this wonderful world, there was no method again!
As an trade veteran, what do you see as a very powerful developments within the evolution of telecommunications since your time with IBM within the 80’s and 90’s?
That’s going again a really very long time! I believe what has been actually wonderful has been absolutely the fact behind Moore’s Regulation (apparently nonetheless good till 2036) and its implications…to not point out the soon-to-be-upon-us Neven’s Regulation for Quantum.
The relentless enhancements in chip design, miniaturization, and the evolution and simplification of software program growth have given us all the power to stroll round with moveable, high-performance computer systems…additionally known as Smartphones!
Additional, the fusion of data know-how and telecommunications has really given us an ultra-connected society the place every thing we do, every single day, is enabled by the seamless integration and supply of linked functionality. The velocity of connectivity, its universality, its worth, and our absolute dependency on it have made it the last word utility! Simply strive imagining a day with out having the ability to connect with something…that will be scary certainly!
Quick-forwarding to as we speak, what are the largest challenges your shoppers are dealing with in 2025?
Holding tempo with growth, remaining not simply related however truly on the forefront, having the ability to pivot rapidly in a consistently altering market with know-how adjustments, particularly which are coming thick and quick in a world that’s quickly adopting AI and with Quantum computing on the not-so-distant horizon.
Provided that no one as we speak can really fulfill or construct functionality for all buyer necessities, there may be an rising want for higher and extra full collaboration throughout all the digital infrastructure ecosystem between corporations, massive and small. As we want environment friendly, seamless, safe, and orchestrated end-to-end service supply, requirements are extra crucial than ever.
You’ve labored extensively with C-Suite-level workers and Boards of Administrators of a number of ICT corporations. Is there any particular recommendation that you simply discover persistently vital for these in management positions on this trade?
The most important entice to not fall into is extreme confidence or hubris.
The world of know-how is fabulous and but unforgiving, and alter is a continuing.
Yearly at kickoff conferences, I might inform my groups, “should you don’t like change, you need to get one other job!”
Even when what you are promoting is prospering, you may by no means sit in your laurels. It is best to at all times be trying ahead to how one can enhance, how one can keep forward, and how one can differentiate and make a distinction…for yourselves and your clients. You shouldn’t be browsing the wave…you need to be creating the wave!
What’s probably the most misunderstood side of telecommunications? Why do you suppose that’s?
From my perspective, what I discover tragic about our trade is that it’s completely taken as a right. While you actually try to perceive what occurs if you hit “ship” in your Smartphone, how the seamless mixture of wireline and wi-fi applied sciences, terrestrial, subsea, and satellite tv for pc, all work together in lower than the blink of a watch to allow a name, make a video connection, ship purposes and content material, or ship directions to billions of lively period passive gadgets, the penny drops that that is certainly technological “magic”…and but, we hardly ever recognize the surprise of all of it.
Hopefully we are able to change these perceptions for youthful generations. This “magic” is what I’ve discovered fascinating for 4 many years and I nonetheless discover it immensely stimulating and thrilling. After I was at Verizon, they’d great catchphrases. My favourite was “Change Energizes Us”…effectively I’m nonetheless tremendous energized!
TeleGeography’s Most popular Companions characterize a community of telecom professionals with whom we have collaborated, offered, shared intel, and mapped main networks. This group is obtainable to work on particular analysis tasks that require sources past TeleGeography’s customary product catalog.
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