The mobile service market in Asia/Pacific is the largest market in the world with $150 billion in 2005 accounting for 37% of global share, and is also the fastest growing market expected to reach $227 billion in 2010. The Asian mobile operators, particularly in Japan and Korea with high penetration of 3G mobile phones, have been introducing the world leading mobile services such as digital music, satellite TV, electronic wallets, video streaming, SNS, internet search, and location based services using GPS technology. Our panelists will share their insights and experiences in the Asian market and their strategies for future growth.

Panelists
 

Nils Johnson, President & CEO, Gorilla Mobile

Nils Johnson is the CEO of Gorilla Mobile and visionary behind Aryty. He is an experienced entrepreneur in the telecommunication and wireless industries having founded AsiaTone in 1999 and having launched Gorilla Mobile in 2003 to provide inexpensive international calling to mobile phone subscribers in the U.S.

Aryty (All Righty) was developed by Nils in 2006 as the world's first cross-border mobile airtime remittance service allowing expatriates living in the U.S. and Canada to send prepaid airtime to mobile phones abroad. Consumers abroad can use Aryty to request airtime from friends and family via SMS or the Internet. All transactions are secure and happen in real time instantly moving airtime to loved ones far away.

Prior to entering the telecommunication industry Nils worked at Deutsche Bank, advising high net worth clients on risk management and concentrated security diversification strategies.

Jonghyun Lee, Manager - Business Strategy, SK Telecom

Jonghyun Lee worked for SK Telecom, who with 20 million customers is the No.1 mobile service carrier in South Korea, for 10 years from 1998 to 2007. Now he is studying in the Sloan Fellows Program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for his Master’s Degree.  At SK Telecom, Mr. Lee worked in various departments, such as marketing, public relations, product development and business strategy.

Specifically from 2003 to 2005, he was involved in mobile finance projects called Moneta and Nemo. In 2006 and 2007, he was involved in next-generation network system investment projects, dealing with W-CDMA issues, R&D plans for the 4G network evolution, and wireless broadband business plans. Partly due to his efforts, SK Telecom introduced the world's first, handset-based HSDPA service in May of 2006.  Now it is working on the migration of CDMA subscribers to W-CDMA, currently with little more than 2 million of W-CDMA users. He has contributed to projects in mobile internet services as well.

Richard Kiwata, Japan Markets, Ltd.

Richard Kiwata has been involved in Mobile technologies with Japan for over 10 years.  He has brought numerous technologies from Europe and the U.S. into Japan - a market with some of the most advanced mobile technologies in the world, yet the most difficult market to navigate.  He has also brought some ringtone technologies from Japan to the U.S.

Moderator

Shan Phillips, Senior Vice President - Asia Business Development , Nielson Mobile

Shan Phillips is Senior Vice President - Asia Business Development for Nielsen Mobile. He started his career in the computer industry as head of Asian procurement for Kaypro, a San Diego, US-based pioneer in the PC industry.  He then worked for BTC, a Taiwan OEM, setting up and heading their European sales offices.   
 

Shan speaks Chinese fluently and honed his business development and negotiation skills through the development of Asian wireless ventures while a management consultant based in Shanghai with Coopers & Lybrand.  He was a part of the management team at Iridium, the first operational provider of mobile telephony via satellite, with responsibility for East Asia including China.  Shan has start-up experience as one of the founders of Go2Call, a pioneer providing a Skype type VoIP service as well as with APAC Ventures providing wireless sales and BD consulting between Asia and the USA.  Shan’s knowledge of the US network operators was gained in management roles at Telephia, the leading provider of competitive marketing and service quality data to the US wireless industry and at 2Wire, a provider of broadband home gateways.   
 

Shan holds an undergraduate degree in math/computer science from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

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