SIP Forum Names Chris Drake of iconectiv and Christopher Oatway of Verizon as New Members of Board of Directors, and Announces Re-Election of Other Members

The SIP Forum announced the recent election of Chris Drake, Chief Technology Officer at iconectiv; and Christopher Oatway, Associate General Counsel at Verizon, to the SIP Forum Board of Directors. Additionally, the Forum Full Membership re-elected Martin Dolly, Lead Member of the Technical Staff at AT&T; Phil Linse, Director of Public Policy at Lumen; Chris Wendt, Director of Technical R&D for Comcast IP Communications platform services; and Clark Whitten, Principal Engineer at Cox Communications, to new terms on the SIP Forum Board of Directors.

The elections were held during the SIP Forum’s Annual General Meeting on January 26, 2021. Each member of the Board of Directors serves a two-year term.

The election of Drake and Oatway, and re-election of Dolly, Linse, Wendt and Whitten, all prominent industry thought leaders, complement the SIP Forum’s already prestigious Board of Directors, which also includes Russ Penar, Principal Service Engineer at Microsoft; Greg Rogers, Head of Global Policy and Regulatory Affairs for Bandwidth Inc.; Harold Salters, Consulting Advisor at CTIA; Gernot Scheichl, Director of Customer Solution Engineering for the CPaaS API division at Vonage; Richard Shockey, SIP Forum Chairman and Principal, Shockey Consulting; and Marc Robins, SIP Forum President and Managing Director, and Program Chair for the association’s STIR/SHAKEN SUMMIT and SIPNOC conferences.

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“Together, Drake, Oatway, Dolly, Linse, Wendt and Whitten, along with other members of the Board of Directors, will leverage their years of experience and expertise to champion new IP communications applications and technologies such as STIR/SHAKEN to advance IP communications capabilities.”

“As a telecommunications executive committed to goals that advance our industry, I have had the privilege of working with top industry leaders and organizations in a collaborative effort to establish standards for interoperability, security and scale for new networking capabilities. In the process, I have gained invaluable insight into the communications landscape, which is undergoing seismic shifts,” said Drake. “While new technologies and communications platforms continue to revolutionize the way brands and consumers connect and engage with one another, they also give rise to unforeseen challenges. The SIP Forum continues to contribute significantly to address these issues, and I take great pride in joining the board in that mission.”

Chris Drake, Chief Technology Officer at iconectiv, is responsible for internal and external technology initiatives including emerging opportunities in trusted communications, cybersecurity, mobile content, mobile identity, virtualization and M2M/IoT. Chris Drake began his career at Bell Northern Research and has over 25 years in the Telecommunications industry. Prior to iconectiv, Chris held executive positions at Neustar, Sonus Networks, Telcordia Technologies as well as other companies. Drake is also an executive advisor to technology startups and had worked with the Canadian Consulate Tech Accelerator @ NYC for many years.

Mr. Drake is on the board and executive committee of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and chair of the ATIS TOPS Council. Drake is a longstanding member of the CTIA cybersecurity working group and the Cybersecurity Advisory Board for the Pace University Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. He has also served on the Industrial Advisory Board for the Security and Software Engineering Research Center for Georgetown and Ball State Universities through the National Science Foundation, as well as currently serving the FCC Federal Advisory Committee, the North American Numbering Council.

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Also elected to his first term as a member of the SIP Forum Board of Directors, Chris Oatway is Associate General Counsel at Verizon with responsibility for Cybersecurity policy as well as his company’s project of restoring trust in voice communications. Prior to Verizon, Chris was an antitrust litigator at Covington & Burling in Washington, DC, and his early legal career included stints at major law firms in Brussels and Mexico City.

Mr. Oatway has extensive experience with the legal, regulatory, and policy issues associated with robocall mitigation, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the Truth in Caller ID Act. In addition to drafting dozens of FCC filings and interfacing extensively with various enforcement agencies and state attorneys general, earlier this year he filed a brief at the Supreme Court brief on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. He is a board member of the Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority and is a member of the Industry Traceback Group advisory committee.

“As a new Board member, I bring a law and economics perspective to the Forum that would hopefully be a constructive complement to other board members’ expertise. For example, as STIR/SHAKEN becomes a reality, I believe the Forum will benefit from consideration of the legal and policy backdrop within which ongoing and future technical initiatives take place,” said Chris Oatway. “The Forum can be most successful if its activities include exploring ways to address industry collectively challenges as well as the legal and regulatory obstacles standing in the way of the IP transition. It is an honor to collaborate with colleagues on the board to continue the Forum’s excellent work.”

Together, Drake, Oatway, Dolly, Linse, Wendt and Whitten, along with other members of the SIP Forum and its Board of Directors, will leverage their years of experience and expertise to advocate and champion new IP communications applications and technologies such as STIR/SHAKEN to advance IP communications capabilities.