Opening keynotes: The future, faster

Headliners/Keynotes

08:45 - 08:48
Welcome: DTW Ignite Host
Aaron Boasman-Patel, Vice President, Innovation, TM Forum

08:48 - 08:52
Chairman’s introduction 
Steffen Roehn, Chairman, TM Forum

08:52 - 09:07
TM Forum opening address: Raising the bar - The future, faster

• How TM Forum and DTW Ignite bold action in a rapidly evolving industry
• Decision point for leaders: Transform ideas into visible, actionable commitments
• Driving impact across IT, networks, AI & data to overcome structural pressures
• Real-world execution: Highlighting solutions that tackle rising costs, complexity and sustainability challenges

Nik Willetts, President & CEO, TM Forum

09:07 - 10:16
CEO keynotes & panel: The future. faster 

• The growth decisions that matter: Cutting through AI hype to focus on priorities that will drive sustainable growth and competitiveness. Addressing where AI adoption creates real business value, to the implications for security, customer trust, and long-term infrastructure investment
• Reinvent or fall behind: Confronting the economic reality of moving at AI speed;  tackling cost, complexity, sustainability, trust, and skills challenges while funding transformation, protecting margins, and deciding what legacy approaches can no longer be sustained
• Control in a complex world: Understanding who sets the pace in autonomy, AI, and platforms, and how telcos retain strategic control. How do we manage the ownership of data, governance, sovereignty, and their role in increasingly complex partner and platform ecosystems
• From vision to execution: Turning ambition into measurable impact across composable IT & ecosystems, autonomous networks, and AI & data at scale, offering a 360° view of the leadership choices that will shape performance, resilience, and differentiation over the next phase of the industry. 

Moderator: Nik Willetts, President & CEO, TM Forum
Manjot Singh Mann, CEO Connectivity, Keppel
Claire Gillies, CEO Consumer, BT Group
Vivek Sood, Former Group CEO, Advisor to the Axiata Board, Axiata 
Pietro Labriola, CEO & Managing Director, TIM

10:16 - 10:26
Keynote: AI, digital sovereignty, and the path back to profitable growth

• Service providers can't convert massive network data into action, and institutional knowledge is leaving faster than it can be replaced
• Networks are data rich, yet intelligence poor - existing systems monitor but don't comprehend across vendor and domain boundaries
• Domain-specific AI re-discovers the network as it actually is by interpreting telemetry, configuration, and topology across heterogeneous systems
• AWS's sovereign data foundations enable a full lifecycle from raw data to governed, monetizable network data products aligned with TM Forum standards
• The result is new network economics - not just efficiency, but agility, new revenue streams, and edge AI with digital sovereignty ensuring operator control

Jan Hofmeyr, Vice President for Telecommunications, AWS 

10:26 - 10:30
Closing remarks 
Aaron Boasman-Patel, Vice President, Innovation, TM Forum

Timings are provisional only and may be subject to change.