TM Forum Chairman receives special award at Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards 2010

MORRISTOWN - NJ, June 8, 2010 - Keith Willetts’ long and personal contribution to the Communications Industry was recognized in London last night, with a special Editor’s Award at the annual Global Telecoms Business Awards 2010, it was announced today.

As co-founder and Chairman of the TM Forum, Willetts has been a prominent industry figurehead and the driving force behind the Forum’s continuous evolution for the past 21 years building it to be one of the largest and most influential communications and media industry associations in the world.

With membership now exceeding 700 companies in 195 countries, the TM Forum, is now rapidly expanding beyond the communications and cable sectors to embrace multiple business verticals and the whole service value chain including content,  defense, government and financial organizations.

Yet, according to Willetts, at its core, the Forum’s mission remains essentially the same: to enable companies that provide communications, content or cloud services to continuously deliver better services to customers at ever lower prices by integrating and automating their core business processes. The organization provides business-critical information, best practices training and industry standards to make that happen.

There is no doubt about it that under his direction, Willetts has built up a vibrant and fast growing organization that works in a unique and beneficial way to the industry.

It brings together the world’s largest service providers, technology players and user organizations in a truly non-competitive environment to provide an innovative, industry-leading approach to collaborative R&D, along with wide range of support services including benchmarking, training and certification. The Forum also produces the highly-regarded international Management World conference series, as well as thought-leading industry research and a wide range of industry-focused publications.

As well as driving the Forum,  Willetts has held executive positions at BT and TCSI as well as serving as board member or chairman of a number of software companies in the UK, US, Ireland, Sweden and Dubai.  A regular presenter and writer, he also co-authored the highly influential book, “The Lean Communications Provider”. His achievements have already been internationally recognized, being honored twice in the Communications Week “Top 25” awards for industry visionaries; the GTB “Power 100” awards; the British Computer Society award and the BT Gold Medal.

Quotes:

- According to Alun Burkitt-Gray, Editor Global Telecoms Business, “As editor, I’ve always co-ordinated the nominations and the whole process of selecting the winners. A few years ago we thought it would be a nice idea for me to give a personal award, to an individual - not a project - and a person who has done more than most to stimulate innovation and development in the industry. That person is Keith Willetts who has built up such a hugely influential industry organisation over more than two decades.”
- Commenting on his award, Keith Willetts said, “I am very surprised, very pleased and very honored to receive this prestigious accolade.  I would like to extend my thanks to Alan and the team at Global Telecoms Business and congratulate them on a really excellent event”.