Management Team
| Shirin Dehghan | Dr Michael Flanagan | Richard Fuller | Andy Burns | Iain Marsden | Barry Graham
Shirin Dehghan, Chief Executive Officer
Shirin Dehghan founded Arieso in 2002 with the vision of enabling self-optimizing networks.
Shirin graduated from the University of Southampton with a MEng degree in Electronics in 1992 and commenced her career with a start up mobile communications firm, where she developed radio propagation products. She became the manager of the consultancy division of the business and led projects involving major operators and manufacturers.
She then became research engineer at Vodafone Group Plc and was responsible for the development of WCDMA simulation and business modelling. She was part of Vodafone UK's UMTS auction team, where she acted as technical expert on systems and technology issues, providing technical liaison to the UK board.
Shirin is the author of several technical publications and has been a speaker in numerous technical conferences. She is a member of the IET and a Chartered Engineer.
See the latest interview with Shirin.
Dr Michael Flanagan, Chief Technical Officer
Michael Flanagan joined Arieso at the beginning of 2007 as CTO, responsible for advancing the company's unique vision for a new generation of optimization technologies and bringing that vision to life for Arieso's global customers.
An internationally recognized expert in network optimization, Michael spent 12 years at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs in New Jersey. At Bell Labs, he worked on many aspects of wireless communications systems, ranging from channel element design to network design and optimization, and gained considerable international experience, including in the US, China, India, the UK and New Zealand.
Michael received a BEng in Electrical Engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1990, and MSc and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1991 and 1995 respectively.
While a National Science Foundation Fellow at Caltech he worked part-time at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Deep Space Network projects including the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
See Mike's latest Bloomberg TV interview
Richard Fuller, Chief Financial Officer
Richard Fuller brings more than 15 years of finance experience to Arieso as the company's Chief Financial Officer responsible for Finance, Legal and Corporate Services.
Previously, Richard took the finance lead in a start-up company that specialized in optimization software solutions for the manufacturing sector, where he provided strategic input and financial direction to the Board through rapid growth years. The company was eventually integrated in to the GE portfolio.
In 2008 Richard exited from the GSMA events, media and innovation business based out of Atlanta, USA where he was instrumental in establishing the finance and business infrastructure across multiple countries. The GSMA Mobile World Congress and the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress were under Richard's financial control, both events of which are world renowned.
Richard has also held a number of other senior finance roles predominantly in the technology sector including divisional director level roles in larger corporate groups such as Acentic Ltd and Univar Ltd.
Both ACA and FPC qualified, Richard also holds a degree in Engineering Science from the University of Wales, Swansea.
Andy Burns, Vice President Worldwide Sales & Marketing
Andy Burns is responsible for global sales and go-to-market strategy for Arieso's solutions and services. With more than 20 years experience in the global telecoms sector, he most recently served as Vice President International Sales at Verso Technologies Inc., where he fuelled sales growth across Europe, Middle East, Africa , and Asia Pacific.
At Verso, he developed and managed a global sales organization with operations in Europe, Africa, SE Asia, China and India , supporting both direct and indirect business relationships with leading telecoms service providers. He has also held key sales leadership positions with : Verilink Corp; Symmetricom Inc, Premisys Communications, Newbridge Networks and VINA Technologies.
Whilst at VINA, Andy led an expansion to secure first International sales and helped position the company for a successful IPO.
He holds a BEng Honours degree from the University of Bradford .
Iain Marsden, Vice President Global Projects
Iain is responsible for the delivery of all of Arieso’s deployments, support and preSales activities around the globe. He has been extensively involved in the rollout of numerous high profile software projects to tier one operators in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia during his seven year tenure with Arieso. Prior to joining Arieso, Iain headed up teams responsible for the design and rollout of some of the largest and most complex cellular networks across the world, including being lead technical advisor to the Telecoms Regulatory Authority of Oman.
Iain holds a MEng from the University of Bristol and is a Member of the IET.
Barry Graham, Vice President Product Management
Barry Graham has over 15 years experience in the global mobile telecoms industry, including holding senior product management positions at Motorola, LogicaCMG and Acision. These roles have ranged from managing large mature product portfolios to creating new innovative product lines.
At Motorola Barry was responsible for transforming advanced research projects in automated network optimisation technologies into class leading products deployed with tier 1 operators around the world.
Barry is responsible for shaping Arieso’s product roadmap, and developing key strategic partnerships.
Barry holds a B.Sc. from the University of East Anglia.