Jeremy Steventon-Barnes

CTO at Lightspeed

Speaker

For over 20 years, I’ve led global teams of talented software and network engineers to deliver extraordinary outcomes at the frontiers of Internet technology.

From startups through scaleups to NASDAQ, ASX and FTSE listed companies, I’ve led teams and delivered projects in every continent except Antarctica, with budgets from bootstrapping to £100m+ and teams from two to 200+ people. I’ve launched new product lines, grown them from nothing to £100m+ revenue, and have held substantial P&L responsibility both personally and as a member of a leadership team.

After working for Vint Cerf in MCI, I was employee #7 for Level 3 in Europe where I hired and led engineering and product teams to build and operate a greenfield Tier 1 ISP. My team built Europe’s first 10 Gbps MPLS backbone, the world’s first 10 Gbps transatlantic Internet links, and early metro Ethernet and datacentres.

Following an MBA at London Business School, I joined Tellabs as we acquired and integrated Bay Area tech firms Vivace Networks and Advanced Fibre Communications, launching the world’s first MPLS/Ethernet mobile backhaul solution and delivering Verizon's early FiOS FTTH deployments.

Next, BT’s Chief Architect hired me to lead a global team driving network strategy and transformation, including early work on SDN/NFV (members of my team co-authored the original NFV white paper). I went on to play a key role developing and executing BT’s public-private investment model for rural fibre broadband, winning over £1 billion of government contracts, and leading delivery for the £132m Superfast Cornwall programme, including BT’s first volume FTTH deployments and subsea cables for the Isles of Scilly. I also led major projects delivering Ethernet, MPLS, WDM, datacentres, millions of broadband upgrades and world-first Gfast and FTTH trials.

In 2017, I joined Australian tech innovator Netcomm to lead European market entry, and we were acquired by Casa Systems in 2019. I worked with major telcos and SIs to transform monolithic services and infrastructure to virtualised solutions using cloud-native microservices, NFVI and OCP whiteboxes. My projects included fibre broadband, 5G devices and small cells and IoT solutions.

Along the way, I’ve built relationships with FTTH operators and investors across the UK and Europe and have advised on multiple projects. I'm excited to have co-founded Lightspeed Broadband to deliver gigabit broadband to under-served communities across the East of England as part of our £300m investment.