BT Conferencing Executive team

Aaron McCormack

Chief Executive Officer

Aaron was appointed CEO of BT Conferencing in May 2006 and has executive responsibility for BT’s Conferencing and Collaboration businesses worldwide with revenues of over £315m and 1400 people.

In March 2008, the World Economic Forum named Aaron as one of its Young Global Leaders. This prestigious accolade is awarded to a number of the most exceptional leaders under 40 for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society, and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world through their inspirational leadership.

Prior to his time at BT Conferencing, Aaron was Vice President of BT’s Global Products division for BT from 2002. He was responsible for all of BT’s networked IT businesses totalling nearly £315 billion of turnover.

Aaron has held a variety of positions with BT and its joint ventures – including those with AT&T and MCI. He has worked extensively in sales, service, product marketing and product development. These roles have seen him live and work in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

He also takes a prominent role in BT’s merger and acquisition activities and business development and is BT’s age diversity champion, as well as being a non-executive director companies within the BT Group.

Aaron holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering, Business and French from the Queen’s University of Belfast. He divides his time between Omagh, Northern Ireland and Boston, USA.

Jason Chin

Chief Information Officer

Jason Chin oversees the IT organisation responsible for designing, implementing, and supporting the global business systems infrastructure that supports BT Conferencing’s customer base. Under his leadership, BT Conferencing has distinguished itself by bringing high valued, unique, and customisable collaboration solutions to the world’s leading multi-national Enterprises.

Jason joined BT Conferencing in 2002 as the Head of IT Development. In 2007 he moved to a General Manager role, heading the Enterprise Solutions Business Unit, with a dedicated focus of accelerating new service offerings for emerging collaboration technologies. Prior to joining BT Conferencing, Jason took on a variety of roles, including operations management, product management, and management consulting

Jason has earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

A. LaMont Eanes

Chief Operations Officer & VP, Global Operations & Infrastructure

LaMont Eanes joined BT Conferencing in December 2006 from Premiere Global Services, where he was Executive Vice President of Global Information Systems. Prior to this, he had served as Senior Vice President of Service Delivery at Premiere. LaMont has a broad set of experiences that extend beyond the telecom industry. He started his working life as a Legislative Assistant to a State Senator. In 2002, he was one of sixteen individuals in the United States who received the National Excellence in Leadership award (NELI). This award recognizes minorities who have achieved excellence in corporate America as well as demonstrating a commitment to a broader social agenda. It was awarded to LaMont based on his contribution as a member of the Board of Directors of non-profit organisations including the WDAF Love Fund for Children, Ozanam Home, the Parent-Child Home Program and the American Skyline Insurance Company.

LaMont has led businesses operating in the wireless, long distance, local exchange, telemarketing, payphone, conferencing and premise equipment markets. He has worked in product, marketing, engineering, operations and has held human resources leadership roles at organisations including AT&T and Sprint.

LaMont has a degree in Political Science as well as an MBA.

Roy Bevan

General Manager, Business Operations

Roy Bevan is the General Manager of Business Operations in BT Conferencing, the conferencing and collaboration services division of BT. Roy has worked in the telecommunications and conferencing industry for over 27 years and holds a HNC Electrical Engineering.

He has worked at BT Conferencing for over six years and has held a number of management positions. At BT, Roy has been responsible for a number of successful projects, including the creation of a billing process remodeling programme (which delivered an annual cost saving of more than £1m) and the construction of internal project management community with best in breed process and tools. He has also won many performance recognition awards for his work within BT Conferencing.

Prior to BT Conferencing, Roy worked at GEC McMichael, GPT Video Systems and ImageCom Ltd. During this time he acquired extensive experience in the areas of CRM, project management, commercial management, strategic planning, business improvement, bid/contract management, and supplier management.

Roy is married with three children and lives in Beaconsfield Buckinghamshire.

Karine Samaha

General Manager, Global Portfolio and Marketing

Karine Samaha joined BT Conferencing in January 2010, and is responsible for Global Product Management, Product Marketing and Communications. Previously Karine was General Manager, Consumer Broadband, Mobile and Internet services at BT Retail. Prior to BT, Karine held a number of general management, commercial and marketing positions at GE Consumer Finance, a division of GE Capital, and was also a consultant at McKinsey&Company.

Karine holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Masters of Engineering from l'École des Mines-ParisTech.

Mike Landers

General Manager, EMEA

Mike Landers was appointed the General Manager of EMEA for BT Conferencing in 2007 and has executive responsibility for BT’s Conferencing and Collaboration businesses within the EMEA region with a turnover of £100+m and 360 people. Mike has worked in the Telecommunications business for over two decades in a number of areas, including Marketing, Portfolio and Sales; he joined BT Conferencing in 1997 where his previous roles included Head of EMEA Sales. Mike holds a Degree in Economics from Lancaster University and a Post Graduate Marketing Diploma.

Jack Blaeser

General Manager, Americas

Jack Blaeser joined BT Conferencing in 2002 and has overall responsibility and management for BT’s Conferencing and Collaboration business in the Americas. Additionally, Jack supports the BT Business Solutions executive team responsible for management of its Americas business generating in excess of $1.5 billion in revenue.

Prior to BT, Jack was Executive Vice President of Parable Telecommunications Group Plc in London with global responsibility for the strategy and execution of the organizations SaaS UCC solutions. Before Parable Jack played a key role with the new venture Equant Inc. in building a sales organization and business in managed data communications services from start up to $100 million over a 4 year period. Additionally, earlier in his career Jack spent 9 years at AT&T and has founded and run two additional businesses outside the communications industry.

Jack earned his Master of Business Administration at Boston College and holds both Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Behavior degrees from Brown University.

Michelle Harrold

General Manager, Asia Pac

As Head of BT Conferencing in Asia Pacific, Michelle Harrold’s responsibility is to build and grow a profitable conferencing business in the region within in a multi- channel environment. She has held the position for over two years. She is a cabinet member of the BT Conferencing Global Leadership team.

Michelle joined BT Global Services in 1996 and has held a variety of positions including Billing, Global Service Management and Finance. Prior to her current role, she was the Commercial and Business Operations Manager for BT Conferencing Asia Pacific for three years.

Michelle holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting.

Michelle is married with one child, and lives in Sydney, Australia.

Jeff Prestel

General Manager, BT Conferencing Video Business Unit

Jeff Prestel is General Manager of BT Conferencing’s Video Business Unit. He has nearly 20 years of marketing, product and sales management experience.

Up until BT’s recent acquisition of Wire One Communications, he held the position of Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Wire One Communications. Over the last four years he led a team of over 100 people across the USA and delivered over $140 million in profitable revenue through the sale of video and collaboration solutions.

Prior to joining Wire One, Jeff worked for 15 years for global technology company NCR Corporation, where he held a number of senior positions, including Vice President of Alliances, Sales Vice President and National Sales Director. During his time at NCR, Jeff worked at various different levels in pricing, product management and sales, giving him an enviable knowledge and overview of the process of bringing a product to market, as well as selling it.

Before this role he worked at IBM in the marketing and sales operations whilst studying for his Masters in Business Administration at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. He also achieved a BSC at Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.

Jeff is affiliated with the Fisher College of Business Alumni Board of Directors, American Marketing Association and the National Management Association.

Kirsty Adams

Head of HR

Kirsty and her team are responsible for providing the full range HR consultancy services to the Conferencing organisation. Kirsty is responsible for creating and delivering the workforce strategy and has specific responsibility for the acquisition, development and retention of strategic talent.

Kirsty joined BT Conferencing GLT as Head of HR in June 2009.

Throughout her career in HR Kirsty has had a wealth of experience working with executive management teams creating and implementing HR strategies which underpin the business strategy. Kirsty’s areas of expertise are strategic talent engagement, organisational design, and executive coaching, psychometrics and performance management.

Kirsty is a qualified practitioner Myers Briggs & 16PF Psychometric Tools. She is an executive coach and trained in change management using the AIM methodology.

Kirsty is currently studying for her Executive Masters in Human Resource Leadership with Rutgers University in the US.

Kirsty is married with two children, lives in Buckinghamshire and enjoys sailing classic yachts.

Alan Tosh

Head of Access Management

Alan Tosh began his career with BT in 1974, holding a number of engineering positions in the early part of his BT career, before joining Sales in 1983, becoming Head of Small Business Sales UK, a position he held until 1996.

Following that, Alan spent two years as Head of Business Development in the UK, and a further two years as Head of Business Development resident in Belgium where he conceived, built and launched BT’s joint venture ISP business with BBL and BT. The venture broke the model in Belgium by offering free access to the internet for customers for the first time. In eight weeks from launch, the new ISP’s market share was second only to the incumbent. It was also the first ISP to be launched with a Banking Shell and a secure on line shopping mall.

In October 2001 Alan joined BT Conferencing where he has held a number of positions including as Head of Sales for EMEA, General Manager Business Operations and Head of Technical Planning where he led the team responsible for the development of the BT Conferencing next generation conferencing platform.

Alan was appointed to the BT Conferencing Global Leadership Team on 1 January 2010 as Head of Access Management.

Alan lives with his partner in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He has two daughters and two grandchildren.

Rachel O’Leary

Finance Director

Rachel joined BT Conferencing as the Finance Director in August 2008. Previous to joining BT, Rachel was the Finance Director of EMEA for Lucent Technologies, supporting a business of $1.2B. Prior to that, Rachel held a number of financial, business, and product roles within Lucent and AT&T.