Ericsson Software Technology
Leadership Team

Phil Robb

Head of Ericsson Software Technology
Phil is the Head of Ericsson Software Technology (EST) and General Manager of Ericsson Software Technology USA. He leads the EST development efforts in cloud, containers, and other NFVI technologies. Prior to EST, Phil was the V.P. of Operations for the Networking Projects at the Linux Foundation including ONAP, CNTT, and ORAN among others. In that role, Phil led a team of technical staff who oversaw community software development based on DevOps and open source best practices. Prior to the Linux Foundation, Phil spent 12 years with Hewlett Packard working on Linux and Open Source starting in 2001. There, Phil formed and led HP’s Open Source Program Office responsible for open source strategy, tools, processes, and investments as HP transitioned from Unix to Linux in the Enterprise Server market.

Jan Melen

GM Ericsson Software Tech Finland AB
Jan joined Ericsson Software Technology in 2022 as a member of the leadership team and heading operational unit in Finland. He is also a General Manager of subsidiary in Finland. Jan works together with the cloud-native platform development stakeholders across Ericsson group to address and engage with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation projects in the Open Source. Jan has more than 25 years’ experience in the telecommunication industry with special focus on Internet routing and protocol technologies and computing platforms. Before hia current role he lead the local research branch on the Cloud technologies. Jan’s journey on the field has been focused on different types of platforms from embedded systems to modern cloud-native platforms. He is well-known on previous EU and Finland scale research programs connected to Edge, Cloud, and Mobile technologies.

David Donnelly

Product Development Leader
David is a Product Development Leader in Ericsson Software Technology Ireland (EST) working in the Network Automation area within the company. The role involves line management of staff in the unit and development of these staff and the company’s capability in the open source paradigm. Prior to that David has extensive management experience in the Network Management space within Ericsson, working as both line and project manager. The role involved technical management of integration and test teams, and more recently looking at the wider software engineering development process’s in Ericsson Network management solutions and how that has adapted over the years as the industry moves to more agile and open systems solutions.

David Partain

Product Development Leader
David joined Ericsson Software Technology in October 2022. He manages the ELIN team that builds an embedded Linux distribution targeting Ericsson products. In that role, he works to ensure that Ericsson's overall strategic goals for Linux and stakeholder requirements are met, that the team can engage upstream, and that Ericsson's influence in the Linux world is strengthened. David has been with Ericsson over 24 years, with experience stretching from research to product management. A common thread throughout has been a general interest in open source, how Ericsson can improve our software development based on open source practices, and how we can actively contribute.

Frank Kelly

General Manager Ericsson Software Technology Ireland
Frank joined Ericsson Software Technology in 2018 as a member of the leadership team. He is currently heading one of the operational units within EST and is also General Manager of one of the subcompanies based in Ireland. Day to day Frank works closely with stakeholders across the wider Ericsson Group to address their requirements of contribution to and adoption of open source automation technologies such as ONAP, ORAN and OpenDaylight. Frank has over 20 years experience in the telecommunications industry starting his career at Motorola in 1999, working as a lead design engineer in core networking before moving to Ericsson in 2007. Frank has served in a variety of technical leadership positions across a number of technology disciplines including hardware and operating systems, analytics and assurance, machine intelligence and self optimising networks. In previous role Frank has also championed the use of innersource across the Ericsson Group.

David Östman

General Manager Ericsson Software Technology Sweden
David joined Ericsson Software Technology in February 2023 as a member of the leadership team. He is heading one of the operational units and is also General Manager of EST Sweden. David works with stakeholders across the Ericsson Group to address their requirements of contribution to and adoption of open source technologies such as Linux. David has over 23 years experience in the telecommunications industry starting his career at Ericsson in 2000, working as a software developer. David has served in a variety of technical and leadership positions across a number of technology disciplines within R&D and Product Management with responsibility for several large products.

Somesh Kumar

Stakeholder Program Manager
Somesh joined Ericsson Software Technology in April 2021 and is doing the role of Stakeholder Program Manager (SPM). His role involves in working with the Ericsson stakeholders, understanding their requirements and working with the open source teams in EST to fulfill those requirements, simultaneously ensuring that Ericsson’s upstream commitments in the open source communities are also met. In his role as SPM he also has the responsibility of ensuring the competence and professional development of his team. Prior to joining EST, Somesh had 20+ years of experience within Ericsson doing various roles that included PDU OSS Demand Manager role looking into the allocation of Test Environment as a Service to all the teams, Capex & Opex management for servers used within PDU OSS. He also Project Managed various projects like Performance Management suite of products (Classic PM, ENIQ Stats & ENIQ Events), Ericsson’s demo environments for customer demos including Mobile World Congress (MWC), and implementing the first Proof of Concept of instantiating Containerized Cloud RAN using the Ericsson Orchestrator suite of products.

Rae Wang

Financial Controller
Rae Wang joined Ericsson Software Technology in December 2022 as Financial Controller. Her role involves working with different stakeholders as the business partner and finance SPOC to secure the billing and revenue, cost control, compliance, financial planning and reporting, and support the EST leadership team to achieve short-term and long-term financial target. Before joining EST, Rae was the Finance Operation Manager within Group function Finance, leading Cash Collection team in Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Ericsson Software Technology Operations Team

Paula Mannion

Operations Lead
Paula joined Ericsson Software Technology in 2019 and is currently leading Operations. Her role ensures efficient day-to-day operations, implementing processes and programs while supporting the requirements of employees and stakeholders. She is also responsible for managing purchasing, accounting, human resources, inventory, and IT. Before joining Ericsson Software Technology she spent 13 years in a large US tech company doing various roles such as Purchasing, Supply Chain Management, Marketing & Program Management.

Sarah Kaivan

Executive Assistant
Sarah Joined Ericsson Software Technology (EST) August 2022 as Executive Assistant. Her role involves supporting Head of Ericsson Software Technology, Phil Robb, employee support and daily administration. Prior to joining EST Sarah has worked within Ericsson since 2018 on various roles and business areas where she mostly held a position as Assistant, where she supported leadership team and employees within communication and day to day administration.

Janne Latsu

EST Operations Team
Janne joined EST Operations Team in August 2021. His primary role is employee support, assignment administration and daily operations. Before joining to EST he worked for 21 years in Ericsson in various roles in Finland, Sweden and Denmark. These roles included technical support to operators, education, managing resourcing and finance.