Spring General Assembly appoints new leaders, new committees and new vision beyond the established FTTH/B ecosystem
The 2026 Spring General Assembly of the FTTH Council Europe brought together stakeholders from its pan-European membership. The aim was to reset strategic priorities, renew the organisation’s leadership and restructure its committees to reflect the Council’s expanding scope.
The newly elected Board of Directors appointed Stefano Fogli (pictured below), Director Technology and Solutions at Adtran as new President. “As an industry association, we remain focused on creating value for our members and strengthening our advocacy towards policymakers, while preparing the Council for the next chapter ahead,” said Stefano Fogli in his first remarks as President.
The Board confirmed Patrick Faraj, Senior Global PLM – Centralized Fiber Test Solutions at VIAVI Solutions as Treasurer. Francesco Nonno, Director of Regulatory and European Affairs at Open Fiber is the new Vice-President Public Affairs and Carl Pertry, Business Development Director Fixed Networks at Nokia, becomes Vice-President Strategy. Andreas Waber, CEO at Swiss Fibre Net is now Vice-President, Membership, alongside six other Board members (see full list below) intended to represent the diversity of the Council’s membership.
A broader mission
The General Assembly confirmed an evolution of the Council’s Committee structure as the FTTH Council Europe is expanding its remit to include residential access, the migration of HFC networks to fibre, datacentre connectivity and passive optical LAN (POL).
POL A Passive Optical LAN (POL or POLAN) is an enterprise network architecture based on passive optical network (PON) technology, designed to replace copper Ethernet cables and active switches with single-mode fibre and unpowered optical splitters. This dramatically reduces energy consumption, the physical footprint and hardware maintenance costs.
Previously the Council’s focus was its expertise and advocacy in FTTH/FTTB deployment. The organisation stresses that it remains “anchored in its core mission of accelerating fibre adoption across Europe”.
The Council will now have seven committees, led by newly elected Chairs (see list below). They are dedicated fora for technical collaboration, market development and cross-sector engagement across the fibre ecosystem.
The Council says there will be more announcements in the coming months as it continues to refine communications around its evolving mission and scope to the market.
Member Engagement Award
Icíar Martínez Núñez (pictured below), Governance & Corporate Communications Director at Onivia, received the Member Engagement Individual Award at the Spring General Assembley in recognition of outstanding commitment to collaborative efforts.
Núñez was acknowledged for her dedication and contribution across the Council’s activities over the past year, which exemplify “the spirit of active membership and collaborative leadership that defines the organisation”.
New Executive Board of Directors composition:
- Stefano Fogli, Director Technology and Solutions at Adtran – President
- Patrick Faraj, Senior Global PLM – Centralized Fiber Test Solutions at VIAVI Solutions – Treasurer
- Francesco Nonno, Director of Regulatory and European Affairs at Open Fiber S. p. A. – Vice-President Public Affairs
- Carl Pertry, Business Development Director Fixed Networks at Nokia – Vice-President Strategy
- Andreas Waber, CEO at Swiss Fibre Net AG – Vice-President Membership
- Kajsa Arvidsson, CMO at Genexis
- Tomas Jendel, CTO Fiber Solutions at Hexatronic Group AB
- Stephan Korehnke, Head of International Regulatory Affairs at Vodafone Group
- Ingrid Malfait-Guilbaud, Director European Affairs at Iliad Group
Full list of new Committee Chairs:
Established Committees
- In-Home Broadband Excellence – Ahmet Atakan Alkan, Head of Product at TurkNet
- Market Intelligence – Domenico Dichiarante, Head of Residential Marketing at Open Fiber S.p.A.
- Open Access – Niall Halpenny, Director of Telecoms at Sonalake
- Deployment & Operations – Eric Joyce, Director Technology and Solutions – EMEA at Adtran
- Policy & Regulation – Christof Sommerberg, Head of Public Affairs at Deutsche Glasfaser
New Committees reflecting expanded scope
- Data Centre & Data Centre Interconnection – Jon Baldry, Senior Director Solutions Marketing at Nokia
- Investments & ESG – Francesco Rotunno, Head of EU Affairs at Open Fiber S.p.A.
