Hamid Akhavan
Hamid Akhavan-Malayeri is an Iranian-American business executive, and is currently a partner at Long Arc Capital, a New York-based private equity firm. Until 2014 Akhavan was the CEO of Unify GmbH & Co. KG (formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications). Akhavan remained a member of the Unify GmbH & Co. KG executive board until its acquisition in 2015 by Atos, the French IT services company. His management experience includes product development, and international sales and marketing, as well as technology, IT and procurement. Prior to joining Unify, Akhavan served as Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Deutsche Telekom Group, where  he was responsible for the company’s mobile operations in Europe, and he was also Chairman of the Executive Operating Board at Deutsche Telekom. He was also previously the CEO at T-Mobile International AG. On October 15, 2013 Siemens Enterprise was re-branded Unify and unveiled by Akhavan publicly in person and on the web. He began his career as a telemetry engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, California, followed by Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) where he helped develop key capabilities for the Advanced Intelligent Networks (AIN). His early career roles also includes leadership roles at  PrimeCo PCS, the first company to deploy a 2G digital mobile service in the USA, and Teligent Inc. the high-profile wireless Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) where he served as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO) until mid year 2001 prior to joining Deutsche Telekom Group in Germany. In March 2022, was announced as new CEO of Echostar/Hughes.