NFC Forum : Bios of Chairs

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Marketing Committee

Marketing Committee Chair: Gerhard Romen, Nokia

Gerhard Romen is the NFC Forum Marketing Committee Chair and Director and Head of NFC Market Development for Nokia. Mr. Romen has 20 years' experience in the IT / software industries. Prior to joining Nokia in 1999, he was VP for Borland International, and has held senior management positions with Sybase and SoftSwitch Inc. He started his career in application development at Data Organisation Services, Germany.

Marketing Communications Working Group Chair: Herbert Pamminger, SKIDATA

Herbert Pamminger is Vice President for business segments Airports and Shopping Centres at SKIDATA AG. In this function he is responsible for the required marketing mix and resulting revenues. He is also Marketing & Sales representative for NFC within SKIDATA with responsibility for the strategic positioning of NFC Technology on SKIDATA's target markets. These are also his responsibilities as Chairman the Marketing Communications Task Force of the NFC Forum.

Marketing Events Working Group Chair: Marc Borrett, Innovision Research & Technology

Marc Borrett is a cofounder of Innovision Research & Technology. He began his career in marketing at Hewlett-Packard in 1990. He joined the Innovations Group Limited in 1992, where he remained until 1994 including a period running their Far East office. He currently serves as Business Development Director at Innovision.

Developers Working Group Chair: Hank Chavers, Nokia

Hank Chavers is a Technical Project Manager for Nokia focusing on NFC in the Americas. He has been involved in wireless data technologies with Nokia for nearly ten years, starting with WAP and proceeding to instant messaging, push to talk over cellular, and cellular based web services and is now concentration on NFC adoption and implementation. Hank has a Bachelors degree in Computer Science, holds Project Management Professional certification, and is working on a Masters degree in IT Management.

Technical Committee

Technical Committee Chair: Jonathan Main, MasterCard

Jonathan Main is Vice President, Mobile Standards and Security for MasterCard Worldwide, where he has been active in the integration of card payments into mobile devices and the associated security requirements. Jonathan has over 10 years experience in mobile and mobile commerce technologies, and has been an active contributor to a number of specification organisations such as the Mobile Payment Forum, OMA, WAP Forum, MeT and EMVCo.

NFC Devices Technical Working Group Chair: Open

Reference Applications Framework Working Group Chair: Arun Naniyat, Samsung

Arun Naniyat is a Chief Engineer at Samsung in their India Software Operations. His primary focus is development of short range wireless technologies including Bluetooth and WiMed. He has over 13 years experience in the field of IT/Software industry. Prior to joining Samsung, Mr. Naniyat was an engineer at several technology start ups.

Security Technical Working Group Chair: Albert Dorofeev, Sony

Albert Dorofeev heads the Sony Secure Communications Europe coordinating all NFC and smart card related activities of Sony Corporation in Europe. As chairman of the Security Technical Working Group, Mr. Dorofeev draws on his years of experience in the security of smart cards industry combined with his previous standards-related work at ISO, ETSI and ECMA International.

Compliance Committee

Compliance Committee Co-Chair: Paul Kingsbury, NEC

Paul Kingsbury currently advises NEC European business units on the commercial impact of a number emerging wireless technologies, including NFC. Paul is a seasoned player in the wireless communications space with over 12 years broad coverage on mobile VAS, for which he has been active in: converged messaging, mobile banking, ticketing and entertainment, through to network authentication and smart card evolution.

Compliance Committee Co-Chair: Matt Ronning, Sony

Matt Ronning is Director of Engineering for Sony's Component Solutions Business Division located in San Diego, California. In this position, Matt and his engineering team support both module and integrated circuit development for the consumer and automotive markets. As a communications systems engineer, Matt has over 20 years experience in the development of IC's and modules supporting Cellular, Digital TV, GPS, and wireless/wireline PAN/LAN technologies, and has been an active contributor to a number of specification organizations such as IEEE and SAE.

Compliance Program Working Group Co-Chair: Paul Kingsbury, NEC

Compliance Program Working Group Co-Chair: Gregor Ponert, SKIDATA

Gregor Ponert leads the Device Factory at SKIDATA AG. SKIDATA AG is an international market leader in access management and ticketing solutions for controlled access of persons and vehicles to buildings and venues. The Device Factory is responsible for the development of all SKIDATA Devices (readers, barriers, automated sales stations, turnstiles, etc.) throughout the lifecycle, including Product Management. Gregor has more than 19 years of experience in the field of physical access control and in RFID. Prior to his responsibility for the Device Factory, Gregor worked in Firmware Development and Business Development. Gregor Graduated in Commercial Information Technology at the Technical University Vienna and is inventor of more than 30 patents.

Minimum Level of Interoperability Working Group Chair: Fraser Dickin, HP

Fraser Dickin is a senior technical contributor in Hewlett-Packard's European Research Laboratory located in Bristol, England. Fraser has a PhD in Electronic Instrumentation and has been working on communications protocols and embedded systems for over 20 years and has 9 granted patents. His current work at HP is on a wireless data carrier called Memory-spot.

Testing Working Group Chair: Matt Ronning, Sony

Privacy Advisory Council

Privacy Advisory Council Chair: Cyndi Nickel, HP

Cyndi Nickel is a Strategic Planning Manager for Hewlett-Packard Laboratories since 2000, providing research portfolio management. Cyndi has a background in IT security, object oriented middleware, database management, and microprocessor systems. Cyndi has over twenty years of experience, spending equal parts of her career managing software development and providing product and marketing management for products targeting emerging markets. Cyndi has held technical leadership positions at both HP and TI.