News

Rakuten Symphony, the telecom solutions division of Rakuten Group, has announced a new management structure following the departure of its CEO, Tareq Amin. In a LinkedIn post, Amin cited personal reasons for his departure.

Effective immediately, Mickey Mikitani, the group chairman and founder of Rakuten, has been appointed as the CEO and chairman of Rakuten Symphony. The company stated that Mikitani will leverage his position as Chairman and CEO of the Rakuten Group to drive Rakuten Symphony’s growth and maximize group synergies.

Sharad Sriwastawa, currently the CTO of Rakuten Mobile, has been appointed as the acting president of Rakuten Symphony. Additionally, Sriwastawa will take on the role of co-CEO at Rakuten Mobile while retaining his position as CTO. Kazuhiro Suzuki will continue as co-CEO of Rakuten Mobile.

According to Rakuten, Sriwastawa’s responsibilities will include advancing the progress of Rakuten Symphony’s innovative telco solutions that enable the launch and operation of advanced mobile services at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional approaches, without compromising network quality or security.

Amin had been with Rakuten since 2018, initially joining as the CTO of Rakuten Mobile. He served as the CEO of Rakuten Symphony from mid-2021 and became co-CEO of Rakuten Mobile in April last year. Amin was a vocal advocate for Open RAN technology and oversaw the deployment of the world’s first nationwide Open RAN-based mobile network at Rakuten Mobile.

Rakuten’s commitment to Open RAN was further demonstrated through its acquisition of virtualized RAN provider Altiostar and cloud management software provider Robin.io, which merged to form Rakuten Symphony. However, some industry analysts have expressed curiosity about the future of Symphony without Amin’s leadership.

In related news, Rakuten Mobile has partnered with Oracle for policy and charging software. Additionally, two subsea cables were severed off the west coast of Africa, causing disruption to internet connectivity. Airtel has also launched India’s first 5G fixed wireless access service.

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