George Glass, who had been with BT since September 1987, becomes vice president of architecture and APIs at the TM Forum.
His colleague John Gillam, who was a CTO at BT Global Services, now becomes CTO of the industry body, which has 850 members, including operators and suppliers.
“Our ability to attract global talent reflects the veracity of our work in digital transformation,” said TM Forum CEO Nik Willetts, who has also appointed a director of product management and a legal counsel.
Glass, who was chief systems architect at BT until his departure, was one of the original authors and creators of BT’s service-oriented architecture which was behind the company’s transformation into a digital service provider.
He said: “I’m looking forward to supporting the Forum’s members worldwide as our industry transforms from being the communication service providers of the last century to the digital service partners of this century.”
Gillam was CTO of portfolio development for BT Compute within BT Global Services, where he led work on business platform as a service, described by the TM Forum as “a fast track for organisations wanting to adopt digital business models to compete with digital natives or ‘unicorns’ without compromising on the maintenance of existing legacy business”.
He said: “I’m delighted to be joining TM Forum and look forward to working with the members in defining the industry direction.” That includes “new technologies such as machine learning and blockchain”, he added.
The TM Forum’s other appointments are Jon Coleman, who has left Viavi Solutions to be director of product management, and US attorney Denise Fink, who becomes the Forum’s legal counsel.
