In his new role, Bennett will lead a team of over 50 engineers and operations specialists who deliver indoor and outdoor mobile connectivity in environments ranging from railway stations to stadiums and high rises to hospitals.
“We’re thrilled Tom has joined us as our new CTO," said Simon Frumkin, CEO of Freshwave.
"Not only does he have the deep engineering and network architecture expertise the role requires, but he excels at creating collaborative partnerships. Freshwave delivers and manages some of the most challenging wireless environments in the UK and under Tom’s leadership I know we’re going to stay at the cutting edge of our industry.”
Prior to joining Freshwave, Bennett spent 10 years at BT-owned EE, most recently as director of partnerships and innovations. During his time at EE/BT, Bennett led negotiations on behalf of the company with the government as well as other mobile network operators as part of the Shared Rural Network, which aims to deliver 4G coverage to 95% of the UK.
Additionally, during his tenure Bennett cultivated technology relationships with the key mobile ecosystem partners and was responsible for all mobile network service and smartphone launches for EE. As an electronic and electrical engineer, Bennett began his career in telecoms in 1996 at One2One (which became T-Mobile) and has been in senior leadership roles since 2005.
“I’m excited to have joined the Freshwave team and I’m looking forward to building relationships with our customers, as well our ecosystem partners. The importance of connectivity has been ably demonstrated over the past couple of years and technology never stands still," said Bennett.
"Freshwave is known for its innovative approaches and I’m looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting involved in ground-breaking projects across everything from 4G and 5G mobile private networks to complex infrastructure projects.”
Bennett succeeds Ravi Mondair as CTO, a role he assumed when his company iWireless Solutions was acquired by Digital Colony, as part of the Freshwave Group in 2019.
“I would like to thank Ravi for his leadership in the business and all his contributions after decades in the telecoms industry. Under his stewardship, we’ve developed a pool of talented engineers who’ve earned a wonderful reputation in the industry. We wish him all the best for the future,” added Frumkin.
“I’m proud to have built up a successful business over the past 15 years and the reputation we enjoy in the industry is a testament to our talented and hardworking team," commented Mondair.
"Freshwave is at an exciting time in its history and Tom will do a great job leading the technical team into the next phase of growth and opportunity.”
