Telcordia Impact Players:
Marcos Sena
Six years ago, when Marcos Sena joined Telcordia in Brazil, he was the number-two man in a two-man operation. That must seem like a lifetime ago for Marcos, who now looks out his office window at the cable cars ascending Sugar Loaf in Rio de Janeiro, where he helps direct a team of dozens. This rapidly expanding group is responsible for supporting deployments in major carriers, serving tens of millions of customers.
The rise in the Brazilian market has been dramatic, according to Marcos. In 2000, there were only 20 million cell phones in Brazil. Today, that number is close to 88 million - nearly half the population of Brazil. That rise has generated big opportunities as corporate customers have demanded more robust wireless, cable, broadband and IP services from providers. To meet the demand, carriers have sought for much better flowthrough automation to offer services more quickly and inexpensively.
In the middle of it all has been Telcordia Account Executive Marcos Sena, armed with a wide portfolio of products and services and a team of integration experts. "I had an on-site office with one of Brazil's big carriers for two years," he says. "Becoming an integral part of their team has enabled us to successfully deploy some important technologies together, like prepaid and automated service fulfillment."
But according to Marcos, Telcordia's success in Brazil is more than just getting to know the right people within an organization. Marcos continues, "Our clients trust us because our technology delivers as promised. In prepaid, we quickly scaled from zero to 11 million customers, and one New Year's Eve, when traffic levels really spiked, our system was one of very few in Brazil that didn't experience any problems."
Marcos supports his clients' businesses with a diverse team of individuals who each bring a different background and unique set of skills to help customers identify, implement and maintain the technologies that will enable them to compete profitably. His team includes experts in provisioning, operations maintenance, service creation, service fulfillment, project engineering, and government regulation. In addition, Marcos knows he can draw upon an even deeper well of experience from Telcordia in New Jersey, and from other in-country experts across the world.
Marcos' background and training have prepared him well for the technical and business challenges of satisfying carriers who are eager to extend their reach in a burgeoning market. Prior to joining Telcordia, Marcos spent 16 years at Alcatel in various capacities, from testing and evaluation of equipment to implementation consulting to P&L analysis. He holds a degree in electrical engineering with an MBA in international business management from UC Irvine.
Looking to the future, Marcos sees the Brazilian telecom market continuing to expand rapidly as technology-savvy urbanites continue to clamor for the latest services. At the same time, potential customers in Brazil's vast countryside are increasingly demanding reliable cellular, Internet and broadband services. And carriers are eager to reach them in a measured, cost-efficient way. With a broad portfolio of relevant products and services to offer his customers, Marcos is confident that Telcordia will be at the forefront of that expansion. This opportunity could certainly make the next six years for Marcos Sena even more energizing than the last.