Wyless appoints Gilli Coston its chief strategy officer as company prepares for merger with ASPIDER M2M

Gilli Coston Gilli Coston, Wyless's new CSO

London, UK. February 18, 2014 (PRNewswire) — Wyless today announced the appointment of Gilli Coston (pictured) as its new CSO (chief strategy officer) to the Wyless senior management team. The news is reported in full in the latest issue of M2M Now. Wyless also announced it is to acquire ASPIDER M2M, the European leader in M2M MVNE solutions.

Gilli Coston brings a wealth of experience to Wyless, with over 20 years at O2 and Telefonica, including her final position as the head of M2M for Telefonica O2 UK and more recently at consulting firm CGI. She has “an unrivalled high-level experience of the Internet of Things (IoT) business”, says Wyless, from both an operator and a solution provider perspective.

Gilli Coston will work closely alongside CEO, Dan McDuffie and the rest of the management team in driving the global strategy, including mergers and acquisitions (M&As), integrations, strategic partnerships, “and building talent and culture within an ever globally expanding organisation”.

Dan McDuffie, CEO, Wyless commented: “While at Telefonica, Gilli was a major advocate of Wyless and always took a strategic partner, win/win approach to our relationship. We are very thankful to have her bringing her energies to the Wyless team. Gilli is a thoughtful and engaging leader who is passionate about our industry and has a holistic approach to both people and culture and I have no doubt that she will make a major impact to our business both on a global basis and especially in Europe. Her initial focus will be ensuring that our upcoming European merger with ASPIDER M2M is well integrated from a strategic standpoint while maintaining the significant momentum that each company enjoys today as stand out actors in the EU IoT space, and she will assist the current management of both companies in building out our European partnerships with MNOs and Channels.”

Gilli Coston added; “I am delighted to be joining Wyless as I always felt the company to be an innovator and disrupter in a market crying out for thought leadership. This accelerated growth and innovation from the Internet of Things market brings new opportunities to provide our customers and partners with end-to-end solutions together with open and agnostic managed connectivity in an increasingly cloudy environment. Wyless is breaking free of comfort zones, and we understand the importance for our customers, our people and our partners in providing the global infrastructure for today’s information society. My goal is to drive that message into the market and truly make an impact to our industry, proving that there are real numbers behind the hype around IoT.”

Acquisition of ASPIDER M2M

Wyless also announced  today an agreement to acquire ASPIDER M2M, the European leader in M2M MVNE solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, ASPIDER M2M provides a broad range of advanced M2M/IOT applications to global customers, principally in the Benelux and for the German speaking markets, where they maintain multiple offices.

ASPIDER M2M runs its own Cisco and Oracle based core network of GGSNs, HLRs and Intelligent Network. This allows the company to act as an MVNE (mobile virtual network enabler) for M2M/IoT and to provide an operator independent solution. Wyless will complement its portfolio with these solutions that ASPIDER M2M has deployed to large customers like Philips Lighting and Stedin, a public utility in Holland.

As part of the acquisition, ASPIDER HOLDING chairman & founder Jan Willem van Doorn, will join the Wyless Board of Directors, and Michel Zwijnenberg, ASPIDER M2M vice-president, will take a senior executive role within Wyless Europe PLC, resulting from  Aspider’s integration with Wyless UK.

Dan McDuffie, CEO Wyless, commented: “This combination of our existing presence in the UK and Switzerland with ASPIDER’s dominance in Benelux and rapidly expanding footprint in Germany strengthens the Wyless position in continental Europe, provides core network expertise into our product portfolio and brings a group of great people into the business, spearheaded by ASPIDER M2M vice-president Michel Zwijnenberg and his team, who built the M2M business within parent company ASPIDER HOLDING. ASPIDER’s Intelligent Network solutions also enable Wyless to serve worldwide SMEs in a prepaid Google style model.”

Michel Zwijnenberg said; “I believe strongly in the emerging Internet of Things market. There will be a premium for the company being the first to claim leadership in this market and I want to be a part of that company. ASPIDER has a focus on offering core-network based solutions in the areas of operator independence, security and outsourced billing via its prepaid IN. Wyless has lately been focused on building more complete and complex end-to-end solutions around IoT deployments. Product-wise this is a perfect fit and together I believe that we can win the market with our think Global act Local approach.”

Wyless provides end-to-end secure managed solutions for the M2M and Internet of Things marketplace. Its network and platform are delivered in partnership with more than 15 of the world’s largest network operators. Wyless’s teams aim to enable fast, efficient and real-time services to support their global and local enterprise customers as well as supporting mobile network operator and distribution partners to reliably deploy, deliver and maintain mission-critical embedded digital solutions around the world every day.

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