Ari Fitzgerald leads the firm’s Communications, Internet, and Media practice. He provides strategic, legal, and policy advice on a wide range of communications and spectrum policy issues to some of the world’s largest and most dynamic communications network operators and equipment manufacturers, as well as industry trade associations and investors.

Ari enjoys helping automobile manufacturers and suppliers, medical device manufacturers, drone manufacturers, and other technology companies bring new and innovative communications-related products and services to market. In recognition of his path-breaking contributions to the wireless industry, he is one of only three attorneys to have ever been inducted into the Wireless History Foundation’s Wireless Hall of Fame.

Brendan Carr is the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He previously served as the senior Republican Commissioner and as the FCC’s General Counsel. Nominated by both President Trump and President Biden, Carr has been confirmed unanimously by the Senate three times.

Described by Axios as “the FCC’s 5G crusader,” Carr has led the FCC’s work to modernize its infrastructure rules and accelerate the buildout of high-speed networks. His reforms cut billions of dollars in red tape, enabled the private sector to construct high-speed networks in communities across the country, and extended America’s global leadership in 5G.

Chairman Carr is also focused on expanding America’s skilled workforce—the tower climbers and construction crews needed to build next-gen networks. His jobs initiative promotes community colleges and apprenticeships as a pipeline for good-paying 5G jobs. He is recognizing America’s talented tower crews through a series of “5G Ready” Hard Hat presentations.

Chairman Carr leads a groundbreaking telehealth initiative at the FCC. The Connected Care Pilot Program supports the delivery of high-quality care to low-income Americans and veterans.

Chairman Carr’s time outside of Washington helps inform his approach to the job. He regularly hits the road to hear directly from community members and learn how changes in federal policies could help improve their lives.

Chairman Carr brings nearly 20 years of private and public sector experience in communications and tech policy to his position. Before joining the FCC as a staffer back in 2012, he worked as an attorney at Wiley Rein LLP in the firm’s appellate, litigation, and telecom practices. Previously, Chairman Carr clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for Judge Dennis Shedd. After attending Georgetown University for his undergrad, Chairman Carr earned his J.D. magna cum laude from the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law where he served as an editor of the Catholic University Law Review.

Adam Cassady was appointed as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Deputy Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on March 16, 2025. In this capacity, he provides advice and assistance to the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information in the formulation, development, and implementation of telecommunications and information policies of the Executive Branch.

Prior to his appointment at NTIA, Mr. Cassady served for over four years at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for Commissioner Nathan Simington. Most recently, Mr. Cassady served as Chief of Staff to Commissioner Simington, and prior to that as Commissioner Simington’s Senior Legal Advisor, managing a variety of telecommunications and technology portfolios.

Prior to joining the FCC, Cassady co-founded a technology firm focused on delivering enterprise machine learning solutions. He holds a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School and a bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University.

As President of SIA, Tom is the trade association’s lead advocate for regulatory and policy issues of critical importance to SIA’s membership, including spectrum and licensing issues, defense and public safety matters, and export control and international trade issues. He also manages the day-to-day operations of SIA, including member communications, staff leadership and organization of SIA sponsored events. Tom became the president of SIA in December of 2014.

Prior to joining SIA, Tom was with Shared Spectrum Company (SSC), a leading developer of spectrum intelligence technologies, where he served as CEO. For more than a decade, he served as the President of the Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA). Previous to his position at SSC, he founded and ran several companies in the technology industry, including Columbia Spectrum Management, P-Com Network Services, CSM Wireless, and SquareLoop.

Tom holds a BS, summa cum laude, in Public Administration from the University of North Dakota. He is also a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center where he served as Editor of the Georgetown Law Journal.

Jay Schwarz is Chief of the FCC Space Bureau. Previously, he served as Vice President of Public Policy for Comcast, focusing on broadband issues. In his first tour at the FCC he was Wireline Advisor to former Chairman Ajit Pai and held positions within the Wireline Competition Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and the Office of Strategic Planning. Jay holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh and an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Barbee has served as General Counsel and Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for Globalstar since July 2010. In this role he has directed Globalstar’s regulatory and licensing activities around the world.

Barbee has led the international regulatory effort required for the commercial introduction of the world’s first satellite direct-to-device service, now providing mobile satellite connectivity to millions of people globally. This effort included the expansion and licensing of Globalstar’s ground network now consisting of 28 gateway Earth stations in 18 countries.

Most recently, Barbee worked to secure the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s reauthorization of Globalstar’s senior HIBLEO-4 constellation filing for an additional 15-year license term.

He holds a law degree from Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia and a Bachelor of Science in Management degree from Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Amy Mehlman is EVP and Chief Global Affairs officer at Lynk Global. She is a senior telecommunication professional with nearly three decades hands-on experience helping innovative companies secure establish favorable public policies and secure market access by working with government policymakers, industry partners, and multilateral NGOs.

Most recently, Mehlman worked as VP for Global Affairs and Stakeholder Relations at E-Space Inc. where she led global policy efforts shaping the rapidly growing non-geostationary satellite market, successfully-pursued government contracts, obtained market access, spearheaded partnerships, and oversaw legislative efforts.  Prior to that Amy served as VP of U.S. Government Affairs and Global Policy at Viasat, leading their domestic and international policy efforts on satellite licensing, space safety and equitable access to spectrum.  Earlier in her career, Amy was Founder and President of a successful boutique telecommunications public policy firm (Mehlman Capitol Strategies) representing over 30 companies before the U.S. Congress, FCC & Executive Branch.   Amy began her career at the prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm Wiley, Rein & Fielding where she represented leading wireless, satellite, telecom equipment and broadcast companies before the US Congress and Administration.

Ms. Lemay has more than 30 years of experience in the industry and is a recognized expert in telecommunications and broadcasting. Her expertise covers development of business plans, valuation, due diligence, spectrum matters and market research. Ms. Lemay has supported clients in the US, Europe, North Africa, Latin America and Canada.

Ms. Lemay is the lead consultant for Private Auctions conducted by LYA for clients disposing of spectrum licenses and other assets.

Ms. Lemay is actively involved in consultations for the development of public policy. She has acted as an Expert Witness in regulatory proceedings and litigations. Recent expert evidence mandates were focused on broadband subsidies in rural and remote areas, wireless siting, mid-band 5G spectrum, national roaming, television and over-the-top services, benchmarking investment in broadband and the regulatory framework for MVNOs.

She has supported clients in successfully acquiring subsidy funds for broadband deployment in rural areas.

She is co-leader of the development of the LYA Auction Platforms that support Combinatorial Clock Auctions (CCA), Simultaneous Multiple Round Ascending (SMRA) Auctions, Sealed Bid Auctions as well as Clock Auctions.

Prior to co-founding LYA, Ms. Lemay held a number of positions in marketing and product management with Nortel Networks. Ms. Lemay holds an Engineering Physics degree from Laval University and an MBA, Executive Option, from Concordia University in Montreal.

Anatel’s President Carlos Baigorri has a degree in Economic Sciences from the University of Brasília (UnB), with a Master’s and Doctorate in Economics from the Catholic University of Brasília (UCB). Acting in the telecommunications area since 2006, he was a consultant and analyst of sector information in an Association of mobile operators. He has also served as an undergraduate professor at the Catholic University of Brasilia (UCB), at the Institute of Higher Education of Brasília (IESB), and at the Brazilian Institute of Capital Markets (IBMEC). He wrote articles and book chapters published in Brazil and abroad. He has been a career permanent employee at Anatel since 2009, where he has been previously nominated Executive Superintendent, Competition Superintendent, Obligations Control Superintendent and Head of Technical Advisory.

Bio to follow.

Manuel González Farfán has worked for over 25 years at the Chilean Undersecretariat of Telecommunications (Subtel), participating as a delegate in meetings of CITEL, CCPII, ITU (WRC), and others. Manuel currently works in the Spectrum Management Department at SUBTEL, focusing on sector regulation and standards, particularly for wireless services. He also represents the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications on the Chilean Space Executive Committee.

Pascale Dumit is Director for International Spectrum Policy at T-Mobile. She leads the company’s engagements at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and within other regional organizations such as the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL).

Pascale has served on U.S. delegations to the ITU since 2010, including the U.S. delegations to the 2022 Plenipotentiary Conference and the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference.

Pascale is also a member of the FCC 2027 ITU World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee, a member of the Department of State International Digital Economy and Telecommunication Advisory Committee, a Co-Chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA) International Telecommunications Committee and a Vice-Chair of the U.S. ITU Association.

Pascale’s previous experience includes various roles in the Space industry in addition to supporting NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense on a broad range of international spectrum management issues where she served as a key contributor to the overall development and implementation of U.S. strategy in national and international spectrum regulatory environments.

Pascale holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University.

Isabelle Mauro is Director General of the Global Satellite Operators Association (GSOA) that represents the interests of 70 members in the satellite ecosystem. She reports directly to their Chief Executives.

Under Isabelle’s leadership, GSOA and its member CEOs lead the effort to showcase the benefits of satellite communications for a more inclusive and secure society – vital to bridging the world’s digital divide, achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and realizing the 5G ecosystem.

Isabelle has 25 years experience in the Telecoms and Technology sector, starting at the GSMA, where she was responsible for government and international Affairs. In 2015 she moved to New York to join the World Economic Forum as Head of  Information, Communications and Technology Industries, managing the portfolio for 60+ Tech companies globally and leading initiatives on inclusive and sustainable digital transformation.

Isabelle is passionate about inclusion and sustainability. She is Chair of the High-Level Advisory Board of the DigitalGoesGreen Foundation. She also sits on the Advisory Board of Women in Tech and is a member of the UNESCO Advisory Group for the Declaration on Connectivity for Education.

Isabelle holds an MSc in European Politics and Policy from the London School of Economics. She is fluent in French, English, Italian and Spanish.

Julie Kearney is a Co-Chair of the Space Exploration and Innovation Practice and a partner in the Telecom group at DLA Piper. She is a globally recognized and dynamic lawyer in the technology, satellite, space, and telecommunications field. For more than 25 years, Julie has worked with governments, industries, and the public sector around the world to promote legal and regulatory frameworks and policies that enable life-changing technologies.

As the first Chief of the Space Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Julie represented and spoke for the Chairwoman and Commissioners on satellite and space-based communication matters and represented the Commission at the domestic and international level. Under Julie’s leadership, the FCC unanimously adopted several regulatory frameworks and launched initiatives to successfully advance industry leadership in the New Space Age. Additionally, during her tenure as Chief, the FCC adopted a regulatory structure for Supplemental Coverage from Space, which made the FCC the first regulator in the world to issue a framework for connecting satellites directly to consumer handsets using spectrum previously allocated only to terrestrial service.

Before joining the FCC, Julie served as the Vice President of Communications Regulatory Affairs and Policy at Twilio Inc., a publicly traded Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) provider, where she developed and implemented the company’s global telecommunications regulatory and policy and law enforcement response strategy. She also served as the Global Head of Communications Regulation and Policy for Loon, an Alphabet Inc. company, where she led international and US regulatory initiatives to bring internet access to unserved and underserved communities around the world via a network of balloons on the edge of space. She also held roles at the Consumer Technology Association, National Public Radio, MCI, and private legal practice.

Julie is a past president of the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA – The Tech Bar) and she also served as chair of the FCBA Foundation. She was a long-serving member of the Federal Communications Commission’s Consumer Advisory Committee and also served on its Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee. Other Board positions include USTelecom and the United States Technical Training Institute (USTTI).

Julie earned her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and a J.D. from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, with a certificate from its Law and Technology Institute. She recently completed a 3.5 year term on the Columbus School of Law’s Board of Visitors. A trained singer, she has sung with choruses in the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, DC area, most recently with Schola Cantorum (CA) and the Choral Arts Society of Washington (DC).

David has spent 35 years of working in the telecom industry working in a variety of executive and technical leadership positions across the public and private sectors. Most recently as Group Director Spectrum at Ofcom, President of the Communications Research Centre (Canada), and Senior Director for Spectrum Engineering at Innovation Science and Economic Development (Canada).  Prior to that David held significant product leadership roles in BlackBerry’s handset business and Nortel’s Optical and Network Management business units.

After a state exam in law at the University of Osnabrück, Mr Kühn has been working since 1998 in the area of legal internship (e.g. at Regional Court) of  the Federal Network Agency Germany; changing to National and International  Spectrum Regulation on different levels in 2005. Nowadays, he is the Deputy Head of Section for International Affairs and Utilization Concepts. His  responsibilities cover strategic frequency utilization concepts and the  transposition of those to the international level of CEPT, EU and ITU. Doing  this and having been active in the preparation of three WRC’s, on national  and on CEPT CPG level, Mr Kühn participated in a number of international  Groups, also as Head of the German Delegation. He has also chaired several  groups and subgroups in the ITU and CEPT. Since 2005, he has been responsible for the German preparation of the WRC’s and served as CEPT CPG Vice Chairman from 2010 to 2013. Mr Kühn was appointed Chairman of CPG in June 2013.

Alexander Soucek is Head of the External Relations Department at the European Space Agency (ESA). In the course of a distinguished career of more than twenty years at ESA, he has held a number of roles, including as Head of the International Law Division, Secretary of the International Space Station Coordination Committee, and Head of the ESA Delegation to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS).

Alexander holds master’s degrees in law from Salzburg University, Austria, and in space studies from the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. He is, further, set to obtain, in December 2025, an executive master’s in international strategy and diplomacy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. An alumnus of The Hague Academy of International Law and former visiting researcher at the Space Policy Institute, Elliott School of International Affairs of George Washington University, he is a full member of the International Academy of Astronautics, the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) and the European Centre for Space Law (ECSL).

An experienced practitioner and academic, Alexander negotiated numerous international space cooperation agreements and lectures on international relations and international law at universities in Europe and beyond. He has written books and articles on these topics, has contributed to intergovernmental expert groups including the UN Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), and has served as lead flight director in international spaceflight analogue missions.

Helen works with Policy Impact Partners as a Senior Advisor, Spectrum Management having recently left UK regulator Ofcom where she spent a significant period as the interim Group Director for spectrum, overseeing new spectrum management and space spectrum strategies, and the development of UK positions in preparation for the WRC 23.

She is a senior leader who has over 25 years of experience in spectrum management, spanning policy development and implementation, operational management, regulatory compliance, and spectrum strategy. She started her spectrum career as a member of the government team which delivered the first UK spectrum auction, for 3G licences.

During her early years at Ofcom, Helen headed the UK delegation on regulatory affairs within CEPT. She has led large multi-disciplinary teams in managing and evolving the spectrum authorisation framework across diverse industries and public sector users.

In recent years, Helen has been responsible for supporting innovation through more spectrum sharing and evaluating changing spectrum requirements across the defence, utilities, and transport sectors. As a member of multiple Ofcom steering boards, she covered mobile strategy, spectrum clearance programmes, better data use and information provision and international engagement’

Tarun Gupta is CPO and co-founder of Skylo Technologies. Having more than 20 years of experience, Tarun held executive positions at Google, Parallel Infrastructure, FiberTower, and currently advises leading companies regarding market fit, product enhancements, and overall strategic direction.

Mohammad was appointed SVP, Future Business & Innovation in June 2024 and is spearheading innovation and exploring new business opportunities.

Before that Mohammad oversaw Product & Strategy across multiple network segments including Aero, Maritime, Fixed Data, Government and Cloud, with a particular focus on SES-17 Very High Throughput Satellite (VHTS) and SES’s second generation of MEO satellites, O3b mPOWER.

Prior to joining SES in 2020, Mohammad held numerous executive roles at Intelsat in Product Strategy, Product Development, and Innovation. Amongst the key achievements was the development of advanced space segment offerings using onboard processing technology on High Throughput Satellites (HTS) and Software Defined Satellites (SDS).

Mohammad holds both a BS & MS in Electrical Engineering from Boston University and an MBA from Columbia.

Ryan Thompson is a trusted advisor to leading technology and telecommunications firms, offering practical solutions to complex regulatory and policy challenges. His practice spans an array of cutting-edge policy and legal issues before lawmakers, the courts, and key agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Federal Trade Commission, and U.S. Department of Justice. Ryan’s clients include wireless carriers, prominent tech firms, satellite operators, trade associations, and startups. Ryan’s expertise covers many critical issues in the tech and telecom sector, including wireless and satellite spectrum policy and licensing, AI regulation and legislation, online platform governance and regulation, foreign ownership and merger reviews, and experimental licensing.

Years of government, industry, and law firm service have shaped Michele Farquhar into an influential advisor, advocate, and thought leader for the technology, media, and telecoms industry. She helps clients with a range of global and U.S. communications policy initiatives, spectrum auctions, licensing and compliance matters, and regulatory strategy involving M&A transactions as well as litigation.

Michele obtains regulatory approvals, waivers, and other licenses for many new and cutting-edge technologies. And she leads teams advising major global companies on regulatory strategy issues involving a range of international jurisdictions. As a legal authority in her industry, she also speaks and writes extensively on a range of communications issues.

Michele joined the firm in 1997, after serving as Chief of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. While at the FCC, she led the agency’s new spectrum auction initiative and held primary responsibility over several major auctions and spectrum policy initiatives, as well as the bureau’s implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Previously, Michele served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary and Chief of Staff for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. She played a lead role in developing the administration’s positions on telecommunications reform as well as spectrum, international, electronic commerce, and other policy issues.

As Vice President for Law and Regulatory Policy at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, she gained industry knowledge and regulatory advocacy experience while representing cellular carriers on regulatory, policy, and legal issues before the FCC. Michele also served as senior legal advisor to FCC Commissioner Ervin Duggan and as the mass media advisor to two FCC general counsels.