Device Arena

Alcatel-Lucent today announced that Robert Vrij, an executive with over 15 years of senior management experience, will join the company as head of the Americas Region effective immediately.

Vrij will report to Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen and will be responsible for overseeing all of the company’s sales and operations in North America and CALA (Caribbean and Latin America.) He will be a member of the company’s management committee and his office will be in Murray Hill, New Jersey, the headquarters for the Americas region.

“Robert is a seasoned executive with deep industry experience, strong customer relationship skills and a proven track record in the industry running multi-national operations,” said Verwaayen. “He understands our business, our industry, our customers and our employees. I know he will bring a fresh perspective for how we can better serve our customers in the region.”

“I believe Alcatel-Lucent is a company with a lot of potential and opportunity,” said Vrij. “I look forward to working with such a talented and dedicated team of people to focus all of the company’s many assets to instill a culture of quality and innovation to meet and exceed our commitments to customers.”

Most recently Robert was president and chief executive officer of Openwave Systems where he reduced total expenses in excess of 30%, improved gross margins, rationalized the portfolio, delivered new technology leading products to market and put the company on a path to profitability.

During his career Vrij has held a variety of executive positions in sales, professional services, customer support and product management in both wireline and wireless market segments. From 2004 to 2007 he was the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing Solutions with Genband Inc, a provider of IP solutions to service providers. He also held senior sales positions with Nextiraone (now Blackbox) a reseller of converged telephony products for the enterprise market.

Vrij also held leadership positions with Lucent Technologies from 1999 to 2002 including responsibility for the company’s wireline business in the Europe and Middle East Region. And from 1993 to 1997 he held a number of sales, marketing and management positions with AT&T’s global and regional joint ventures including as director of worldwide voice and data services and channel management operations.

Vrij holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (Marketing) degree from Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas and a Masters of Business Administration from St. Thomas University in Houston, Texas.

He served on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors for CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association) and as a board member of CTM (Institute for Communication Technology Management).

Alcatel-Lucent