Lightyear Announces Winners of Luminaries of Telecom Awards 2024

At a virtual awards ceremony on September 24, 2024, Lightyear honored the people, teams, and processes that leverage the Lightyear platform to drive innovation in telecom. Lightyear is proud to announce the winners of this year’s Luminaries of Telecom Awards.

A panel of expert judges selected the 2024 award winners:

• Yousuf Khan: A five-time CIO (formerly Qualys, Pure Storage, MoveWorks, and others) and current Partner at Ridge Ventures
• Aashish Chandarana: An accomplished leader in business and technology transformation, formerly SVP, Technology at Fox and CIO at Productiv

The ceremony highlighted the winners of four awards: Cost-Cutting Crusader, Technology Trendsetter, Dream Team, and Transformation of the Year.

See below for each award’s description and recipient(s): 

Cost-Cutting Crusader 

Recognizing IT leaders who successfully reduced their telecom budgets via data-driven cost optimization.

Winner: Sergio Tagliapietra, VP of Information Technology, Dolce & Gabbana 

In a challenging economic environment for retail, Sergio Tagliapietra utilized Lightyear to identify the most cost-effective telecom solutions for Dolce & Gabbana locations, optimizing their telecom procurement and reducing expenses with limited headcount.

Winner: Andy Matthews, Sr. Director of Technology & Operations, Aecon 

Andy Matthews leveraged Lightyear to conduct a comprehensive audit of Aecon’s network inventory, identifying over 80 unused services for rationalization and leading the onboarding of hundreds of services to Lightyear’s Network Inventory Manager. His efforts resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in hard cost savings and future cost avoidance for Aecon.

Technology Trendsetter 

Recognizing an individual who navigates the ever-evolving technology landscape with a visionary perspective, embracing new technologies and avoiding fads to propel their organization into new realms of efficiency, productivity, and cost savings.

Winner: Catherine Lee, Staff Network Engineer, Okta 

Catherine Lee implemented Lightyear’s Bill Consolidation and Network Inventory Management solutions, streamlining operations and significantly enhancing efficiency at Okta with regard to telecom management.

Winners: Trisha Do, Sr. Product & Finance Manager, and James Quinn, Infrastructure, Graphiant This dynamic duo leveraged Lightyear’s Procurement solution to design and procure Graphiant’s highly-engineered global WAN network, allowing their team to deliver rapid and cost-effective growth for Graphiant’s global customer base.

Dream Team 

Recognizing an IT team that has mastered the art of seamless collaboration through the strategic utilization of software tools. 

Winner: Everon (formerly ADT Commercial)

Everon’s IT team is orchestrating a sale from their former parent company, ADT, weaving together the efforts of multiple departments including IT, finance, and their previous parent company. Led by Quenetta Davis, Everon’s crew has turned a complex telecom project into a masterclass in collaboration.

Transformation of the Year 

Recognizing an IT team that has used Lightyear to transform their network infrastructure and developed best-in-class processes around procurement and vendor management.

Winner: Teladoc Health 

Teladoc Health strategically transitioned its telecom billing to Lightyear via Bill Consolidation, achieving remarkable results in a short time. By leveraging Lightyear’s advanced reporting and billing management features, Teladoc streamlined operations, freed up 30+ hours per month for their Accounts Payable team, and gained better insights into their telecom expenses. The partnership has already resulted in over $21,000 in annual cost savings, identification and cancellation of unused accounts, and improved billing accuracy, setting a strong foundation for future growth and efficiency.

Congratulations to the winners and finalists, and thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s Luminaries Awards! Lightyear would also like to express sincere appreciation and gratitude to our judging panel who helped make the awards such a success.

See you in 2025! 

About Lightyear

Lightyear is the only digital workflow and system of record platform that unlocks efficiency across the full lifecycle for enterprise telecom services, revolutionizing the telecom experience. 

Lightyear’s Procurement platform automates RFP creation, quoting, install management, and more for internet, WAN, voice, and colocation services, reducing time spent on procurement materially while network intelligence and pricing data ensures enterprises select the optimal solution at the lowest cost. Lightyear’s Network Inventory Manager creates a digital system of record for enterprise networks, tracking 30+ data points per service (static IPs, contract details, account IDs) and automating lifecycle management workflows such as MACD ticketing and renewal re-shopping. Lightyear’s Bill Consolidation software offers enterprises one consolidated bill for all telecom services, eliminating the headache of tracking invoices and handling audits while avoiding service disruptions. 

Enterprises that leverage Lightyear across the full telecom lifecycle spend exponentially less time on telecom management while reducing telecom costs significantly.

For more information about the awards program or events, please contact the Lightyear Events team at events@lightyear.ai. To learn more about Lightyear, please visit https://lightyear.ai.