November 17, 2025
Rakuten Crimson House, Tokyo
We’d like to invite you to the Rakuten Symphony Global Partner Summit 2025.
At this event, we will focus on how we are committed to building impactful partnerships in the new era of connectivity: open, intelligent, and cloud-native by design.
| Start Time | End Time | Session Title | Speaker / Panelist |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10:00 AM | 10:10 AM | Welcome Note | Sheheryar Khakwani (SK) Vice President, Partner Alliance |
| 10:10 AM | 10:30 AM | Rakuten Group Including Ecosystem | Puneet Handa Executive Officer, Product & Strategy, Rakuten Mobile & Head of Business Strategy, Rakuten Symphony |
| 10:30 AM | 11:10 AM | Rakuten Mobile - Shaping Tomorrow’s Telecom | Hiroshi Takeshita Managing Executive Officer and Vice CTO Director of Mobile Networks Supervisory Department |
| 11:10 AM | 11:30 AM | Networking Break | |
| 11:30 AM | 11:40 AM | Customer Keynote Dawood Shahdad, SVP, Hybrid Mobile Network Operator, Echostar Corporation |
Anshul Bhatt Head of OSS Sales, Americas |
| 11:40 AM | 12:10 PM | Track 01 | DNA - Data, Networks, Automation & AI | Faiq Khan SVP & Global Head of Sales, OSS Faisal Ghazaleh Global Head of Solutions, OSS |
| 12:10 PM | 12:30 PM | Track 02 | RAN Panel Discussion | P5G - The Way Forward |
Panelists: Bob Everson Chief Architect, Provider Mobility, Cisco Steve Shipley VP Sales & Managing Director, Airspan Networks Jerry Chen Vice President and Head of the Mobile Business Unit, MTI Moderator: Neeraj Patel SVP & Head of Sales, RAN BU – Rakuten Symphony |
| 12:30 PM | 12:45 PM | Networking Break | |
| 12:45 PM | 1:00 PM | Fireside Chat Mickey Mikitani |
Mickey Mikitani Chairman and CEO, Rakuten Group |
| 1:00 PM | 1:15 PM | Q&A with Mickey Mikitani | Mickey Mikitani Chairman and CEO, Rakuten Group |
| 1:15 PM | 1:30 PM | Group photo with Mickey Mikitani | |
| 1:30 PM | 3:00 PM | Lunch (Including to and from the venue) | |
| 3:00 PM | 3:20 PM | Track 02 | Co-Creating the Future of Open RAN - From Silicon to Services |
Panelists: Kumar N. Sivarajan Co-founder & CTO, Tejas Networks Harshvendra Soin President - Asia Pacific & Japan Business, Tech Mahindra Limited Vishal Gupta General Manager, GTM, Network & Edge, Intel Corporation Moderator: Sheheryar Khakwani |
| 3:20 PM | 3:35 PM | Track 03 | Cloud TSP - Unlocking Growth with Cloud Native Tech-Co | Vivek Chadha Senior Vice President, Head of Global Sales, Telco Cloud Business |
| 3:35 PM | 3:50 PM | Track 03 | Cloud Enterprise - Taming the Edge | Anirban Chakravartti SVP, Head of Global Sales, Enterprise Cloud Business |
| 3:50 PM | 4:05 PM | Track 03 | Cloud - VMWare Migration | Subha Shrinivasan Senior Vice President, Global Services Division, Rakuten Symphony |
| 4:05 PM | 4:20 PM | Panel Discussion - iGTM Voice of Partnership |
Panelists: Tarkan Alagoz Chief Growth Officer (CGO), Odine Solutions Teknoloji Abbi Pilapitiya CEO, Sierra Technology Denis Ng Director, Prose Technologies Moderator: Sandeep Arora SVP, Head of Sales – APAC & MEA, Rakuten Symphony |
| 4:20 PM | 4:25 PM | JBIC Loan Support Program announcement | Saad Javed Global Head, Partner Alliance, Rakuten Symphony |
| 4:25 PM | 4:30 PM | 2026 Co-Marketing | Jason King VP, Marketing, Rakuten Symphony |
| 4:30 PM | 5:00 PM | Networking Break | |
| 5:00 PM | 5:20 PM | Fireside Chat Sharad Sriwastawa |
Sharad Sriwastawa Co-CEO Rakuten Mobile & President, Rakuten Symphony |
| 5:20 PM | 5:30 PM | Q&A with Sharad Sriwastawa | Sharad Sriwastawa Co-CEO Rakuten Mobile & President, Rakuten Symphony |
| 5:30 PM | 5:40 PM | Closing and Info on SXC & Kiba Lab Visits | James Dartnell Director, Corporate Communications, Rakuten Symphony |
| 5:40 PM | 6:15 PM | SXC Lab Visit (Multiple groups) | |
| Start Time | End Time | Session Title |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00 AM | 10:30 AM | Travel from Hotel to Kiba Lab |
| 10:30 AM | 12:30 PM | Kiba Lab Intro and Detailed Tour (Multiple Sessions) |
| 12:30 PM | 2:00 PM | Lunch in Asakusa |
| 2:00 PM | 5:00 PM | Tokyo Cultural Tour (Sensoji Temple) |
| 5:00 PM | 5:30 PM | Drop Off |
