Rakuten Symphony appointed former Dell and Ericsson 5G expert Zia Syed as president of its Symworld Platform Business Group, with the executive charged with leading the integration of the company’s recent acquisitions into its operator-focused proposition.

Syed joins Rakuten Symphony from Dell Technologies, where he spent two years as its 5G CTO. Prior to joining the US tech company he held a number of roles at Ericsson culminating in being its CTO business innovation 5G and edge.

In a blog on the appointment, Rakuten Symphony noted Syed would lead the integration of software from partners and its recently-acquired businesses Altiostar, InnoEye Technologies and Robin.io into its Symworld platform.

Symworld is the company’s operator-focused cloud-native proposition, which it argues allows swift implementation of various software applications to achieve greater automation in new and existing network infrastructure.

He will work below vocal open RAN advocate and Rakuten Symphony CEO Tareq Amin.

Announcing the appointment Amin said: “Operational complexities have created problems that are limiting operators’ options to scale and monetise their networks with better services. With Zia Syed now at the helm, Symworld is poised to address these challenges and help accelerate telco industry change.”