INTERVIEW: Yago Tenorio took a big step out of his comfort zone when he elected to leave Vodafone Group after a distinguished 25-year career to join Verizon in October as its new CTO and SVP of strategy and technology enablement, but it wasn’t a move he took lightly.

“Vodafone is an amazing company,” he told Mobile World Live. “Of course, it’s in my DNA. It’s in my heart. It’s a company I love, full of good friends and colleagues. I can only say good things about Vodafone. I could have stayed another 12 years until retiring.”

Instead, Tenorio, 54, plans to spend the remaining years of his career at Verizon. It’s a long way figuratively and literally from the town of Newbury in the UK to his current residence in Jersey City, New Jersey for Tenorio and his family.

He cited Verizon’s internally developed cloud (Verizon Cloud Platform), its 5G core that is integrated with a software stack along with its orchestration and automation as appealing factors for joining the company.

Having worked with Verizon in the past, Tenorio, who was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK, said it is probably the only operator he could consider moving to.

“I couldn’t resist because it’s an amazing challenge and one that’s going to make me grow. One that forced me to learn every day, to adapt to a new reality at all levels.

“How could I say no to that? I had to say yes.”

After starting his new job in late October, he said there’s been a learning curve even though both operators are on similar paths in terms of embracing open RAN, virtualisation and disaggregation of their networks.

“What I have to learn, it’s very demanding for me,” he said. “I have to earn the respect and the trust. I have to deliver something for them to value me in the same way that Vodafone did.”

Tenorio reports to Joe Russo, EVP and president of global network and technology at Verizon. The enablement team he leads is a new entity for Verizon that is forward looking in terms of developing new 5G use cases and roadmaps for new technologies.

He said some of the team’s immediate priorities include evolving Verizon’s OSS, security and internal tooling as well as representing the company in standard forums.

“And also, a lot of network implementation such as power, space, cooling and vendor strategy and management. Those are very tangible, concrete, specific things that I’m doing now, and they fill my day to day.”

Open RAN redux
Of course, no conversation with Tenorio is complete without discussing open RAN. As an early pioneer at Vodafone and as a former chair of TIP, he’s continuously asked when open RAN will take-off.

“That question is outdated. We’re well past the point of questioning if it’s going to happen. It’s more a question on how quickly it’s going to happen. We need to remember that we’re not making it happen because we love engineering.”

He cited Verizon’s recent multi-vendor DAS deployment between CommScope and Samsung using open RAN interfaces as an example of Verizon finding the correct use case at the right time.

“It happened with a DAS because that’s where we needed it, and that’s where it played a really good role. But is there anything holding us back to do something similar on a base station? No, it’s probably simpler to integrate than a DAS.

“Will we do that at the right time for the right reason? For sure. That’s why we rolled out a true open RAN system.”

GenAI and APIs
In line with the telecoms industry, Tenorio said AI, generative AI (genAI) and open APIs are key to the development of operators’ networks over the coming years.

On the consumer side, genAI will provide more context for chatbots and assistants, but operators need to find ways to stretch their networks for the new use cases.

APIs will also drive new uses cases and add value for customers, Tenorio said.

“All of that is converging. I think it will give 5G a really good second half of the decade and then people will stop asking what is it [5G] good for?”

GenAI is also fuelling new applications for enterprises while transforming service providers’ networks internally by enabling more automation and zero-touch operations.

“This is the best company where I could be right now. Verizon is the place to be if you want to make it happen for you and for the industry. Never for one moment have I regretted joining.”