Robert Vrij

Robert Vrij is Executive Vice President of Alcatel-Lucent and President of the Americas region, and a member of Alcatel-Lucent’s management committee. As part of these responsibilities, he heads of all Alcatel-Lucent’s global Strategic Alliances and is a director of LGS Innovations, an independent subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent dedicated solely to serving the U.S. Federal Government.

As head of the Americas region, Mr. Vrij oversees the company's sales and operations in North America, Central America, and Latin America. In his strategic alliances role, he oversees Alcatel-Lucent’s relationship with Hewlett Packard in the IT and telecommunications markets.

Prior to joining Alcatel-Lucent, Mr. Vrij was president and CEO of Openwave Systems, a leading provider of software applications and infrastructure. He also held positions with Genband Inc., a provider of IP solutions to service providers, as its Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing Solutions; Nextiraone (now Blackbox), a reseller of converged telephony products for the enterprise market; Lucent Technologies, where he was responsible for the company’s wireline business in the Europe and Middle East Region; and AT&T, where he held a number of sales, marketing, and management positions with the company’s global and regional joint ventures, including Director of Worldwide Voice and Data Services and channel management operations.

Mr. Vrij received his B.B.A. (Marketing) degree from Southwest Texas State University and his M.B.A. from St. Thomas University. He has 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).