Experts Advisory Board 2022
Direct Engineering’s Expert Advisory Board (“EAB”) has launched in January 2022.
The role of our EAB exceeds the classic Advisory Board approach.
Typically, an Advisory Board provides counsel, guidance and tactical insights on key strategic activities and initiatives for international development.
Direct Engineering Experts Advisory Board innovates with a cross-domain "Friends of Luxembourg" - group of active independent, allied experts. They contribute a diverse range of expertise in diverse tech areas to Direct Engineering’s clients and their own international development projects.
The Experts Advisory Board is an independent body dedicated to thinking imaginatively. The management team of Direct Engineering draws upon these international experts as a resource to contribute their analyses, recommendations, business, and policy proposals, based upon their experience and best practices, and deep knowledge base.
Our well-structured Experts Advisory Board with best practice principles allows our clients to test their strategic thinking and access expertise or connections unique to Direct Engineering, and unavailable elsewhere.
We are proud that distinguished, internationally-renowned independent experts from across the world and diverse disciplines have joined Luxembourg's Direct Engineering’s Experts Advisory Board, on behalf of our clients. We invite our clients to leverage this uniquely powerful advantage.
International legal consultancy expert
Jan Van de Kraats - Brussels (Belgium)
Jan is a graduate of the Netherlands Royal Military Academy and holder of a Master's Degree in International Private Law. He gained international experience as an officer of the Royal Netherlands Air Force
Later on, Jan held both legal and senior management positions for renowned multinational companies around the globe.
In 2000, Jan started his own company. He often served multinational companies as a (legal) advisor, investor, and/or board member. The segments focused upon are predominantly in the IT, telecommunications, energy, (aero)space, finance, and healthcare.
Jan resides nowadays near Brussels.
Telecommunications, Healthcare, and Financial Services industries.
With Jan Van de Kraats onboard, we have an expert working globally with European, Asian, and USA-based blue-chip companies.
Jan Van De Kraats lived on all continents throughout his long career and nowadays resides in Belgium.
Global Business leader
Ivan Lopez Jr. - Boulder (Co. USA)
Ivan brings over 25 years of global executive leadership experience in business development, marketing, and technology.
He has led teams in mobile technology, fiber optic networks, cloud services, e-commerce, video streaming, IP licensing, gaming, SaaS, procurement, media, and entertainment.
He served as well in North and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific.
Crypto currencies speciality
Jan Van Dort - Leuven (Belgium)
Jan Van Dort brings profound knowledge and a deep understanding of digital currencies & blockchain. For six years now, he’s very active in these areas. Jan is one of the rare persons in the world who has a master’s degree in both digital currencies & blockchain. He achieved this in 2018.
Further, Jan Van Dort believes that centralized managed money (assets) are not the way moving forward in this fast-paced, changing digital society.
He states that “besides the fact that the current monetary system is on quicksand, decentralized assets are more agile for payments in the digital revolution. The latest generations prefer using assets differently, as they like more ownership over their assets. The current monetary system can’t cope with the advantages decentralized money gives them.” Jan Van Dort believes that banks will have to change to keep up with the newer generations' lifestyle and digital business.
Besides, Jan also holds an engineering degree; he acquired 25 years of experience in a variety of segments, ranging from sales leadership, marketing, procurement in the IT soft- and hardware, telecommunication, to datacenter business.
Finally, Jan believes everything you achieve is a mindset combined with the best dream team to create success
Satellite Industry expert
Kay Connacher - Luxembourg
Kay Connacher is widely known and respected in the satellite industry. She has been one of the pioneers of DTH satellite broadcasting with the global leader in satellite communications, Luxembourg’s own SES (ASTRA). KC has an extensive network of contacts within the broadcast and satellite communities. She can forge connections that result in successful business partnerships.
Kay brings in-depth knowledge of the satellite/broadcast ecosystem and related technologies. She can advise content holders, service providers, and platform operators concerning cost-effective contribution/distribution solutions, contract negotiation, European media law, and licensing issues.
Direct Engineering is proud to have with multi-lingual Kay, a strong achiever, driven by excellence and integrity in their Experts Advisory Board
Corporate Finance & transactions expert
Chris Ransome - Johannesburg (South-Africa)
Chris Ransome, a Deloitte alumni chartered accountant, started his corporate finance firm in 1995. Chris has since provided corporate finance services to many public and private companies. With his company, they acted as the promoter for two JSE listings. He further initiated, negotiated, and implemented many corporate transactions in South Africa and internationally.
Our newest Experts Advisory Board member has held senior board-level positions with several companies, including the Midas Group, DCD-Dorbyl, Kulungile Metals Group, Alfred Teves Brake Systems, Stalcor, Global Roofing Solutions, and Consolidated Steel Industries.
Currently, Chris serves as the Managing Director of Bramel Business Solutions, a South African corporate finance firm. He's also an Independent Non-Executive Director on Direct Transact, Topfix, and First Cut. In addition, Chris is a co-founder and executive at Sub-Saharan Steel Partners. This US-based firm provides specialist corporate finance and commodity trading services to its US and South Africa clients.
Chris is passionate about conservation and is a founding member and the chairman of Rooiberg Bewaria. That is a Public Benefit Organisation that promotes the environmental protection of the Southern Waterberg region of South Africa. They improve the quality of life of the local community and society at large. Rooiberg Bewaria has developed into a leading community organization extending over 250,000ha and is headquartered in Rooiberg, Limpopo province, South Africa.
MVNO & Value Added Services expert
Renato Andre de Andrade Reis - Valencia (Spain)
Brazilian national Renato Andre de Andrade Reis brings immense expertise regarding MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operators and enablers) and related services. He currently lives in Valencia, Spain.
With the experience of working closely with major telecom operators such as Telefonica, Orange, Vodafone, TIM, China Unicom, Hutchinson, America Moviles, and many others in all continents, Renato's network spans the globe.
Without hesitation, he can be called a truly global citizen as he traveled more than 300 days a year (pre-Covid)
Working globally also allows Renato to foresee trends, pioneering several of the now mass-market products vital in the industry. He was, e.g., an absolute pioneer around VAS. (Value Added Services). He's the living experience of deploying telecommunication solutions around the globe.
Pre-Covid, Renato traveled 300 days a year, a truly global citizen. He launched companies and services (more than 20 startups) in every continent and all industry sectors. He strongly believes in the combination of financial services and telecommunications networks.
The roll-out and commercial success of 5G is directly related to the service offering which comes with it. Renato is a firm believer in telecommunications and fintech going hand in hand.
IoT & wireless expert
Andreas Loser - Hamburg (Germany)
Andreas specialty IoT and wireless technologies. He has a sound understanding of the modeling around M2M sim cards. The world of secure data transfer across mobile networks (mobile VPN solutions) like monitoring of wind and solar Parks is well known by Andreas. This relates to SIM- Management and IoT platforms. E.g., predictive maintenance.
He built a vast network of senior contacts in these segments. His connections stretch over multiple continents—a genuinely super-connector and international business developer.
An evident strength of Andreas is that he always seems aware of new opportunities before anyone else.
Data Billing Expert
Udi Shoshan - Brussels (Belgium)
Udi Shoshan brings excellent expertise in all aspects related to billing. With the XPertBilling platform he and his team developed and optimized, they deliver a cost-effective convergent Customer Care solution. It comes with blazing fast and reliable invoice generation. Their answer comes with responsive Web features, multi-dimensional analytics, and automatic CDRs/TDRs Collector.
Creator Udi Shoshan states: " XPertBilling’s API enables any third-party software to interact with the DB while keeping the highest security and Db integrity. XPertBilling’s Db can be installed on Linux/Windows. Our platform can be installed on the client’s server or cloud. A table-driven configuration controls it. That makes it easy to adapt to marketing needs saving the customization costs. The desktop application makes it the fastest CC&B. We developed our SQL Driver increasing the performance and easing the deployment & sys config. By doing so, we created a lot of added value for our customers: this goes from full & Light MVNO/E solutions to cost-effective solutions that grow with our global customer base."
Udi states: " With XPertBilling, we proved to have the fastest solution of the market. The customer Webcare we developed is fully responsive (desktops, tablets, mobiles). We bring convergent Billing services, Telecom & any subscriptions on a table-driven configuration. That means flexibility and a built-in GUI report designer. "
Udi Shoshan and Direct Engineering CEO Peter Sodermans collaborated at first many years ago on the Direct Telecom soft-switch SS7 venture, whereby the XPertBilling platform was deployed for the first time. Also, later with FirstMark Communications, the XPertBilling platform was successfully deployed again. Nowadays, this billing platform serves major telecommunication players such as Belgian-based Telenet.
Jerrold Seeman - New York (USA)
Jerrold S. Seeman, Esq. is President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York-based international business development firm Luxcore, Ltd.
An attorney and longtime successful business founder, he advises management and government officials in his role as a senior corporate counselor. Jerrold executes positioning strategy and constituent/investor relations for international economic development, corporate business development, service firms, product launches, mergers and acquisitions, control contests, IPOs, financial transactions, litigation, crises, bankruptcy, community, and labor relations.
Jerrold is a talented practitioner with extensive experience in international trade, government relations and: capital markets, legal and financial services, biotech, medical devices [published author], high tech, and new media.
As a business-to-business development expert, he has generated new business opportunities, conducted communications and investor relations counseling for new technology companies. Further, Jerrold created global B2B coalitions for traditional industrial and e-commerce clients, as well as building business for top-tier international fund administrators, trust companies, law, and worldwide accounting firms and practice groups.
He is trained in corporate and securities law and conducted graduate work in organizational psychology. He is an advisor to the RightsTech Project, and a member of the Modern Computing IT Council.
A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, he pursued graduate and undergraduate studies in psychology at New York University. Past President and Member of the Board of the Georgetown Club of Metropolitan New York, he is also a member of The University Club in New York.