Background & Experience

Bob Panoff founded RPM and has led its client engagements for almost ten years. He combines exceptional strategic planning and sales management abilities with a track record of operational excellence in the telecommunications market. His particular strength is assessing complex and uncertain market conditions, anticipating market changes, and developing comprehensive and actionable plans to take advantage of market changes. Bob is skilled at strategic planning, positioning, product diversification, channel and strategic account management and staff development.

Bob focuses on competitive strategies within network operator and service provider markets. He provides market definition and segmentation, product requirement specification and competitive strategic positioning as well as general market development counsel for RPM clients. Recently, Bob has applied the same strategic thinking, intense focus, and structured processes to successfully help communities implement exciting wireless networks.

From the days, years ago, when he worked for Boston’s Budget Director and chaired his town’s finance committee, Bob has maintained a deep interest in good, cost-effective government. Over the last few years, the community broadband network movement has enabled him to combine this interest in good government with his love of technology.

Bob started the Rhode Island Wireless Innovation Networks (RI-WINs) project with an ambitious vision of what community wireless networks could ultimately contribute to their communities. That initial effort was replicated in other communities and has now grown into a significant portion of the RPM’s overall activity. Interestingly, the end user focus of these efforts gives the firm an even better appreciation of the market’s dynamics and end user requirements that RPM’s commercial clients need to understand and satisfy.

As vice-president of marketing for Excel Switching (1997-98) Bob re-focused their marketing strategy toward Service Providers and competitive wireline/wireless network operators. He developed a new branding program and an international market expansion that helped make Excel the "most successful IPO of 1997" according to the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council, and set the foundation for Excel's subsequent acquisition by Lucent Technologies.

Prior to Excel Bob spent 11 years with Natural MicroSystems, serving in various sales and marketing executive roles and as VP/GM of NMS Europe where he opened this market for NMS, significantly enlarging the business by integrating a major acquisition.

For many years, Bob has been active in a number of industry organizations such as TIA, where he served as a long time board member. This leadership translated into numerous research projects and speaking engagements at industry conferences and events like Supercomm, Globalcom, NextCom, WCA, and WiMax world.

Bob holds a BA (Cum Laude) from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.