Industry veteran Berriman to retire
January 28, 2021
By Colin Mann
After 41 years in the Telecoms and Media industries and the last 19 years at PCCW and HKT as Group CTO, respected and pioneering executive Paul Berriman is retiring.
At PCCW and HKT, he was primarily responsible for leading the group’s product and technology roadmap and strategic development including Fibre to the Home, 4G & 5G wireless, IPTV, SmartHome, SmartCharge, eSmartHealth and other IoT devices as well as creating the Data Analytics unit in HKT and representing HKT on the board of Lynx Analytics in Singapore.
In 2009, he was recognised by the IPTV World Forum with its Special Merit Award for Outstanding Industry Contribution and in 2008 he was listed as one of the Global Telecoms Business Magazine’s top 100 “most influential persons in telecoms”.
He is currently and has been an independent non-executive board director of Spark New Zealand for over nine years, and a non-executive director of Rain Networks in South Africa for over three years. He also chairs the Technical Committee at Rain Networks. Spark and Rain are, as with HKT, all 4G/5G network operators in their respective markets.
Before joining PCCW in 2002, Berriman was Managing Director of management consultancy Arthur D. Little in Hong Kong and also held roles in Reuters and several other major Hong Kong service providers.
Berriman holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electro-acoustics from the University of Salford in the United Kingdom and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Hong Kong.
A Chartered Engineer, he is a current or has been a former member of a number of global industry working groups and advisory boards including being a board director of the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance and Steering Committee of the Global TD-LTE Initiative. A recent and regular speaker on topics such as data analytics, 5G and cybersecurity.
Berriman has served the PCCW & the HKT Group for a total of over 25 years, first with the Hong Kong telephone Company and CSL from 1980 to 1987, then with PCCW since 2002, including extending the last four years beyond normal retirement age for the company. Over the years, Berriman has played a significant role in many of the company’s strategic projects, both in Hong Kong and overseas.
Most notable on the media side was the inception and creation of the business model and IPTV technology platform leading to PCCW and HKT’s highly-successful Now TV service, which even became the focus of a Harvard Business Review case study.
On the fixed network side, Berriman helped oversee the introduction of new technologies and services such as the next-generation fixed network for the replacement of the old public switched telephone network, fibre to the home to support HD and 4K TV and other high-bandwidth services, including the Smart Living connected home services and eSmartHealth for connected wellness devices.
On the wireless side, he initiated and managed the bid for 4G/5G spectrum in the UK and helped create UK Broadband and its Relish Fixed Wireless Access brand which was later sold.
More recently he initiated the creation of the data analytics business for performance and customer experience improvement within the company.
Berriman also represented the company’s interests on a number of global industry bodies as well as local Hong Kong OFCA regulatory committees on technical standards.
Under Berriman’s leadership, the Technology Strategy and Development team performed an important role in the strategic direction and the product/technology roadmaps for PCCW and HKT over the years.
A longstanding friend of Advanced Television, Berriman contributed to publications such as IPTV International and Euromedia Content Security Special.
Berriman will retire at the end of January, 2021. He will be succeeded by Dr. Chung Ng as the Head of Technology Strategy and Development with effect from February 1st, 2021.