- Mavenir has reshuffled its executive ranks, saying goodbye to some and welcome to others
- The company is realigning into two business segments
- And AI will be integrated into everything from the ground up
Mavenir today let go several of its top executives, named new executives and further refined its corporate purpose to focus on AI.
Executives departing their roles at the end of January 2026 include Terry Hungle, executive vice president and chief financial officer; Bahram Jalalizadeh, executive vice president and head of sales and marketing; Ashok Khuntia, president of core networks; and Anup Mahajan, senior vice president of engineering.
Hungle will continue as special advisor to the board, and Jalalizadeh will remain engaged as a consultant to support ongoing customer programs.
The company is also realigning into two integrated business segments, both with a shared focus on AI: 1) Packet core, messaging and security; and 2) Voice and radio access technologies. These two segments will be supported by platform and cloud technologies and business solutions.
Executives filling new roles at Mavenir include:
- Uli Dopfer, as executive vice president and chief financial officer. Dopfer most recently served as CFO of ADTRAN Holdings. At Mavenir he will oversee corporate finance, financial operations, long-term strategic planning and human resources.
Dejan Leskaroski, as executive vice president and chief revenue officer. Leskaroski previously led Mavenir’s strategic mobile core engagements and product lifecycle management.
I think this is a leadership change that we should have expected - if anything I would have expected it sooner rather than later, but this is a delicate decision and may take time.Monica Paolini, Senza Fili- Michael Cooper, as executive vice president and general manager for packet core, security and messaging. Cooper previously worked for the packet core business. His role now expands to encompass packet core, security, and messaging, while also taking on additional responsibility for Mavenir’s digital enablement R&D.
- Santhosh Kumar, as executive vice president and general manager for platform and cloud, following a tenure at Mavenir since 2008 marked by leadership in global IMS and messaging deployments and in platform engineering across the RAN and IMS portfolios.
- Sachin Karkala, as executive vice president and general manager for IMS & RAN. Karkala has been at Mavenir for over 18 years. He will now lead voice and radio access technologies with a mandate to accelerate AI native evolution and strengthen R&D performance.
- Sandeep Singh, as senior vice president and general manager for business solutions. Singh will be responsible for product marketing across Mavenir’s entire product portfolio and will also retain his general manager responsibilities for the digital enablement business.
Senza Fili principal analyst Monica Paolini told Fierce Network, “I think this is a leadership change that we should have expected - if anything I would have expected it sooner rather than later, but this is a delicate decision and may take time (you don't want to pick the wrong people!)”
Integrated AI
It was already clear that Mavenir was transitioning from having open RAN as its main focus and instead pivoting toward being an AI-centered company, which started with the company’s refinancing in June.
Paolini said, “Reducing their RAN focus took them out of the hardware business, which they inhabited only for a relatively short period of time. They decided to do that to support the open RAN business, so it was never the main part of the business, and I think it was wise to get out of it.”
Mavenir said today that it will pursue an AI-integrated approach, building systems from day one as part of a big AI vision of agentic, intent-driven operations, with intelligence everywhere.
Paolini said, “The new management appointees reflect the move to AI-driven products, and it fits within Mavenir's long-term core competencies, so it is a natural direction. I would not even call it a shift, it is more a recalibration of focus.”