Bridgewater names Ogonek as new CEO

Ed Ogonek became the new president and CEO of Bridgewater Systems this month, replacing Derek Smyth who left for personal reasons. Bridgewater Systems is a provider of dynamic IP and data service fulfillment and assurance for both wireless and wireline service providers. Ogonek also was named to the company’s board of directors.

Prior to his new appointment, Ogonek served as senior vice president and general manager of Ciena’s metro and enterprise solutions. He also was president and CEO of Akara, which Ciena acquired in August of 2003.

Ogonek’s 20-year career includes holding senior executive and management positions at Newbridge, Alcatel (which bought Newbridge), British Telecom and Bellcore. In his recent roles he developed relationships with the venture capitalists associated with Bridgewater as well as its chief technology officer and co-founder, Russ Freen.

“It was from a collection of those relationships that the opportunity for me to step in at a time that is really very exciting for Bridgewater,” Ogonek said. “We have a great opportunity to drive and participate in the growth of wireless data, Wi-Fi and broadband services.”

No bold strokes are required by the new CEO. Ogonek said the product set is established and proven, the company has 21 actively buying customers and a strong Tier-1 customer list includes Verizon Wireless and Bell Mobility.

“We have a plan in place that drives us to profitability by the end of the year and I believe we are in a good position to do that,” Ogonek said.

The company will try to maximize its position in the CDMA market over the next 21 months and expand into GSM.

Although Ogonek has been involved in a number of acquisitions and said that getting bought by a larger company is one approach to growth, his focus is not on an acquisition strategy. “The main goal is to grow profitability and grow the company to a point where we are stable and forecastable in our profitability.”

One of the growth areas for Bridgewater is the international market, particularly Latin America, China, India and Japan. “One of my key activities will be prioritizing our growth strategies into those markets,” Ogonek said.

The company’s product portfolio is designed to bridge the gaps between network access points, subscribers and the services offered on the network. The products include a AAA Service Controller that handles authentication, authorization and accounting; a Dynamic Bandwidth Manager that manages peer-to-peer traffic; a revenue Collector and Formatter that collects, stores and sends usage detail records to billing and settlement systems; a User Session Controller for managing fraud; a Port Quota Controller for allocating customer access; an IP Address Manager; and a Session Director for programming user sessions.