Ensemble's new soloist

Ensemble Communications will signal its intentions to become a broadband wireless market leader this week when it announces that wireless industry veteran David Twyver has been named the company's new CEO.

Twyver's past includes a 20-year career at Nortel Networks, which culminated in the position of president of the company's wireless networks business. That was followed by a one-year stint as CEO of Teledesic, which Twyver left when Teledesic Chairman Craig McCaw took the CEO reins himself.

"I thought I had retired," said Twyver of life after Teledesic. Like other constantly re-emerging telecom leaders, however, Twyver's life of golf, sailing, private investment and board participation was not enough to satiate his entrepreneurial leanings. The opportunity to build on Ensemble's technological foundation was too intriguing to pass up, he said.

"I've been a firm believer in broadband wireless for a long time - I was just skeptical that the technology was right," Twyver said.

Adaptix, Ensemble's adaptive time division duplexing technology, will serve as the basis for a yet-to-be-commercialized point-to-multipoint system. The system's commercial readiness represents just one of the many challenges Twyver faces. "I'm quite confident that a new company with a superior technology implemented as well as it has been here will succeed," Twyver said. "I'm getting on a galloping horse."

With Twyver's appointment, Ensemble co-founder and former CEO Rami Hadar becomes executive vice president of marketing and business development. Co-founder and former president Sheldon Gilbert becomes executive vice president of engineering and operations.

"This has been planned for quite some time," Hadar said. "We needed someone to lead us that had this kind of experience in his background."